The Romance of a Water-Lily. 151

 

He wished he had shown it to Salome. But what
would have been the use? She would only have
seen in it just such a simple pipe as any other cut
from a marsh rush and made for such rustic music
as he himself sometimes affected ; she would only
have laughed at him.

But it never occurred to him to doubt whether
there were anything more in it—whether Nerina would
really appear when he played into it.

He new that she would appear, and he longed
for her to appear, for in her lay his only hope. She
only could give him that which would alone convince
his beloved that he loved her. He raised the reed
to his lips and breathed into it a sigh, soft as the
night breeze that moaned through the poplars, mur-
muring as the stream that rippled to the lake; sad
as the cry of the night-jar that pierced the stillness
of the desert land; a prayer—a prayer from the
depths of his despair; a prayer for death. He spoke
no word, but twice he breathed this sigh into the
little pipe, and then he lay still, waiting patient and