passage from its
greater classics, furnished the theme; or when some improvisator wove a
tissue of myth and legend, embroidered with fact, which won its way
through confiding ages as historic truth, till the time, growing
sophisticated, laid it heroically aside for a curio. And Cyprus stood
high among the Eastern nations in literary reputation. Was not its poet
Enclos earliest among the Greek prophetic singers? Was not the "Cypria"
celebrated among the epics of antiquity, a precursor to the Iliad
itself? Was any land more fertile than Cyprus in food for poets?

The Cypriotes no longer knew whether Cinyras were god, or man, or myth;
whether he were the son of Apollo, or of Pygmalion and the bewitching
ivory image of the sculptor's dead wife; or, in very truth, that
splendid prince of Agamemnon's time, as sung by Homer in the Iliad,
winning laurels at the siege of Troy. This hero of the "_Cypria_," was
he, in verity the great High Priest of the island and chief of the
stately race of the _Cinyradae_ who had ruled the people long in State
and Sanctuary, and filled their realm with stately temples? The
Cypriotes drew breath in an atmosphere of myth and poetry and felt the
recital of the feats of their heroes to be no less a duty than a
delight.

The improvisatorial faculty so often bestowed upon this imaginative
people was greatly prized, and not infrequently it descended from father
to son, as an inheritance, winning for its possessor something of the
reverence granted to a prophet.

Dama Margherita de Iblin possessed this gift, though only in moments of
deep feeling was she willing to exercise it: but to-night she was
strangely moved out of sympathy for the Queen, whose evident anxiety
filled her with foreboding and whom she eagerly longed to divert.

"Since your Majesty hath graciously commanded the story of Joan of
Iblin, Lord of Beirut and Governor of Jerusalem--a tale of our dear land
when it was young--I will tell it after the fashion of my people," she
said, rising with her sudden resolve, her strong, dark face grown
beautiful from the play of noble emotions.

She stood for a moment, her tall figure in its sweeping folds swaying in
slow rhythmic cadence--her attitude and gesture full of grace and
dignity--irresistibly compelling--as in low, penetrating monotone she
began her chant.

The music-maidens stole noiselessly forth upon the loggia, accompanying
the noble improvisatrice with lute and rhythmic posture;