Round and round like a flying mote this troublesome idea circled in his brain, ... he must do better in future, he resolved, supposing that any future remained to Him in which to work, . .  He must redeem the past! ...  Here he roused his mental faculties with a start and forced himself to realize that it was Sah-luma to whom the Prophet spoke, . .  Sah-luma, only Sah-luma,—­not himself!

Then straightway he became indignant on his friend’s behalf,—­why should Sah-luma be blamed? ...  Sah-luma was a glorious poet!—­a master-singer of singers! ... his fume must and should endure forever! ...  Thus thinking, he regained his composure by degrees, and strove to assume the same air of easy indifference as that exhibited by his companion, when again Khosrul’s declamatory tones thundered forth with an absoluteness of emphasis that was both startling and convincing: 

“Hear me, Sah-luma, Chief Minstrel of Al-Kyris!—­hear me, thou who hast willfully wasted the golden moments of never-returning time!  Thou art marked out for death!—­death sudden and fierce as the leap of the desert panther on its prey! ... death that shall come to thee through the traitorous speech of the evil woman whose beauty has sapped thy strength and rendered thy glory inglorious!... death that for thee, alas! shall be mournful and utter oblivion!  Naught shall it avail to thee that thy musical weaving of words hath been graven seven times over, on tablets of stone and agate and ivory, of gold and white silex and porphyry, and the unbreakable rose-adamant,—­none of these shall suffice to keep thy name in remembrance,—­for what cannot be broken shall be melted with flame, and what cannot be erased shall be buried miles deep in the bosom of earth, whence it never again shall be lifted into the light of day!  Aye! thou shalt be forgotten!—­forgotten as though thou hadst never sung,—­other poets shall chant in the world, yet maybe none so well as thou!—­other laurel and myrtle wreaths shall be given by countries and kings to bards unworthy, of whom none perchance shall have thy sweetness! ... but thou,—­ thou the most grandly gifted, gift-squandering Poet the world has ever known, shalt be cast among the dust of unremembered nothings, and the name of Sah-luma shall carry no meaning to any man born in the coming here-after!  For thou hast cherished within Thyself the poison that withers thee, ... the deadly poison of Doubt, the Denial of God’s existence, ... the accursed blankness of Disbelief in the things of the Life Eternal! ... wherefore, thy spirit is that of one lost and rebellious,—­whose best works are futile,—­ whose days are void of example,—­and whose carelessly grasped torch of song shall be suddenly snatched from thy hand and extinguished in darkness!  God pardon thee, dying Poet! ...  God give thy parting soul a chance of penance and of sweet redemption! ...  God comfort thee in that drear Land of Shadow whither thou art bound! ...  God bring thee forth again from Chaos to a nobler Future! ...  Sin-burdened as thou art, my blessing follows thee in thy last agony!  Sah-luma! ...  Fallen angel, self-exiled from thy peers! ...  Farewell!”