water and stocked with live fish. All this was done with
such extraordinary art that one not forewarned could never possibly
notice the glass, and would take an oath that a pool of clear, fresh
water lay before him.

And when all was in readiness, Solomon invited his regal guest to an
interview. Surrounded by all the pomp of her retinue, she paced through
the chambers of the House at Lebanon, and came up to the treacherous
pool. At the other end of it sat the king, resplendent with gold and
precious stones, and with a welcoming look in his dark eyes. The door
opened before the queen, and she took a step forward,--but cried out
and....

Sulamith claps her palms and laughs, and her laughter is joyous and
child-like.

"She stoops and lifts up her raiment?" asks Sulamith.

"Yea, my beloved, she acted as any among women would have acted. She
raised up the hem of her garment, and although this lasted for but a
moment, not only I but all my court saw that the beauteous Savvian
Queen, Balkis-Makkedah, had ordinary human legs, but crooked and grown
over with coarse hair. On the very next day she set off, without bidding
me farewell, and departed with her magnificent caravan. I had not meant
to offend her. I sent after her a trustworthy runner, whom I ordered to
give to the queen a bundle of a rare mountain herb,--the best means for
the extirpation of hair upon the body. But she returned to me the head
of my emissary in a bag of costly purple."

Solomon also told his beloved many things out of his life, which none
other among men and women knew, and which Sulamith carried with her into
the grave. He told her of the long and weary years of his wanderings,
when, fleeing from the wrath of his brethren, he was forced to hide
under an assumed name in foreign lands, enduring fearful poverty and
privations. He told her how, in a far-off, unknown country, while he
was standing in the market place, in expectation of being hired to work
somewhere, the king's cook had approached him and said:

"Stranger, help me carry this hamper of fish into the palace."

Through his wit, adroitness, and skilled demeanor, Solomon so pleased
the officers of the court, that in a short while he had made himself at
home in the palace, and when the head cook died he had taken his place.
Further, Solomon told of how the king's only daughter,--a beautiful,
ardent maiden,--had fallen in love with the new cook and had confessed
her love to him; how they fl