"By Bêlit," he wheezed, "the kiss is mine, or I rest my bones at the bottom of thy lake!"
The space of a spear's length lay between the two, and inch by inch the pursuer cut it down, while the nymph had ceased to mock him with her laughter, and bent her ebbing strength to the effort of escape. For her the race was run. On came the panting hunter in her wake, remorseless, eager, a hard hand reaching for her floating locks. She ducked her head, eluding seizure by a finger-breadth, leaped as the struggling fishes dart, and regained a tiny lead. Once more vantage slipped away, and now was hanging on a thread of chance. Again and again the Assyrian's hand shot out, to clutch the air or a dash of spray in his empty fist. His failure angered him. He clenched his teeth and worried on, yet splashing clumsily, for exertion now was fraught with agony.
"The kiss!" he breathed. "I'll have the kiss, I swear, or--"
The oath died suddenly upon his lips, for the maiden tossed her arms and disappeared. With a cry the youth plunged after her, forgetting his pain in the fullness of a self-reproach. He reached the spot where her form had sunk, and strove to dive, but weary nature proved a master of his will. He floated to regain his wind, while scanning the lake for a rising blotch of red; but only the leaping carp made circles through the waves, and a ruby sun climbed upward from a bed of mist. The breeze hummed foolishly among the palms, and a blue crane flung an accusing cry across the waters.
Menon's hope ebbed low and lower still, to die, to spring again to life at a peal of bubbly laughter, sweet unto his ears. Behind him he caught a flash of flaming hair, the gleam of a throat that shaped the taunt, a shoulder cutting through the ripples easily--the lake-nymph, fresh, unweary, an impish victor of the race!
By a trick she had lured him to expend his strength in the chase of one who swam as the minnows swim; and to Menon came this knowledge like a blow between the eyes. He turned him shoreward with a feeble stroke, striving to keep himself afloat, for his heavy sandals weighed him down, and languor seized on every fibre of his frame. He was beaten, spent. A blurred mist rose before his eyes, while the droning call of distant battle raged within his ears. A thousand flame-hued heads danced tauntingly beyond his reach, and laughed and laughed. The world went spinning down into a gulf of gloom, and a clumsy crane reeled after it--a steel-blue ghost that stabbed him with a beak of fire. He choked; he fought for life as he lashed out madly, till the foam-churned waters mounted high and fell to crush him in their roaring might.