s over Babbulkund. But in the cool of
the late afternoon, one of the King's musicians will awake from
dreaming of his home and will pass his fingers, perhaps, over the
strings of his harp and, with the music, some memory may arise of
the wind in the glens of the mountains that stand in the Isles of
Song. Then the musician will wrench great cries out of the soul of
his harp for the sake of the old memory, and his fellows will awake
and all make a song of home, woven of sayings told in the harbour
when the ships came in, and of tales in the cottages about the
people of old time. One by one the other bands of musicians will
take up the song, and Babbulkund, City of Marvel, will throb with
this marvel anew. Just now Nehemoth awakes, the slaves leap to their
feet and bear the palanquin to the outer side of the great crescent
palace between the south and the west, to behold the sun again. The
palanquin, with its ringing bells, goes round once more; the voices
of the jewellers sing again, in the market-place, the song of the
emerald, the song of the sapphire; men talk on the housetops,
beggars wail in the streets, the musicians bend to their work, all
the sounds blend together into one murmur, the voice of Babbulkund
speaking at evening. Lower and lower sinks the sun, till Nehemoth,
following it, comes with his panting slaves to the great purple
garden of which surely thine own country has its songs, from
wherever thou art come.

'There he alights from his palanquin and goes up to a throne of
ivory set in the garden's midst, facing full westwards, and sits
there alone, long regarding the sunlight until it is quite gone. At
this hour trouble comes into the face of Nehemoth. Men have heard
him muttering at the time of sunset: "Even I too, even I too." Thus
do King Nehemoth and the sun make their glorious ambits about
Babbulkund.

'A little later, when the stars come out to envy the beauty of the
City of Marvel, the King walks to another part of the garden and
sits in an alcove of opal all alone by the marge of the sacred lake.
This is the lake whose shores and floors are of glass, which is lit
from beneath by slaves with purple lights and with green lights
intermingling, and is one of the seven wonders of Babbulkund. Three
of the wonders are in the city's midst and four are at her gates.
There is the lake, of which I tell thee, and the purple garden of
which I have told thee and which is a wonder even to the stars, a