He kissed all her fingers, her arms, her feet, and the long tresses of
her hair from one end to the other.
"Carry it off," he said, "what do I care? take me away with it! I
abandon the army! I renounce everything! Beyond Gades, twenty days'
journey into the sea, you come to an island covered with gold dust,
verdure, and birds. On the mountains large flowers filled with smoking
perfumes rock like eternal censers; in the citron trees, which are
higher than cedars, milk-coloured serpents cause the fruit to fall upon
the turf with the diamonds in their jaws; the air is so mild that it
keeps you from dying. Oh! I shall find it, you will see. We shall live
in crystal grottoes cut out at the foot of the hills. No one dwells in
it yet, or I shall become the king of the country."
He brushed the dust off her cothurni; he wanted her to put a quarter of
a pomegranate between her lips; he heaped up garments behind her head to
make a cushion for her. He sought for means to serve her, and to humble
himself, and he even spread the zaimph over her feet as if it were a
mere rug.
"Have you still," he said, "those little gazelle's horns on which your
necklaces hang? You will give them to me! I love them!" For he spoke
as if the war were finished, and joyful laughs broke from him.
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