"The water was still, and I saw Nefert standing on the farther bank, and beckoning to me.

I called to her, and she stepped on the water, which bore her up as if it were this carpet.

She went over the water dry-foot as if it were the stony wilderness.

A wonderful sight! She came nearer to me, and nearer, and already I had tried to take her hand, when she ducked under like a swan.

I went into the water to seize her, and when she came up again I clasped her in my arms; but then the strangest thing happened--she flowed away, she dissolved like the snow on the Syrian hills, when you take it in your hand, and yet it was not the same, for her hair turned to water-lilies, and her eyes to blue fishes that swam away merrily, and her lips to twigs of coral that sank at once, and from her body grew a crocodile, with a head like Mena, that laughed and gnashed its teeth at me.