"Beautiful!" I cried, gazing entranced upon the scene.
"Yes. From the moment we left the city and passed through the ancient gateway that you admired, we have been riding in my private domain. Here, as far as the eye can reach, all is mine, the garden of the Sanoms. But let us hasten forward. It was not to show you picturesque landscapes that I brought you hither. We have much to do ere we return."
Skirting the stream, where flocks and herds stood gazing at their own images and others drinking of the transparent waters, we found the river, growing wider, opened into a spacious lake which was half surrounded by a rising hill. From the lake, higher than the river, ran a glittering cascade and over the pendant rocks fell luxuriant vines and creeping plants. At the opposite extremity of the lake, which by its pure waters exposed the bright yellow pebbles on which it wantoned, two streams ran towards the right and left of the hill and lost themselves amidst the groves, pasture and hillocks of the adjacent country. The prospects around us were beautiful and enchanting. Lofty trees threw a delightful, welcome shade, and the hill-side seemed covered with flowering shrubs, which grew irregularly except where a torrent from the summit, now dry, had during ages worn out a deep hollow bed for its rapid passage and descent.
There were no roads or beaten paths in this secluded portion of the royal domain, neither could there be seen any traces of habitation.
"Deep in yonder lake," said Omar, drawing up his horse suddenly and swinging himself from his saddle near the spot where the waters, springing from beneath some green, moss-grown rocks, fell with gentle music into the river--"deep in yonder lake there lies a hidden mystery."
"Have patience, and I will reveal to you a secret known only to myself and to the Naya; the secret that I told you must be preserved."
"But you say it is buried beneath these waters!" I exclaimed, puzzled. "How will you reveal it?"
"Watch closely, so that if occasion arises you will remember how to exactly imitate my movements," he answered, and when we had tethered our horses, he led me away from the edge of the lake up the hill-side some distance to where a number of points of moss-grown rock cropped up out of the turf.