"O fickle, terror-stricken fools!" he exclaimed--"O thankless and disloyal people! What!--ye WILL see me now? ... ye WILL hear me? ... Aye! but who shall answer for your obedience to my words! Nay, is it possible that I, your country's chosen Chief Minstrel, should have stood so long among ye disregarded! How comes it your dull eyes and ears were fixed so fast upon yon dotard miscreant whose days are numbered? Methought t'was but Sah-luma's voice that could persuade ye to assemble thus in such locust-like swarms.. since when have the Poet and the People of Al-Kyris ceased to be as one?"
A vague, muttering sound answered him, whether of shame or dissatisfaction it was difficult to tell. Khosrul's vibrating accent struck sharply across that muffled murmur.
"The Poet and the People of Al-Kyris are further asunder than light and darkness!" he cried vehemently--"For the Poet has been false to his high vocation, and the People trust in him no more!"
There was an instant's hush, ... a hush as it seemed of grieved acquiescence on the part of the populace,--and during that brief pause Theos's heart gave a fierce bound against his ribs as though some one had suddenly shot at him with a poisoned arrow. He glanced quickly at Sah-luma,--but Sah-luma stood calmly unmoved, his handsome head thrown back, a cynical smile on his lips and his eyes darker than ever with an intensity of unutterable scorn.
"Sah-luma! ... Sah-luma!" and the piercing, reproachful voice of the Prophet penetrated every part of the spacious square like a sonorous bell ringing over a still landscape: "O divine Spirit of Song pent up in gross clay, was ever mortal more gifted than thou! In thee was kindled the white fire of Heaven,--to thee were confided the memories of vanished worlds, . . for thee God bade His Nature wear a thousand shapes of varied meaning,--the sun, the moon, the stars were appointed as thy servants,--for thou wert born POET, the mystically chosen Teacher and Consoler of Mankind! What hast thou done, Sah-luma, . . what hast thou done with the treasures bestowed upon thee by the all-endowing Angels? ... How hast thou used the talisman of thy genius? To comfort the afflicted? ... to dethrone and destroy the oppressor? ... to uphold the cause of Justice? ... to rouse the noblest instincts of thy race? ... to elevate and purify the world? ... Alas, alas!-- thou hast made Thyself the idol of thy muse, and thou being but perishable, thy fame shall perish with thee! Thou hast drowsed away thy manhood in the lap of vice, . . thou hast slept and dreamed when thou should have been awake and vigilant! Not I, but THOU shouldst have warned the people of their coming doom! ... not I, but THOU shouldst have marked the threatening signs of the pregnant hour,--not I, but THOU shouldst have perceived the first faint glimmer of God's future scheme of glad salvation,--not I, but THOU shouldst have taught and pleaded, and swayed by thy matchless sceptre of sweet song, the passions of thy countrymen! Hadst thou been true to that first flame of Thought within thee, O Sah-luma, how thy glory would have dwarfed the power of kings! Empires might have fallen, cities decayed, and nations been absorbed in ruin,--and yet thy clear-convincing voice, rendered imperishable by its faithfulness should have sounded forth in triumph above the foundering wrecks of Time! O Poet unworthy of thy calling! ... How thou hast wantoned with the sacred Muse! ... how thou hast led her stainless feet into the mire of sensual hypocrisies, and decked her with the trumpery gew-gaws of a meaningless fair speech!--How thou hast caught her by the virginal hair and made her chastity the screen for all thine own licentiousness! ... Thou shouldst have humbly sought her benediction,--thou shouldst have handled her with gentle reverence and patient ardor,--from her wise lips thou shouldst have learned how best to PRACTICE those virtues whose praise thou didst evasively proclaim, ... thou shouldst have shrined her, throned her, worshiped her, and served her, . . yea! ... even as a sinful man may serve an Angel who loves him!"