Thus meditating a few steps more brought him to the entrance of Sah-luma’s princely abode,—­the gates stood wide open, and a pleasant murmur of laughter and soft singing floated toward him across the splendid court where the great fountains were tossing up to the bright sky their straight, glistening columns of snowy spray.  He listened,—­and his heart leaped with an intense relief and joy,—­Sah-luma, the beloved Sah-luma, was evidently at home and as yet unharmed,—­these mirthful sounds betokened that all was well.  The vague trouble and depression that had weighed upon his soul for hours now vanished completely, and hastening along, he sprang lightly up the marble stairs, and into the rainbow-colored, spacious hall, where the first person he saw was Zabastes the Critic.

“Ah, good Zabastes!” he cried gayly,—­“Where is thy master Sah-luma?  Has he returned in safety?”

“In safety?” croaked Zabastes with an accent of ironic surprise..  “To be sure! ...  Is he a baby in swaddling-clothes that he cannot be trusted out alone to take care of himself?  In safety?—­aye!  I warrant you he is safe enough, and silly enough, and lazy enough to please any one of his idiot flatterers, . . moreover my ’master!”—­and he emphasized this word with indescribable bitterness—­“hath slept as soundly as a swine, and hath duly bathed with the punctiliousness of a conceited swan, and being suitably combed, perfumed, attired, and throned as becomes his dainty puppetship, is now condescending to partake of vulgar food in the seclusion of his own apartment.  Go thither and you shall find his verse-stringing Mightiness nobly enshrined as a god among a worshipping crowd of witless maidens,—­he hath inquired for you many times, which is somewhat of a wonder, seeing that as a rule he concerns his mind with naught save himself!  Furthermore, he is graciously pleased to be in a manner solicitous on behalf of the maiden Niphrata, who hath suddenly disappeared from the household, leaving no message to explain the cause of her evanishment.  Hath seen her? ...  No?”—­and the old man thumped his stick petulantly on the floor as Theos shook his head in the negative—­“’Tis the only feminine creature I ever had patience to speak with,—­a modest wench and a gentle one, and were it not for her idolatrous adoration of Sah-luma, she would be fairly sensible withal.  No matter!—­she has gone; everything goes, even good women, and nothing lasts save folly, of which there shall surely never be an end!”

Here apparently conscious that he had shown more feeling in speaking of Niphrata than was usual with him, he looked up impatiently and waved his staff toward Sah-luma’s study; “In, in, boy!  In, to, the Chief of poets and prince of egotists!  He waits your service,—­he is all agape and thirsty for more flattery and delicate cajolement, ... stuff him with praise, good youth! ... and who knows but a portion of his mantle may descend on you hereafter and make of you as conceited and pretty a bantling bard for the glory of proud posterity!”