Istar’s white-robed women brushed out her hair, which fell about her like a cascade of rippling gold, bathed her face in a golden bowl filled with perfume, and gently washed her white hands. Then, when her toilet was complete, they retired at a sign, leaving me alone with her.
When all was silent she lifted her tiny foot from my neck and commanded me to rise.
“Tell me, whence comest thou?” she inquired, in a hard rasping voice, when I stood before her.
Our eyes met. Hers were of that unusual tint—almost violet. They held me in fascination.
“I came from the desert land two moon’s march beyond thine,” I answered, noticing, at the same moment, that her shapely hands trembled. “I entered thy dominion by the gate known to us as the Rock of the Great Sin, the secret way that no man hath before penetrated.”
“Thou hast discovered it!” she gasped excitedly, half rising from her crystal seat of royalty, gleaming with its thousand iridescent fires. “Tell me, in which direction doth it lie?”
“Far north, beyond the Mountains of the Mist, beyond the ruins of the wondrous temple thine ancestor raised to Sin, the Moon-god.”
“But tell me the exact position of the rock of the great god Sin,” she demanded, eagerly. “It is a spot which existeth in the sayings of the priests, but it hath been lost to all men in the mazes of legendary lore.”
“Its exact position I cannot accurately describe,” I answered. “Since passing through it and deciphering the rock-tablet of Semiramis, I have travelled many days in forest and over plain and mountain.”
“Couldst thou not guide me thither?” she asked, eagerly.