"O thou mad King!" he cried fiercely, "Thou hast slain the chief wonder of thy realm and reign! Die now when thou wilt, thou shalt only he remembered as the murderer of Sah-luma! ... Sah-luma, whose name shall live when thine is covered in shameful oblivion!"
Zephoranim frowned,--and threw the blood-stained dagger from him.
"Peace, clamorous fool!" he said, "Sah-luma hath gone but a moment before me, . . as Poet he hath received precedence even in death! When the last hour comes for all of us, it matters not how we die, . . and whether I am hereafter remembered or forgotten I care not! I have lived as a man should live,--fearing nothing and conquered by none,--except perchance by Love, that hath brought many kings ere now to untimely ruin!" Here his moody eyes lighted on Lysia. "How many lovers hast thou had, fair soul?".. he demanded in a stern yet tremulous voice ... "A thousand? ... I would swear this dead Minstrel of mine was one,--for though I slew him at thy bidding I saw the truth in his dying eyes! ... No matter!-- We shall meet in Hades,--and there we shall have ample time to urge our rival claims upon thy favor! Ah!".. and he suddenly laid his two strong hands on her white uncovered shoulders, and gazed at her reproachfully as she shrank a little beneath his close scrutiny, . . "Thou divine Traitress! Have I not challenged the very heavens for thy sake? ... and lo! the prophecy is fulfilled and Al-Kyris must fall! How many men would have loved thee as I have loved? ... None! not even this dead Sah-luma, slain like a dog to give thee pleasure! Come! ... Let me kiss thee once again ere death makes cold our lips! False or true, thou art nevertheless fair!--and the wrathful gods know best how I worship thy fairness!"
And folding his arms about her, he kissed her passionately. She clung to him like a lithe serpentine thing,--her eyes ablaze, her mouth quivering with suppressed hysterical laughter. Pointing to Sah-luma's body, she said in a strange excited whisper: "Nay, hast thou slain him in very truth, Zephoranim! ... slain him utterly? For I have heard that poets cannot die,--they live when the whole world deems them dead,--they rise from their shut graves and re-invest the earth with all the secrets of past time, . . Oh! my brain reels! ... I talk mere madness! ... there is no afterwards of death!--No, no! No gods, no anything but blankness.. forgetfulness.. and silence! ... for us, and for all men! ... How good it is!--how excellently devised a jest! ... that the whole wide Universe should be but a cheat of time! ... a bubble blown into Space, to float, break, and perish,--all for the idle sport of some unknown and shapeless Devil-Mystery!"