"Ishtar!" she cried, as she raised her head and clenched her outflung hands. "Oh, if I but once might sing a battle-song! To struggle—to fight—!"
Menon checked her with a rich, full-throated laugh that echoed to the temple's dome.
"Fight?" he asked. "In the name of all the gods, fight whom?"
She gave no heed to his merry tone, for the spark had caught, the flames were lit, and the fuel needs must burn.
"Poof! I care not, so it be a foe—a foe who will stand and scorns to fly!" Again she raised her arms, her rich voice shrill in its pitch of feverish desire: "To drive a chariot and lash its steeds through hedges of swords and spears! To drink of the wine of war! To conquer and to reign—a queen! And see!" she cried, as she caught her flame-hued hair, "this will I cut away, that none may know me for a maid. Then, then wilt thou suffer me to follow as a youth who is in thy train. Speak, lord, I wait."
Menon smiled and shook his head, for a maiden's path, he told her, was not amidst the perils of the field; but she took his cheeks in both her palms and bent till her breath was mingled with his own.
"Nay, once," she pleaded, in her haunting, liquid tone, "one little war—no more! Ah, Menon, sweet, thou will let me go?" Lower she bent and leaned upon his lips, while her strange eyes burned their passion into his, her fair arms clinging in a love caress. "Menon! Menon!"
He trembled, for his heart cried out aloud and longed to give this maid whatever she asked; and she held him closer still, murmuring into his ear as her mother, Derketo, might have whispered when she lured the steps of men from their level paths.
"Heed me," she pleaded low, and brushed his cheek with the velvet of a softer curve, "didst thou not will to tax my father of the Pearl of Syria? What then? Wouldst leave me in thy home—alone—to yearn for a loved one far afield, to weep, to listen for his footstep through the weary night? Nay, Menon, that were cruelty, and thou art kind."
A shadow settled on the Governor's brow. He arose and paced the temple's floor, his hands locked tight behind his back. Grim duty called his name, and it came to him that the scepter of Assyria was thrust between his heart and the woman for whom it beat alone.