Behind him lay the village of Ascalon, where dwelt the herders of sheep, the tillers of the thirsty soil and the wardens of flocks and herds. Before him stretched the lake, deep, green and chill, the palm and pomegranate casting ghostly shadows from its shores. On the further side, in the gloom of shrubbery and trees, the temple of the fish-god Dagon seemed but the end of a morning mist that trailed across the waters. In the shallows beside the rocks swam countless fishes, now darting to cover beneath the stones, now leaping at some luckless fly that swung too near the danger line. From end to end the surface broke with myriads of fins, while ever and again a louder splash proclaimed some monster's upward rush, the widening ripples cut by minnows in a scurrying flight.
They dwelt in peace, these denizens of the deep, for the Syrians eat no fish, nor may they snare them with hooks or nets lest the wrath of Dagon utterly destroy such fools, together with their flocks and herds, their wives and children, their soil and the fruits therein. And thus the fish lived on and multiplied.
There were men, as countless as the fish of Ascalon, who envied Menon as one on whom the gods had smiled; yet now he sat with his chin upon his palm, with a foot that tapped impatiently on the wave-bathed shore, while he scowled at the glory of a coming dawn.
Wherefore should he scowl, this favorite of the gods, Chief Governor of Syria, a warrior beloved of men, a youth watched covertly from many a latticed screen till his careless passing caused a yearning sigh? Wherefore should he mutter curses in his palm and dig his heel into the sands? Had he not on yestereve received a scroll from the King himself, wherein that monarch praised him for his services afield, and, more, for his crafty rule? Had Ninus not made offer of a high reward when Nineveh should be builded at the end of two short years? Ah, here the sandal galled! Full many an older man, for very joy, might have danced upon the lake shore happily, yet Menon muttered curses in his palm and digged his heel into the sands.
Ere another moon was dead, the waiting messengers must return to Nineveh and with them bear an answer to the lord of all the lands. Agreement to the King's desire meant cruelty more bitter than he dared to dream. Refusal dragged the keystone from his arch of hope, to crush him beneath the very walls his youthful strength had raised. To seek delay—
Of a sudden Menon started from his revery, as a round white pebble struck his knee and bounded into the lake. He looked to learn whence the missile came, but all was still. Behind him in the distance stretched the rolling hills, with herders following in the wake of drowsy sheep; to the right, the lake's rim lay in peace, barren save for a fluttering bird or two, while on the left a fringe of bush ran out on a point of rocks, too low, it seemed, to screen a human form. Still wondering, the Assyrian rubbed his knee and gazed reproachfully at the fishes in the lake, when a flute-like laugh pealed forth—a joyous, bubbly laugh—that rang along the shores till every rocky ledge took up its notes and flung a mocking echo across the waves.
Menon sprang upon a stone, to explore each nook and crevice with a hunter's circling gaze. With body bent, with every sense alert, he swept the shores for the jester's hiding place; and at last, when hope was well-nigh spent, he caught the gleam of a wind-blown lock of hair from the rocky point close down by the water's edge. Menon smiled, then seemed to become engrossed in the sight of some floating object far out upon the lake; yet, the while, from the tail of his crafty eye, he watched the point whence mischief hid as behind a shield. A silence fell. No sound was heard save the splash of plunging carp, the yelp of a shepherd's dog, and the harsh, shrill cry of a crane that passed in lazy, lumbering flight.
From the water a form rose noiselessly, while a pair of dancing eyes looked out through a leafy screen; a rounded arm was raised, and Menon wheeled and caught the second pebble as it came. For an instant the two stood motionless; the one surprised at her swift discovery, the other stricken speechless with amaze at the bold, unearthly beauty, of a water nymph.
"A goddess!" he gasped at length, and stared in the wonder of a dreamer roused from sleep.
She stood at the water's edge, a girl just budding into womanhood, her fair skin glistening with the freshness of her bath. A clinging skirt from hip to knee, revealed her slender symmetry of limb, clean, lithe, and poised for nimble flight. For the rest she was nude, save for a tumbling wealth of flame-hued locks, tossed by the rising breeze, half veiling, half disclosing, a gleaming bust and throat. Above, a witch's face, Grecian in its lines, yet dashed with the warm voluptuousness of Semitic blood; a mouth, firm, fearless in its strength, yet tempered by a reckless merriment—a mouth to harden in a tempest-gust of scorn, to quiver at the sigh of passion's prayer, or fling its light-lipped laughter in the teeth of him who prayed. Her eyes—a haunted pool of light, wherein, a man might drown his soul, and, sinking, bless his torturer.