Reconciled to their change of rulers under the crafty administration of Assarac, careless who swayed the sceptre of Nimrod so long as wine was cheap and corn plentiful, the people of Babylon troubled themselves but little that the Armenian expedition seemed so tardy in returning; that Semiramis lay sick and dying, as they were told, among those northern mountains; or that Ninyas, whom they had been taught to believe a dutiful son abdicating in his mother's favour, reigned once more in her stead. Nevertheless, even among that fierce and fickle populace remained a leaven of the adoration she alone was able to inspire, and every child of Ashur at home or a-field felt his dignity, his self-love, and his nationality identified with the glory of the Great Queen.
They were stirred more than the eunuch expected by the news of her return; so that when it became known she was within bowshot of the wall, and about to reënter her own especial city, Assarac's watchful eye discerned among the multitude those signs of discontent and restlessness which precede a tumult, as lowering clouds and whitened waves indicate the coming of a storm.
Groups were forming and dispersing in the street, women and children remained on the roofs and terraces of their houses, men looked expectant in each other's faces; while captains and warriors thronged the ramparts, as though an enemy were already at the gate.
Presently there came a hush and calm over all that vast assemblage, succeeded by a shiver that stirred the rippling mass from edge to edge, when the tramp of horses, the roll of a chariot, broke on the still warm air; then, wild and fierce as a defiance, though loud, jubilant, and overwhelming, rose a mighty shout from Great Babylon to welcome back her queen.
Assarac, eager and preoccupied, watching these signs of earth with more anxiety than he had ever read the stars, felt a momentary thrill of triumph in that very enthusiasm which, uncontrolled by his own skill, must herald his doom. For a moment, in the agony of conflicting feelings, he thought it would be well could he abandon every scheme of glory and greatness, forego pride, ambition, revenge, to die at the queen's feet, and be at rest. Gazing on her as she drew near in the chariot, this temporary weakness passed away, leaving all that was evil in his nature to resume the ascendency once more. Could this be the proud Semiramis, the bright, the matchless, the beautiful? this sad and stately woman, pale with the long fatigue of woe, yet wearing in her desolation the same unrivalled beauty that had enhanced the glory of her pride? It seemed the ghost of her former self, thus bending its haughty head in acknowledgment of a nation's greeting, as she passed within the gate—a spirit too sad to be of good, too fair to be of evil, sublimed and elevated by the prescience of its doom, catching and reflecting the spectral rays of a cold clear light that dawns beyond the grave.
Had she glowed, as was her wont, in all the flush and sparkle of her imperial charms, he could have found it in his heart to have spared her even then; for her dear sake, could have betrayed his followers, broken faith with his king, and forsworn himself before his god. But marking the sorrow she did not care to hide, and remembering its cause, his blood turned to gall, and he vowed with bitter oaths she should never light down from that chariot a living woman—no, not if he must hew her in pieces with his own hand.
But for the Great Queen to be forewarned was to be forearmed. In no extremity of sorrow nor of danger was it possible for her to lose that unconscious presence of mind, that instinctive power of combination, which had made her the conqueror of the world. Informed by Sethos of the conspiracy against her life, she had taken measures to defeat it wisely, calmly, promptly, yet deliberately, just as she would have sat down to besiege a fenced city, or gone out to meet an enemy in the open field. While the eunuch waited to hem her in with his priests and spearmen, Semiramis, watching her opportunity, foiled him by the suddenness of her attack.
Halting her chariot in the open space immediately within the gate, and taking advantage of the astonished silence which succeeded this unexpected stoppage, the Great Queen stood erect, flung her arms above her head, and cried with a loud voice, "Who is on my side?" Then Assarac knew that by so much time as it took to speak those words, he was too late; and immediately before his eyes there passed a darkness, that was as the shadow of death.
From her people, who loved the very ground she trod on, rose an outcry to which their previous shouts had been but a maiden's whisper compared to the roar of a beast of prey. Swords leaped from the scabbard, strong arms beat the air, dark eyes gleamed, and dark-curled beards bristled with fierce enthusiasm, eager hate, or wild desire for blood—archers and spearmen descended like a torrent from the wall, stout champions of a hundred battles came rushing and crowding through the streets. They gathered in swarms about their queen; they hemmed her in with a circle of steel; they swore, they wept, they gnashed their teeth, they implored, they adjured her only to point out an enemy, and they would tear him limb from limb.
Never before, through all the years she reigned in Babylon, had her power seemed so absolute, her dominion so secure; yet she knew, none better, that had her outcry been deferred by one short minute, had she halted her chariot but fifty paces farther on within the city, a score of blades would have carved away life and sorrow together from her aching heart, her cheek, now so cold and pale in its bereavement, would have been for ever cold and pale in death.
But not a shade of colour deepened that lovely cheek; no glitter of wrath, nor anxiety, nor even excitement of mortal strife, disturbed the scorn of those calm proud eyes, while she pointed to the eunuch, standing erect in his chariot over against her, and spoke in the clear full tones that had so often turned the tide of battle, like the trumpets of a succouring host.
"I have need of that man!" said she, stretching out her round white arm. "Sons of Ashur, I bid you fall on Assarac, priest of Baal. Slay him not, but bind him and bring him to me!"
He was no coward, yet he trembled in every joint. Perhaps the sound of her voice moved him no less than the yells of rage, the scowls of hatred, the flashes of steel that met him on every side, than the mighty rush that made at him, wave on wave, as the wolves of the forest pour on some wounded mountain bull to get him down.
He bore himself bravely, notwithstanding, calling priests and spearmen to his rescue, fitting an arrow to the bow he was never to draw again. For a moment his white-clad form towered above the press and tumult, like a sail in a troubled sea, that disappears among the breakers ere a man has summoned courage for a second look. The priests of Baal could not resist the shock. In spite of numbers and discipline, the hired spearmen gave way. There was a rush, a recoil, an angry roar, a scuffle of feet, the crash of a broken chariot, the scream of a woman from the housetops, a horse reared high above their heads, the surging crowd divided, and on the open space emerged some half a score Assyrian warriors, dragging in their midst Assarac, priest of Baal, to the feet of the Great Queen.
Even now in this extremity of danger and disgrace, bruised, panting, dishevelled, doomed to certain death, he sought in the queen's eyes for something of sympathy, of recognition, of acknowledgment, that they had once looked kindly in his own. Of all he suffered, this was perhaps the keenest pang—that on the fair face he had loved, and hated, and worshipped so madly, there showed no more of anger than of pity. Immovable, impenetrable, but for her beauty she might have been an image of Nisroch the avenger, god of retribution and of fate.
Then he laughed out loud, a strange harsh laugh that scared the guards who held him, while he thought that here in his mortal anguish, throbbing under the knife or writhing on the stake, he had power to wring and torture that proud heart still.
Before deigning to notice him, she thanked her people for their loyalty with a sad and weary smile.
"Sons of Ashur," said she, "let none persuade you I have ever believed you could fail your queen. She has but trusted you once more to-day, and nobly have you once more answered her appeal. I have spoiled for you another city; I have conquered for you another kingdom; I have journeyed far and fast to return to you. My bow is unstrung, my sword is sheathed, and I would fain rest from my labours. But Ashtaroth sleeps not in heaven, nor Semiramis on earth; and be the queen's eyes never so heavy, justice must be done by the greatest, as by the least, through the length and breadth of the land of Shinar. There is one here who has imagined evil in his heart against his ruler. Assarac, priest of Baal, what have you to say why you should not forthwith be put to death?"
With these last syllables she turned full upon him her deep inscrutable eyes, and if he had any hope of it before, he neither desired nor expected pardon now. The pitiless gaze chilled him to the marrow, while he felt, that were their positions reversed, he too could be as cold and calm and cruel as his judge.
One glance of sympathy in the crowd would have unmanned him; but he looked for it in vain. On earth he saw a dreary wavering mass of sullen faces, and in heaven a wide-winged vulture, wheeling, hovering, poising itself in the blue eternal sky.
It was not his god that sustained him now, nor his sacred character, nor his priestly lore; not even the stubborn pride engrained in the nature of such spirits, destined to affect the fate of dynasties and trouble the security of an empire. No; he took refuge in the bitterness of that despair which has found and proved the worst—when love turns to hate, and faith to scorn—when the sweet springs of hope are poisoned at their source, and the vision of an angel in a halo of light changes to a mocking fiend, or a bare gaunt skeleton crowned with a grinning skull.
He returned a stare of defiance, calm and contemptuous as her own.
"It is for the Great Queen to reward her servants according to their deserts," said he. "Let her ask herself if I have merited death at her hands."
"It is not Semiramis who accuses you," she retorted coldly. "By the laws of Shinar you are judged, and by them you are condemned. I have spoken."
There was no hope; none. Yet would she but look kindly on him, he could bear it bravely, he thought, and die in his utter weariness, as a man lies down to sleep. He made one last effort.
"Have I not served her," he asked, "through good and evil, in no hope of payment or reward, but for the love and loyalty I bore to the Great Queen? I have lived too long when the face of Semiramis is turned from me in anger. I ask for no pardon, no reprieve. Let her but say that she forgives me before I die!"
"I have nothing to forgive," she replied, with pitiless unconcern. "The servant has raised his hand against his ruler; the subject has conspired against his queen. Whose are these white-robed bands cowering and trembling before me, though each man carries a naked knife in his girdle, and another in his hand? Who drew up that sullen and dejected line of warriors, instructing them to bend their bows and point their spears against the leader they have followed to victory? It is not for Semiramis to ask the question, but Assyria. It is not for Semiramis to answer it, but Baal, and he cries with a loud voice, 'Assarac the priest!'"
"Who turned on her at the last!" he shouted, in a paroxysm of fury and despair. "Who bears here in his bosom the secret she would give all her empire to obtain; but who defies and reviles the Great Queen to her face, even in the jaws of death!"
She started, and for a moment seemed uncertain how to act; but recovering herself, pronounced firmly the fatal words, "Cover his face, and lead him forth. I have spoken."
It was a sentence that could never be annulled. The eunuch felt he was doomed, and glanced instinctively upward, where the vulture passed between him and the sun.
So they brought the hideous stake, and impaled him in sight of all men, that the people of Babylon might pass by to rebuke him with scoffs and curses, for a traitor who had lifted his hand against the Great Queen.
Two days, two nights, he writhed and languished in his agony. On the third morning men had become wearied of him, and he was left alone, save that the vulture floating overhead kept watch on untiring wing, and waited for him still.
At sunrise there came a veiled woman, with a jar of water in her hand. His dim eye lightened, and the spasm, that should have been a smile, crossed his face, for he recognised in her gait and bearing the presence of his queen.
She raised her veil to look fixedly on those dying features, so changed, so distorted—to mark the quiver of those dry cracked lips, the flutter of life that played over the blackened, withered frame.
"Speak," said she, in a low hoarse whisper, while the water rippled pleasantly in its jar. "Speak, and I will have mercy; for you shall drink and die."
He nodded assent, eyeing with piteous eagerness the deadly draught for which he longed.
"Doth he live?" she asked, and laid the jar almost against his lips.
Another nod, a convulsive choking gasp, and a roll of the half closed eyes.
"And where?" she continued, in fierce impatience, pitiless of his sufferings, careless of all but the secret she was fain to extort, even from the dead.
It was obvious that till his lips were moistened he could not answer, if he would. She held the jar to his mouth, and he took such a long and greedy draught as dulled his mortal agony with a sense of relief from suffering that was almost joy.
Again she watched those baked black lips with jealous eyes. They strove to form a word that yet died on them ere it could be uttered. Was it in mockery they trembled with certain faint syllables, that to her sense of sight, rather than hearing, seemed to indicate the desert? Was it in mockery they smiled and writhed and gibbered ere they set themselves, fixed and rigid for evermore?
Semiramis turned thoughtfully away, and the vulture came swooping down; for he, too, had waited long and patiently to take his share of one who had been a reader of the stars, a governor of the empire, the Great Queen's favourite servant, Assarac, high priest of Baal.
For two days, woe, perplexity, and dire confusion reigned in the temple of the great Assyrian god. Baal might be an hungered, but they slew for him no droves of sheep and oxen; athirst, but they poured him out no drink-offerings; displeased, but they sought not favour and forgiveness with praise and prayer, because his servants looked in vain for a high-priest to interpret the commands of their deity, and the great golden image, towering sullen, and unmoved, afforded neither word nor sign. The denizens of the temple stared blankly in each other's faces, for men doubted sore in this crisis of the Assyrian hierarchy whose turn it might next be to die.
But on the third day, court and temple were once more redolent of incense and bright with flowers; altars blazed, victims fell, ditches ran crimson with blood. A hundred priests leaped, howled, and cut themselves with knives, a thousand voices raised their hymn of triumph, and Beladon, chosen by direct interposition of his god, under the authority of Ninyas his king, was proclaimed high-priest of Baal, in place of the dead man, crouched yonder on his stake in an open space near the northern gate, already torn and mangled out of human likeness by the birds of prey.
Careless of a fallen master, the new high-priest had turned gladly from Assarac to obtain favour in the sight of Ninyas; and that prince was content to give him honour and promotion in the mean time, waiting his own leisure to destroy him without pity or remorse.
For on this third day, the son of Ninus again sat in the gate to administer justice, again shook off the fetters of sloth, and the drowsiness of wine-cups, to wear the royal tiara of his fathers, and carry the sceptre of Nimrod in his hand.
The people of Babylon indeed clamoured loudly for their queen, crowding the streets and terraces about her palace, rending the air with their cries, vowing vengeance on priest and prophet, if she forbore to show herself, and even threatening the sacred person of her son.
It needed all the influence of a priesthood bribed by gifts and promises, all the intimidation of an army corrupted by gold and spoil, to persuade them that she had left her faithful subjects for the realm of those divinities to whom she was akin, and that the white doves they had seen since sunrise, flitting on restless pinions through her favourite city, were but so many messengers from the spirit-world, bidding a nation of mourners take comfort for the departure of the Great Queen.
It was to Beladon that Ninyas intrusted the promulgation of this strange belief, resolving that so soon as the tumult had subsided, so soon as he was himself firmly established on the throne, it would be wise to destroy the only power that rivalled his own in the land of Shinar, by the slaughter of their new high-priest, and general destruction of the worship of Baal, in favour of Nebo, Nisroch, or some other deity, over whose servants he would take care to retain undisputed influence and control.
For in the golden morning, lying tossing and troubled on his couch, a deep sleep had fallen on Ninyas, even with the rising of the sun, and he had dreamed a dream, or seen a vision, such as moved even that heart of his, so hardened by years of vice and self-indulgence, brought the unaccustomed tears to those eyes blinded by folly, sensuality, and sin.
He dreamed that he was a child once more—a tender happy child, triumphant in a new toy, or a treasure of fruit and flowers, loving, hopeful, and believing in his mother, the queen, as he believed in the light of day. He thought she came to his bedside carrying a fair and bending lotus in her hand; that she withheld from him the flower, resisting alike his prayers, his caresses, and his tears; that in his impatience and childish wrath, he seized the white caressing hand and bit it till the blood came, striking and buffeting the while so fiercely that his efforts seemed to wake him, and yet he could not rise, though he knew that he lay there a grown man, stretched on his own royal couch, struggling with the influence of a dream.
He must be helpless, he felt, and passive—chilled, shivering, speechless—so long as those reproachful eyes held him in their gaze, so long as that stately figure bent over him so tenderly, that pale sad face confronted his own in the shadow of an unearthly beauty, that awed him with the majesty of death.
His tongue clave to the roof of his mouth, yet it seemed loosened, and his senses were freed from their heaviest restraint, when the vision addressed him; for was it not his mother's voice? And in spite of the injuries she had inflicted, in spite of injustice, treachery, all that had come and gone, those tones were liquid with a music that could still dominate his spirit, still soften and subdue his heart. "Ninyas," she said, "beloved, has it come to this, that my son could thirst for his mother's blood?" He almost believed while she spoke there were red drops on the white hand that had tended and fondled him from a child. Twice he raised his eyes to hers, and cast them down in very shame; twice he essayed an answer, and his lips refused to form the words; but the third time he took courage, and, with a great effort, exclaimed, "Forgive me, mother; for I have sinned! I am unworthy to reign in Shinar; I am unworthy even to draw bow among the sons of Ashur! Yet forgive me, mother; for am I not your son?"
A smile, unspeakably sad and tender, came over the pale fair face. "I have forgiven," said she, "although the arrow from my son's quiver bit into my very heart. Listen, Ninyas: it was foretold long ago, by one who read the stars, and who knows doubtless, ere now, whether he read them right—it was foretold, I say, by this wise man, that when the spear on which she leaned at her utmost need should break and wound her hand, then must the doves that nourished her childhood come back to lead Semiramis away, and the sons of Ashur must wander to and fro through old Nineveh and mighty Babylon, and all the wide bounds of the land of Shinar, asking each other in vain for tidings of the Great Queen. I mourned in sorrow and sadness, but my son was yet left to me, and I leaned on him as his father was wont to lean after battle on his spear. My spear is broken, my son has failed me; he would reign unvexed, unwearied by the counsels of his mother. Go to! He will never look on that mother's face again."
He fell into a great sweat and trembling; with a desperate effort, he leaped like a young lion from his couch, to fall at her feet and clasp her knees, and detain her even by force, that he might make amends. Alas, he grasped the empty air! He searched in vain with eager gaze throughout the chamber, and looked only on coloured carvings and vermilion roof, on alabaster columns, scarlet hangings, winged monsters tipped with gold, all the pomp and symbols of imperial sovereignty, his own without question now, because she was gone for evermore. Then he burst into a passion of tears, and so, draining the flagon of Damascus wine that stood by his couch, felt comforted, and went out among his people with diadem and sceptre, feeling in his heart, that at last he was really an Assyrian king.
As the day waned, and the populace, who had been feasted at the royal expense, found themselves refreshed with food and gladdened by wine, discontent gave way to hilarity, and anxiety for the fate of their queen lapsed into easy indifference, or a stupid satisfaction in those supernatural attributes, by which they were taught to account for her disappearance.
It was credited of all men that she had been claimed by the unearthly order of beings to which she belonged; that she had only been intrusted for a time to the Assyrians, for the completion of their national glory; and that now, having fulfilled her mission, she was summoned back by kindred spirits, who, in the form of doves, birds she always prized and cherished, were to-day flitting in unusual numbers about the city of her choice.
Kalmim, whose eyes were red with weeping, stoutly supported the general belief, finding in it, no doubt, a salve for certain qualms of conscience she could not but entertain, regarding her own varying loyalty towards the mistress she served. This nimble-tongued tirewoman found herself regretting many a hint she had thrown out, many a petty scandal she had promulgated in derision of the Great Queen to have seen her back in the royal palace, to have smoothed her robes, tired her head, and done her bidding once more, Kalmim would willingly have given all she prized in the world, except perhaps the affection of Sethos, whom she now claimed as her own possession, by every rite of love and law known in the land of Shinar.
Standing with him on a house-top over against the temple of Baal, and marking with fond eyes how his bright young face glowed in the parting rays of a sun already touching the horizon of the desert, she could not forbear a sigh of pity for one whose lot, in spite of beauty, glory, and power, seemed so dark and sad, compared to her own.
"She had everything Baal and Ashtaroth could bestow," observed Kalmim, looking lovingly in her companion's face. "And see what has been the end. To hover, like an evil spirit, saddened and restless, about the place that is still bright with her glory, and then to vanish, none can tell where, like a cloud that comes up from the desert with promise of rain, and while man and beast are yet athirst to welcome it, lo, it has passed over, and is gone."
"We shall see her no more," answered Sethos. "Nor shall we see one like unto her again. Since Ashur came down from the stars to lead them, his children have known but one great Queen. Of a surety, it is enough! Another Ashtaroth would set the heavens in a blaze; another Semiramis would be too much for the vexed earth to sustain."
She glanced at him sharply, but his features wore their usual expression of placid and somewhat languid content.
"She was not happy," said Kalmim, as if puzzled to account for the anomaly. "And yet she had wisdom, fame, courage, riches, unlimited empire, and, O Sethos, beauty surpassing even the daughters of the stars!"
"The last is the gift you grudge her most," observed the cup-bearer, with a quiet smile, as of one who directs his shaft, though without malice, straight towards its mark.
But instead of flushed denial or indignant retort, he was surprised to note on Kalmim's face an expression of real apprehension. She turned quite pale, while she replied,
"It is a fatal possession for the owner, when spoilers can be found who scruple not to share in it by the strong hand. O Sethos," she added, with a shudder, pointing to the temple of Baal, "there is but one man I fear in the whole of Babylon, and he stands, night and morning, before the altar of his god, the second in power through all the land of Shinar, after my lord the king."
Sethos laughed outright, whereat, in Kalmim's eyes, displeasure took the place of fear.
"Listen," said he, "and remember that I am not given to vain words, but that I speak only so much as I surely know. Do you dread the handful of bleached bones, the few dangling strips of blackened flesh, that were once that famous eunuch who made himself chief counsellor of princes, mightiest leader of armies in all Assyria, and great interpreter of the god he worshipped, to rule, as it seemed, rather than to obey? I tell you, Kalmim, that Assarac, withering yonder on his stake, is as much to be feared as comely Beladon, now high-priest of Baal. I tell you that I had rather change places with the one who has known and proved the worst than with the other, who has yet to learn the mercies of Ninyas for such as thwart his projects or stand in the way of his convenience."
"What mean you?" she asked. "Are you in the secrets of my lord the king?"
"He has shown favour to his servant," answered the other, with mock gravity, "since the days of his youth, when I filled his cup to the brim at the bidding of Ninus, now driving a golden chariot amongst the stars. He has not forgotten that I waited dutifully at his footstool, while he wore sackcloth in his prison-house, as he had been clad in purple on a throne. Above all, he remembers that, but for me, he would have sinned a hideous sin against the Great Queen; therefore is my place at his right hand in his secret chamber; therefore can I tell you, Kalmim, that Beladon and his priests are doomed, and that the jackals you hear now howling beneath the wall shall scarcely wait another moon ere they tear them limb from limb. Beladon is thine enemy and mine. What am I that I should set myself against the counsels of my lord the king?"
She drew a deep sigh of relief. The tirewoman was happy now, and had reached the haven of her rest; yet, even in her fulness of content, there crept a dreary sadness about her heart, while she thought on the vanished glories of the mistress she had served and loved, marvelling, even while she mourned, at the strange departure and sad mysterious fate of the Great Queen.
As in the heart of man, seared, desolate, and lonely though it be, there remains a tender spot, bearing remembrance of the tears that freshened it long ago; so in the wildest tract of desert is hidden some green and pleasant place where, even should the leaf be faded or the well-spring dry, lingers a certain sense of peace, freshness, and repose, a faint but precious echo from the drip and murmur of the drowsy waters, and the breeze whispering through the palms.
In such a refuge, many a league from the stir and turmoil of crowded Babylon, had Sarchedon unstrung his bow, and laid his spear aside.
Notwithstanding the promises of Assarac, and the promptings of a martial spirit, he had yielded to the persuasions of her he loved, satisfied, after all his perils and adventures, to have gained the one treasure he coveted, and to keep it in his own possession for evermore.
Under the protection of his adopted brethren—for the Anakim, overlooking comparative deficiency of stature in consideration of courage and prowess, had received him into their tribe—and secured on all sides by the unbroken expanse of desert that surrounded him, he felt he had nothing to dread from the vengeance of Ninyas, nor even from pursuit by the Great Queen. These might rule unquestioned over many a fair and fertile province of their mighty empire, bearing absolute sway wherever forest waved or river flowed, wherever brick was laid on brick for human habitation, or smiling surface, tilled by human hands, grew fat with corn, and wine, and oil; but was not their boundless waste the heritage of the sons of Anak? and scouring it at all seasons, as in all directions, how were they to be eluded by assailants who would penetrate into their dominion? what tactics or what stratagems could foil those watchful eyes, keen as the vulture's poised in their burning sky, those matchless horses, swift and untiring as the wind that swept their desert sands?
"We are indeed safe, my beloved," said Sarchedon, after recapitulating the many difficulties with which an enemy who sought them would have to contend. "Safer here than we should be in the fortress of Ascalon, guarded by wall and rampart, bristling with bow and spear; for while the chariots of our foes were labouring far beyond the horizon, one of our long limbed brethren would come galloping lightly in to give us warning, and even if they ever reached our nest, it would be cold many hours before they found it. I should be loth to leave it too," he added, surveying with extreme content the pleasant refuge in which they had taken up their rest; "for in all the paradises of Babylon was never so green and lovely a spot as this!"
Contrasted with the arid waste that stretched around them to the sky, it seemed, indeed, a fair and peaceful retreat. Like the mirage of the desert, it was adorned by a knot of waving palms, a glittering lake, a breadth of verdant pasture, a thicket of tufted grass, bending reeds, and aromatic shrubs. Like the mirage too, it was difficult to find, but unlike the mirage, it was dotted with a goats' hair tent, at the door of which, smiling and unveiled, she sat for whose sake Sarchedon had abandoned friends, fame, ambition, country: his treasure, his pearl of price, the fairest woman in all the earth—but one.
"I dread only Ninyas," said Ishtar. "For I know the young king's wilful spirit, and the proud heart that cannot endure to be crossed or thwarted in its desire. Only Ninyas for myself," she added, with a wistful smile, "and—and the Great Queen for you."
"The Great Queen!" he repeated, laughing lightly. "Ere now I must surely have had more than one successor, and doubtless I am forgotten, as though I had never been; indeed I hope—I hope it may be so."
While he reiterated his wish, she looked sharply and inquiringly in his face, withdrawing her eyes, however, in some confusion, when his glance met her own. He perceived it not, and Ishtar scarce knew whether she was vexed or gratified to mark how the jealous anxieties of love had thus been quenched in the frank confidence of possession, but on reflection set his blindness down to the engrossing nature of his occupation, for he was busy shaping one of those short thick clubs used by desert horsemen in chase of the ostrich, to be hurled at the bird's long legs, while they rode her down.
"I shall be back at sunset," said he, putting the finishing touch to his wooden weapon, and loosing the tether of his horse ere he sprang to the saddle, "then shall Ishtar have at her tent-door such a tuft of plumes as were never seen even before the pavilion of the Great King."
She was scanning the far horizon with anxious eyes. "I pray you go not forth, beloved," she murmured. "There is a dull blurred line yonder, where sand and sky meet. Already the whirlwind is stirring in his sleep. Surely, he will wake up in his fury before night."
Her lord laughed and shook his bridle, waving a light farewell as he rode away; while Ishtar turned wistfully into the tent and wondered if he never regretted enterprise, fame, ambition, all he had foregone for her sake; if he never let his thoughts wander back to the matchless beauty and fatal smile of the Great Queen.
So the woman pondered, half in sadness, asking untoward questions of her own anxious heart, and the man sped merrily over the plain, rejoicing in the freedom of the saddle, leaving care to plod hopelessly in his tracks, as he galloped on.
But though her eye brightened and his soul rejoiced, because of the boundless waste and the free desert air, there was death in his right hand. The poor ungainly ostrich lay bleeding at his feet, her legs broken by his skill, her wings despoiled of their precious tufts, to make a gift for the woman he loved.
The sun was yet high when he turned bridle towards his home, and peering about him in search of those scarce perceptible inequalities on its surface, which form the landmarks of the wilderness, he found cause to remember Ishtar's warning, while for a moment his heart stood still, with a sense of coming danger, such as braces the brave man for mortal conflict, and bids the coward tremble with mortal fear.
Where the palms that nodded above his tent should have broke the level sky-line, there was no horizon now. Only shifting misty shadows, dull, dim, and tawny, a fusion of earth and heaven. He could bear to look on the sun too, glowing yonder like a ball of burnished copper, and he knew what that rim of violet foretold—a cruel portent—beautiful exceedingly.
There was a falling glitter in the air, as if it were raining gold, and his horse snorted violently, betraying symptoms of restlessness and alarm. O for Merodach now! Merodach, whose bones were bleaching far away, where the dead lay in heaps under the wall of Ardesh.
He pressed into a gallop, nevertheless; for a dun cloud-like column, growing in height and volume as it approached, was moving steadily towards him, in many whirls and gyrations, yet, fast as he rode, gaining on him with every stride. The sky had darkened, and the fine particles of sand with which the air was filled blistered his skin, choking his nostrils and penetrating into his very lungs.
Then the mighty rush of the whirlwind roared in his ears, turning his linen head-dress over his face, driving man and horse before it in an opaque, impenetrable cloud of sand.
He had once dreamed of such a death. Could this be his fate, and had it indeed overtaken him at last?
He thought of Ishtar at the tent-door, looking for one who never came; he thought of the other woman who had loved him—his temptation, his evil spirit, his enemy, beautiful and wicked, Semiramis the Great Queen.
Driving on, as a ship at sea drives before the tempest, he was aware of certain phantom shapes, some few spear-lengths off, that loomed gigantic in the fatal cloud. Were they real or but creatures of his brain, already maddened by a sense of suffocation? Perhaps demons of the simoon, triumphant, derisive, rejoicing in his destruction. No; they were surely earthly forms—two or three horsemen plunging up to their girths, and a dromedary in the midst. Were they waving to him for help, or only struggling and gesticulating in blind perplexity, in the agony of a fierce despair? The whirlwind drove him nearer, nearer yet. He could distinguish the reddened eye of the dromedary, and its distended nostril craving for a breath of air, while choked with sand.
There came another mighty rush and roar to stun him as with a blow. Half conscious, he was aware of a face that moved before him through the gloom like a vision of the night—a dreamy face, calm, fearless, beautiful, smiling its sad farewell. Even at such extremity his heart leaped up with keen guilty throbs, for in that passing vision it recognised the face of the Great Queen.
Deeper and thicker grew the darkness; louder and fiercer roared the storm. A gleam of white seemed to flit before his eyes ere they were blinded by the driving sand. His horse struggled, fell, and rose again, trembling with exhaustion and fear; but the air had cleared now, and he could see, half a bowshot before him, a fair dove winging her flight calmly on towards the light of day. Looking back to where his peril had been shared by those shadowy wayfarers, he only noticed a few slight undulations on the surface of the desert—a rolling wave or two of sand to mark the terrible track of the simoon, and hide his buried secrets, whatever they might be.
Following the dove, as it flitted before him, Sarchedon rode slowly on, pondering many things in his heart, but never taking his eyes off the bird that was guiding him home. At sunset, lighting down beneath the palms he loved, it circled twice round his head, and disappeared within the darkness of his tent.
Entering in, he was encircled by the arms of Ishtar, who laid her cheek against his breast, and wept for very joy because of his safe return.
"Where is the dove," he asked, "that flew before me through the tent-door even now?"
"There is no dove here but me," said Ishtar tenderly. "O, Sarchedon, for you I would ever be the Bird of Love!"
He looked fondly down in those trustful pleading eyes. "The Bird of Love," he answered, "and better, dearer still—the Bird of Peace!"
[1]Jupiter, Mercury, Saturn, and Venus.
[1]Jupiter, Mercury, Saturn, and Venus.
[2]Rather the seven spheres, or the five planets with the sun and moon.
[2]Rather the seven spheres, or the five planets with the sun and moon.
[3]Tartan, the general in command.
[3]Tartan, the general in command.
The Gresham Press,UNWIN BROTHERS,WOKING AND LONDON.