But the King was thinking of other things, and after a moment lifted his head.
"Have you considered the Princess Candace, how she grows?" he enquired of the High-priest.
"She is like a flower," answered Bagoas. "She is like a silver lily opening its petals to the sun. She grows like a flower that the dew falls upon, and her dreams are like dew."
"A few days ago she was a child, a few days more and she will be a woman. It is time that she were married; but that man whom she marries will be King after that I am dead, and I do not wish to hasten my death."
"She is young to go down into the cave of Ishtar," said Bagoas; "she would tremble when the last torch was extinguished; she would cry aloud when her husband came to her out of that darkness. Have you considered one worthy to be her husband, O King?"
"There is no one," answered Merodach. "The children of my wives are all girls, and the sons of my slaves are brawlers; men whose words are wind."
"Have you considered the son of thy cousin, Na'amah? He is sixteen years old, and has the heart of a lion. He is like a young lion in his first strength. I have been the governor of his childhood, and in his heart there is no guile."
"We shall consider him," said Merodach. "Beyond are the hills of Eden."
"If we follow the course of the river we shall come to Adam's garden."
It was mid-day in Eden. The great snake hung in the branches of the apple-tree, watching Adam and Eve, with dull, malignant eyes half-closed. He had shed his skin which hung from one of the branches, swaying idly in the wind, like a piece of grey ravelled lace; and the great snake coiled about the trunk shone with renewed splendour, like a bronze in which the colours of olive and red are graduated so as to mix and flow into each other through imperceptible shades of difference. The shadow of some domestic quarrel hung over Adam and Eve; he was moved by an ungracious solicitude for her comfort, and she received his attentions in offended humility. The snake watched the comedy with narrow eyes; subtilty of enjoyment increasing the malign persistence of his stare.
"It is because we have done wrong," said Adam.
"Let us go out into the desert. I do not like this place. The water is not good; the air is heavy; it is a morass; the home of frogs and the abode of scorpions. At night I lie awake, looking through the door of our cabin, and I see the moonlight lying upon the water, and I hear a chorus of frogs; all night I hear the croaking of the frogs. It will make me mad."