Here he stretched out his skinny hand and pointed upwards,—­his eyes grew fixed and glassy,—­his throat rattled convulsively.  At that moment the monarch, recovering his self-possession, once more lifted his sword with direct and deadly aim, but the Prophet, uttering a wild shriek, caught at his descending wrist and gripped it fast.

“See..  See!” he exclaimed..  “Put up thy weapon! ...  Thou shalt never need it where thou art summoned! ...  Lo! how yon. blood-red letters blaze against the blue of heaven! ...  There! ... there it comes!—­Read.. read! ’tis written plain..  ’Al-kyris shall fall, and the king shall die!’..  Hist ... hist! ...  Dumb oracles speak and dead voices find tongue! ... hark how they chant together the old forgotten warning: 

     ’When the High Priestess
      Is the King’s mistress
      Then fall Al-Kyris!’

Fall Al-Kyris! ...  Aye! ... the City of a thousand palaces shall fall to-night! ...  To-night! ...  O night of desperate horror! ... and thou, O King, shalt die!”

And as he shrilled the last word on the air with terrific emphasis, he threw up his arms like a man suddenly shot, and reeling backward fell heavily on the ground,—­a corpse.

A great cry went up from the crowd, . . the King leaned eagerly out of his car.

“Is the fool dead, or feigning death?” he demanded, addressing one of a group of soldiers standing near.

The officer stooped and felt the motionless body.

“O great King, live forever!  He is dead!”

Zephoranim hesitated.  Cruelty and clemency struggled for the mastery in the varying expression of his frowning face, but cruelty conquered.  Grasping his sword firmly, he bent still further forward out of his chariot, and with one swift, keen stroke, severed the lifeless Prophet’s head from its trunk, and taking it up on, the point of his weapon, showed it to the multitude.  A smothered, shuddering sigh that was half a groan rippled through the dense throng—­a sound that evidently added fresh irritation to the already heated temper of the haughty sovereign.  With a savage laugh, he tossed his piteous trophy on the pavement, where it lay in a pool of its own blood, the white hair about it stained ruddily, and the still open eyes upturned as though in dumb appeal to heaven.  Then, without deigning to utter another word, or to bestow another look upon the surrounding crowd of his disconcerted subjects, he gathered up his coursers’ reins and prepared to depart.