"Write--" said he slowly.. "write first the title of my poem thus: 'Nourhalma: A Love-Legend of the Past.'"
There was a pause, during which the pen of Zabastes traveled quickly over the papyrus for a moment, then stopped. Theos, almost suffocated with anxiety, could hardly maintain even the appearance of calmness,--the title proclaimed, with its second appendage, was precisely the same as that of his own work--but this did not now affect him so much. What he waited for with such painfully strained attention was the first line of the poem. If it was his line he knew it already!--it ran thus: "A central sorrow dwells in perfect joy!--"
Scarcely had he repeated this to himself inwardly, than Sah-luma, with majestic grace and sweetness of utterance, dictated aloud: "A central sorrow dwells in perfect joy!"
"Ah GOD!"
The sharp cry, half fierce, half despairing, broke from Theos's quivering lips in spite of all the efforts he made to control his agitation, and the Laureate turned toward him with a surprised and somewhat irritated movement that plainly evinced annoyance at the interruption.
"Pardon, Sah-luma!" he murmured hastily. "'Twas a slight pang at the heart troubled me,--a mere nothing!--I take shame to myself to have cried out for such a pin's prick! Speak on!--thy first line is as soft as honey dew,--as suggestive as the light of dawn on sleeping flowers!"
And, leaning dizzily back on his couch, he closed his eyes to shut in the hot and bitter tears that welled up rebelliously and threatened to fall, notwithstanding his endeavor to restrain them. His head throbbed and burned as though a chaplet of fiery thorns encircled it, instead of the once desired crown of Fame he had so fondly dreamed of winning!
Fame? ... Alas! that bright, delusive vision had fled forever,-- there were no glory-laurels left growing for him in the fields of poetic art and aspiration,--Sah-luma, the fortunate Sah-luma, had gathered and possessed them all! Taking everything into serious consideration, he came at last to the deeply mortifying conclusion that it must be himself who was the plagiarist,--the unconscious imitator of Sah-luma's ideas and methods, . . and the worst of it was that his imitation was so terribly EXACT!
Oh, how heartily he despised himself for his poor and pitiful lack of originality! Down to the very depths of humiliation he sternly abased his complaining, struggling, wounded, and sorely resentful spirit, . . he then and there became the merciless executioner of his own claims to literary honor,--and deliberately crushing all his past ambition, mutinous discontent and uncompliant desires with a strong master-hand he lay quiet...as patiently unmoved as is a dead man to the wrongs inflicted on his memory...and forced himself to listen resignedly to every glowing line of his, . . no, not his, but Sah-luma's poem, . . the lovely, gracious, delicate, entrancing poem he remembered so well! And by and by, as each mellifluous stanza sounded softly on his ears, a strangely solemn tranquillity swept over him,--a most soothing halcyon calm, as though some passing angel's hand had touched his brow in benediction.