"What!--art thou already persuaded?" he queried lightly, "and wilt thou also be one of us? Well, thou wilt need to kiss the dust in very truth, if thou servest Lysia, . . no half-measures will suit where she, the Untouched and Immaculate, is concerned,"--and here there was a faint inflection of mingled mockery and sadness in his tone--"To love her is, for many men, an absolute necessity,--but the Virgin Priestess of the Sun and the Serpent receives love, as statues may receive it,--moving all others to frenzy, she is herself unmoved!" Theos listened, scarcely hearing. He was studying every line in Sah-luma's face and figure with fixed and wistful attention. Almost unconsciously he pressed the arm he held, and Sah-luma looked up at him with a half-smile. "I fancy we shall like each other!" he said--"Thou art a western singing bird-of-passage, and I a nested nightingale amid the roses of the East,--our ways of making melody are different,--we shall not quarrel!" "Quarrel!" echoed Theos amazedly--"Nay! ... I might quarrel with my nearest and dearest, but never with thee, Sah-luma! For I know thee for a very prince of poets! ... and would as soon profane the sanctity of the Muse herself, as violate thy proffered friendship!" "Why, so!" returned Sah-luma, his brilliant eyes flashing with undisguised pleasure,--"An' thou thinkest thus of me we shall be firm and fast companions! Thou hast spoken well and not without good instruction--I perceive my fame hath reached thee in thine own ocean-girdled lands, where music is as rare as sunshine. Right glad am I that chance has thrown us together, for now thou wilt be better able to judge of my unrivalled master-skill in sweet word-weaving! Thou must abide with me for all the days of thy sojourn here.... Art willing?" "Willing? ... Aye! more than willing!" exclaimed Theos enthusiastically--"But,--if I burden hospitality.." "Burden!" and Sah-luma laughed--"Talk not of burdens to me!--I, who have feasted kings, and made light of their entertaining! Here," he added as he led the way through a broad alley, lined with magnificent palms--"here is the entrance to my poor dwelling!" and a sparkling, mischievous smile brightened his features.--"There is room enough in it, methinks to hold thee, even if thou hadst brought a retinue of slaves!" He pointed before him as he spoke, and Theos stood for a moment stock-still and overcome with astonishment, at the size and splendor of the palace whose gates they were just approaching. It was a dome-shaped building of the purest white marble, surrounded on all sides by long, fluted colonnades, and fronted by spacious court paved with mosaics, where eight flower-bordered fountains dashed up to the hot, blue sky, incessant showers of refreshing spray.