"Eh—what!" she demanded, angered at his words. "My father—that kind old man? Shame! Shame, my lord!"
Menon pursed his lips and ridged his brow with his sternest frown.
"I fain would rob him as I say; yea, even thy sacred doves and the very gods themselves, of Syria's Pearl—Shammuramat."
The girl said naught, but gazed in silence out across the lake, while a smile played softly at the corners of her mouth. She was not ill pleased to be called the Pearl of Syria, albeit she herself had long been conscious of the pretty truth. Moreover, t'was most unseemly in a maid to gainsay a mighty Governor; and in her heart she could find no dread of this weighty tax on Syria's birds and gods. Therefore she waited for his further speech, which came at length with earnestness:
"Now as to these taxes, concerning which I am called a devil's leech, it grieveth me sorely to oppress a simple folk, and it causeth my soul's unrest by night and day."
Again the maiden laughed.
"Aye, truly," she answered, spreading out her locks for the sun to dry; "I well can believe thy words, for never have I looked upon a youth so melancholy, or one on whom his sorrows ride with a tighter knee. Yet tell me, O Prince of Woe, what in truth may chance to be thy station and thy name?"
Menon spread his hands, though he could not help but smile at the maiden's doubt of him.
"Nay, believe me," he urged, "I speak the truth. I swear it on thy fish-god's altar. I am indeed the Governor, sent hither at the King's command, to do his bidding, not my will alone. King Ninus buildeth a city for himself on a far off river bank, a city which is like unto a huge, devouring monster, swallowing up the stores of men, the fruits of the earth, and the children of every land. This, then, is why I come to tax thine honest neighbors of their wealth."
He told her of the city's walls and of how they rose from out the waste of sand; of the temples, palaces, the towers and the soaring citadel. He told of millions toiling through the nights and days, and of an army which girt the walls around, while Semiramis sat listening, drinking in his words.