the garments of the poet’s soul,—­and the common thief of things petty and material is no whit more contemptible than he who robs an author of ideas wherein to deck the bareness of his own poor wit!  Come, place thyself at ease upon this cushioned couch, and give me thy attention, ...  I feel the fervor rising within me, ...  I will summon Zabastes, ... " Here he pulled a small silken cord which at once set a clanging bell echoing loudly through the palace, ...  “And thou shalt freely hear, and freely judge, the last offspring of my fertile genius,—­my lyrical romance ‘Nourhalma!’” Theos started violently, ... he had the greatest difficulty to restrain the anguished cry that arose to his lips.  “Nourhalma!” O memory! ... slow-filtering, reluctant memory! ... why, why was his brain thus tortured with these conflicting pang, of piteous recollection!  Little by little, like sharp deep stabs of nervous suffering, there came back to him a few faint, fragmentary suggestions which gradually formed themselves into a distinct and comprehensive certainty, . .  “Nourhalma” was the title of his own poem,—­the poem he had written, surely not so very long ago, among the mountains of the Pass of Dariel!

CHAPTER XXIII.

“Nourhalma.”

His first emotion on making this new mental rediscovery was, as it had been before in the King’s audience-hall, one of absolute terror, ... feverish, mad terror which for a few moments possessed him so utterly that, turning away, he buried his aching head among the cushion where he reclined, in order to hide from his companion’s eyes any outward sign that might betray his desperate misery.  Clenching his hands convulsively, he silently, and with all his strength, combated the awful horror of himself that grew up spectrally within him,—­the dreadful, distracting uncertainty of his own identity that again confused his brain and paralyzed his reason.

At last, he thought wildly, at last he knew the meaning of Hell! ... the frightful spiritual torment of a baffled intelligence set adrift among the wrecks and shadows of things that had formerly been its pride and glory!  What was any physical suffering compared to such a frenzy of mind-agony?  Nothing! ... less than nothing!  This was the everlasting thirst and fire spoken of so vaguely by prophets and preachers,—­the thirst and fire of the Soul’s unquenchable longing to unravel the dismal tangle of its own bygone deeds, . . the striving forever in vain to steadfastly establish the wavering mystery of its own existence!