Sah-luma Sings.

As they left the garden the night fell, or appeared to fall, with almost startling suddenness, and at the same time, in swift defiance of the darkness, Sah-luma’s palace was illuminated from end to end by thousands of colored lamps, all apparently lit at once by a single flash of electricity.  A magnificent repast was spread for the Laureate and his guest, in a lofty, richly frescoed banqueting-hall,—­a repast voluptuous enough to satisfy the most ardent votary that ever followed the doctrines of Epicurus.  Wonderful dainties and still more wonderful wines were served in princely profusion—­and while the strangely met and sympathetically united friends ate and drank, delicious music was played on stringed instruments by unseen performers.  When, at intervals, these pleasing sounds ceased, Sah-luma’s conversation, brilliant, witty, refined, and sparkling with light anecdote and lighter jest, replaced with admirable sufficiency, the left-off harmonies,—­and Theos, keenly alive to the sensuous enemy of his own emotions, felt that he had never before enjoyed such an astonishing, delightful, and altogether fairy-like feast.  Its only fault was that it came to an end too soon, he thought, when, the last course of fruit and sweet comfits being removed, he rose reluctantly from the glittering board, and prepared to accompany his host, as agreed, to the presence of the King.

In a very short time, so bewilderingly short as to seem a mere breathing-space,—­he found himself passing through the broad avenues and crowded thoroughfares of Al-Kyris on his way to the Royal abode.  He occupied a place in Sah-luma’s chariot,—­a gilded car, shaped somewhat like the curved half of a shell, deeply hollowed, and set on two high wheels that as they rolled made scarcely any sound; there was no seat, and both he and Sah-luma stood erect, the latter using all the force of his slender brown hands to control the spirited prancing of the pair of jet-black steeds which, harnessed tandem-wise to the light-vehicle, seemed more than once disposed to break loose into furious gallop regardless of their master’s curbing rein.

The full moon was rising gradually in a sky as densely violet as purple pansy-leaves—­but her mellow lustre was almost put to shame by the brilliancy of the streets, which were lit up on both sides by vari-colored lamps that diffused a peculiar, intense yet soft radiance, produced, as Sah-luma explained, from stored-up electricity.  On the twelve tall Towers of the Sacred Temple shone twelve large, revolving stars, that as they turned emitted vivid flashes of blue, green, and amber flame like light-house signals seen from ships veering shorewards,—­and the reflections thus cast on the mosaic pavement, mingling with the paler beams of the moon, gave a weird and most fantastic effect to the scene.  Straight ahead, a blazing arch raised like a bent bow against heaven, and having in its centre the word