Her father had been half centaur and half god; her mother was the
child of a desert lion and that sphinx that watches the pyramids;--she
was more mystical than Woman.
Her beauty was as a dream, was as a song; the one dream of a lifetime
dreamed on enchanted dews, the one song sung to some city by a
deathless bird blown far from his native coasts by storm in Paradise.
Dawn after dawn on mountains of romance or twilight after twilight
could never equal her beauty; all the glow-worms had not the secret
among them nor all the stars of night; poets had never sung it nor
evening guessed its meaning; the morning envied it, it was hidden from
lovers.
She was unwed, unwooed.
The lions came not to woo her because they feared her strength, and
the gods dared not love her because they knew she must die.
This was what evening had whispered to the bat, this was the dream in
the heart of Shepperalk as he cantered blind through the mist. And
suddenly there at his hooves in the dark of the plain appeared the
cleft in the legendary lands, and Zretazoola sheltering in the cleft,
and sunning herself in the evening.
Swiftly and craftily he bounded down by the upper end of the cleft,
and entering Zretazoola by the outer gate which looks out sheer on the
stars, he galloped suddenly down the narrow streets.
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