CHAPTER IV - MORNING AND NIGHT

If the general appearance of the buildings from without were heavy and disappointing, in spite of garish colourings and loud embellishments, the interiors - probably in no small degree due to womanly influence and requirements - presented a striking and, at first, pleasing contrast. The ensemble of the royal apartments, to which our story now introduces us, has a truly overpowering effect from its weight of oriental magnificence breaking suddenly and unexpectedly upon us. Still, as we grow accustomed to the crowd of treasures, colours, perfumes, and our eyes are able to separate details in the soft rose-coloured light with which the vast apartment is bathed, we become regretfully conscious that the display is only semi-barbaric after all. It is an extravagantly bewildering chaos, a wilderness of disordered treasures, whose value could only be worthily displayed in the separation of the appointments of the drawing­room from the servants' hall, the armoury from the boudoir, and the conservatory from the whole.

The room was of colossal dimensions, arranged for division into a series of apartments, if desired, by exquisitely worked screens of the royal pomegranate cunningly wrought in solid gold and studded with gems. The walls are pilastered alternately with alabaster and green-veined translucent marble quarried from the neighbouring hills; the cornices or mouldings which in Babylon or Memphis would have been of bronze or copper, are here, like the partition screens, of solid gold, and the panellings are of purple silk from Tyre, which are partially concealed by overhangings - not drapings - of amber embroideries of the same rich material from Ind. The sconces and screens are the work of Babylonian workmen, the furniture has exercised the inimitable skill of the Egyptians in ivory and perfumed woods, inlaid with gold, and occasionally upholstered in needlework from the great schools of Persia; Chaldea and Assyria have furnished vases and other accessories, and the wealth of plants and flowers are the productions of the most ingenious gardeners wealth can secure.

We may be pardoned amid so much to attract attention in so far neglecting to notice that the room is already occupied by two ladies, especially as the one is almost completely hidden in the embrasure of a window, and the other as effectually concealed in the soft cushions of a luxurious divan.

They are the two favourite personal slaves of the Princess Vedrona, also a present from Glarces, whose ever fanciful mind conceived the idea of associating them by reason of their strange contrast. Unfortunately, however, it transpired that the difference in temperament between the blonde and brunette was as marked as that of complexion, and in this respect the ideal wish of the Prince's present was somewhat marred.

The almost silver-haired Mna, handsome and young enough to be mistaken for a daughter of his faithful Tasha, first attracted the Prince by a suggestion of a bright and cloudless morning, and as she sang with the voice of a nightingale to the accompaniment of her lute as she sat in the market for sale, he at once secured her as a slave in whom his sister would take delight.

Near at hand, and in widest contrast, he espied the raven-haired Zillah, an Iberian by birth, who had been stolen by Persian traders as a specimen of the lovely women to be found in the lands of the distant West. In every sense the contrast of Mna, in spite of her price, the Prince secured her without a thought of the impossibility of two such different natures agreeing as he would desire.

A trill of musical laughter floats from the window where the blonde beauty hides, and she dances into the room singing­

“The sun - the sun is my lover free;

No Prince more fair can ever be;

In his golden wain He rides again, Yea, he rides abroad for the sight of me. “The gates of the morning pass him by, And he climbs the steep of the azure sky, But he hears my thought And I feel his kiss;

'Tis life, and love, and rapture-this!”

“Silence, Æna!” cried Zillah querulously, “your senseless merriment annoys me.”

“How can I be quiet with the music of so much sunshine around me?” asked the perplexed girl. “Surely you do not wish me to weep.” “That would be more congenial to me than your mocking laughter.”

“But I am a moth,” she answered gleefully, “and they can only dance and kiss the brightness.”

“They can singe their wings and destroy themselves,” replied Zillah, contemptuously. “I like to think and prepare my way beforehand.”

“But you only make yourself more miserable by doing so,” she answered, throwing herself beside the divan in an attempt to coax her companion into a more cheerful humour.

“Make myself miserable! Phew, there is no need to do that, when others have accomplished it so perfectly already.”

“But why grieve over that we have no power to change; why not try to make the best of it and be happy?” “Happy, girl! How can I possibly be happy when through the mirror of my tears I catch continual glimpses of a far-off pleasure you have neither known nor have the power to understand. It is a memory, Æna, which, though I do not love you, I will not speak of, lest I should recall such another to yourself, and thus kill all your life's happiness. No, no! you must never know the sorrow in which all my joys are drowned, but I must weep and bear my grief alone.”

Here the sorrowful and high-spirited girl gave way to the tears her memories started, and buried her head again in the cushions.

“Poor Zillah! Do let me try to understand your trouble. I shall not mind if it does cause me to weep, if by that means I can help to make you happy. I know I am not like you, but I am sure I can feel for you if you will only tell me your trouble.”

“No, Æna.” answered the despairing girl, “the infernal gods have ordained Night to be the handmaid of Sorrow, as Morning is the companion of Joy,” Then, as if an evil inspiration had seized her, she rose, dried her tears, and communed more with herself. “But sorrow need not, shall not be for myself alone! The wronged may sow its bitter seeds broadcast under cover of the night, and take a sweet revenge in the harvest of retribution which the oppressor shall reap.”

“What do you mean, Zillah? But, hush! There is the chime again. This is the third time the golden sand has run out, and yet the Princess is not here.”

This innocent reference to their absent mistress appeared to excite all the proud disgust of the Iberian's nature, and had Æna been more skilled in understanding she would have discovered in her companion's words and manner an indication that her loyalty to Vedrona was neither satisfactory nor conscientious.

“Perhaps the beautiful Virtue has been dreaming of love,” she replied, in supercilious disdain, “its warmth has caused her blood to tingle with strange and welcome sensations; and, perchance, she sleeps in an attempt to woo the dream again.” Then in an impassioned fervour of her own feelings she sprang from the couch, forgetful of her recent sorrow, and, pacing to and fro, again communed with herself. “Virtue, forsooth! it may be well as an imaginary attachment for the insipid gods, but for women! Pshaw, I am not a fool! The snow may lie white and unstained upon the sides of a volcano, or a fringe of ice may grow upon the edge of its crater, deceiving some idiots into the idea that the inherent fires are extinct, but I am not to be fooled by such appearances. Ah, well! sleep on and enjoy your dreams, my passionless Princess; no one can censure you for what is not known, and I can spare you without any sense of loss. Sleep on.”

Æna heard all that was said, but divined nothing from the words beyond a harmless reverie, at which she smiled. “Is it not possible to love without your blood being in a continual boil?” she enquired.