'TWAS midnight, and the storm still raged; 'mid the roar of the thunder and the shrieks of the wind, the floods of forky lightning each instant revealed the broad and billowy breast of the troubled Tigris. Jabaster stood gazing upon the wild scene from the gallery of his palace. His countenance was solemn, but disquieted.
'I would that he were here!' exclaimed the high priest. 'Yet why should I desire his presence, who heralds only gloom? Yet in his absence am I gay? I am nothing. This Bagdad weighs upon me like a cloak of lead: my spirit is dull and broken.'
'They say Alroy gives a grand banquet in the serail to-night, and toasts his harlot 'mid the thunderbolts. Is there no hand to write upon the wall? He is found wanting, he is weighed, and is indeed found wanting. The parting of his kingdom soon will come, and then, I could weep, oh! I could weep, and down these stern and seldom yielding cheeks pour the wild anguish of my desperate woe. So young, so great, so favoured! But one more step a God, and now a foul Belshazzar!
'Was it for this his gentle youth was passed in musing solitude and mystic studies? Was it for this the holy messenger summoned his most religious spirit? Was it for this he crossed the fiery desert, and communed with his fathers in their tombs? Is this the end of all his victories and all his vast achievements? To banquet with a wanton!
'A year ago, this very night, it was the eve of battle, I stood within his tent to wait his final word. He mused awhile, and then he said, "Good night, Jabaster!" I believed myself the nearest to his heart, as he has ever been nearest to mine, but that's all over. He never says, "Good night, Jabaster," now. Why, what's all this? Methinks I am a child.
'The Lord's anointed is a prisoner now in the light grating of a bright kiosk, and never gazes on the world he conquered. Egypt and Syria, even farthest Ind, send forth their messengers to greet Alroy, the great, the proud, the invincible. And where is he? In a soft Paradise of girls and eunuchs, crowned with flowers, listening to melting lays, and the wild trilling of the amorous lute. He spares no hours to council; all is left to his prime favourites, of whom the leader is that juggling fiend I sometime called my brother.