With a sigh of peace she rose and clothed herself in the robe of fine spun wool, clasped tight her girdle and strapped the sandal thongs about her feet; then she rested Menon's head upon her lap and forced between his teeth the rim of a wine cup of which she recklessly deprived great Dagon's shrine.
"Dagon and I," she murmured, with an impish smile, "have compassed much; yet Dagon alone, without the measure of my aid--"
She paused, for a young cloud slid across the sun, flinging a shadow on the temple floor, a shadow which crept and crept till the fish-god's visage darkened with its gloom; then Semiramis remembered, rose, and cast her pearls far out into the lake.
Once more she sat beside her charge, chafing his temples with a patient, lingering caress. Long, long she watched, her fancy looming lace-work webs of fate, while her heart marked joyfully his battle with reluctant life; till, presently, his breath flowed gently and the sweat of pain was dried upon his brow.
Menon's glance met hers, and a flush of shame grew hot upon his cheek--the shame of defeat to him, a war-tried soldier, at the hands of a shepherd girl. Yet in her smile a man might forget defeat--forget and rejoice--forget all else save the smile and the maid who smiled.
His color spread, yet the blood-warmed tint now told no more of the sting of an humbled pride. He strove to raise his arms, but they seemed as weights too heavy for his strength, and sank beside him weakly. His thews were slack; he lay as helpless as an unweaned babe, yet the victor's eyes were laughing down into his own, and were kind.
"The kiss!" sighed Menon, and the maiden bent and gave her soul into the keeping of his lips.
A coppery sun climbed upward on his hill of cloud; the south-wind ceased, and the lake drowsed lazily in the morning sun. The Assyrian still reclined with his head upon the lap of Semiramis, for in the beginning she would not suffer him to tax his strength with speech. She urged that he rest, while she told her name and the story of her birth; and he, content, asked nothing more than to look and listen, while his heart grew hungry and his pulses sang to a tune of joy. So the maiden babbled on of gods and men, of the shepherd's home with Simmas, her foster-father, and of her simple life with sheep that browsed upon the hills and the fishes swam in the waters of Ascalon.