over fallen husks of corn from which the blossoms have sprung right joyously upward!  This world is but our roadside hostelry, wherein we heaven-bound sojourners tarry for one brief, restless night,—­why regret the loss of the poor refreshment offered thee here, when there are a thousand better feasts awaiting thee elsewhere on thy way?  Come,—­let me lead thee hence, . . this place is known as the Passage of the Tombs,—­and communicates with the Inner Court of the Sacred Temple,—­and if, as I fear, thou art a stray fugitive from the accursed Lysia’s band of lovers, thou mayest be tracked hither and quickly slain.  Come,—­I will show thee a secret labyrinth by which thou canst gain the embankment of the river, and from thence betake thyself speedily home, . . if thou hast a home...” here he paused, and a keen, questioning glance flashed in his dark eyes.  “But,—­notwithstanding thy fluency of speech and fashion of attire, methinks thou hast the lost and solitary air of one who is a stranger in the city of Al-Kyris?”

Theos sighed.

“A stranger I am indeed!” he said drearily—­“A stranger to my very self and all my former belongings!  Ask me no questions, good father, for, as I live, I cannot answer them!  I am oppressed by a nameless and mysterious suffering, . . my brain is darkened,—­my thoughts but half-formed and never wholly uttered, and I,—­I who once deemed human intelligence and reason all-supreme, all-clear, all-absolute, am now compelled to use that reason reasonlessly, and to work with that intelligence in helpless ignorance as to what end my mental toil shall serve!  Woeful and strange it is!—­ yet true; . .  I am as a broken straw in a whirlwind,—­or the pale ghost of my own identity groping for things forgotten in a land of shadows; . .  I know not whence I came, nor whither I go!  Nay, do not fear me,—­I am not mad:  I am conscious of my life, my strength, and physical well-being,—­and though I may speak wildly, I harbor no ill-intent toward any man—­my quarrel is with God alone!”

He paused,—­then resumed in calmer accents,—­“You judge rightly, reverend sir,—­I am a stranger in Al-Kyris.  I entered the city-gates this morning when the sun was high,—­and ere noon I found courteous welcome and princely shelter,—­I am the guest of the poet Sah-luma.”

The old man looked at him half compassionately.

“Ah, Sah-luma is thine host?” he said with a touch of melancholy surprise in his tone—­“Then wherefore art thou here? ... here in this dark abode where none may linger and escape with life? ... how earnest thou within the bounds of Lysid’s fatal pleasaunce! ...  Has the Laureate’s friendship thus misguided thee?”

Theos hesitated before replying.  He was again moved by that curious instinctive dread of hearing Sah-luma’s name associated with any sort of reproach,—­and his voice had a somewhat defiant ring as he answered: