"I pass'd without the city gate,I linger'd by the way;The palm was bending to her mate,And thus I heard her say,'The arrow to the quiver,And the wild bird to the tree;The stream to meet the river,And the river to the sea.The waves are wedded on the beach,The shadows on the lea;And like to like, and each to each,And I to thee.'The cedar on the mountain,And the bramble in the brake;The willow by the fountain,And the lily on the lake;The serpent coiling in its lair,The eagle soaring free,Draw kin to kin, and pair to pair,And I to thee.'For everything createdIn the bounds of earth and sky,Hath such longing to be mated,It must couple, or must die.The wind of heaven beguiles the leaf,The rose invites the bee;The sickle hugs the barley-sheaf,And I love thee.By night and day, in joy and grief,Do thou love me?'The palm was bending to her mate,I marked her meaning well;And pass'd within the city gate,The fond old tale to tell."
"I pass'd without the city gate,I linger'd by the way;The palm was bending to her mate,And thus I heard her say,
'The arrow to the quiver,And the wild bird to the tree;The stream to meet the river,And the river to the sea.The waves are wedded on the beach,The shadows on the lea;And like to like, and each to each,And I to thee.
'The cedar on the mountain,And the bramble in the brake;The willow by the fountain,And the lily on the lake;The serpent coiling in its lair,The eagle soaring free,Draw kin to kin, and pair to pair,And I to thee.
'For everything createdIn the bounds of earth and sky,Hath such longing to be mated,It must couple, or must die.The wind of heaven beguiles the leaf,The rose invites the bee;The sickle hugs the barley-sheaf,And I love thee.By night and day, in joy and grief,Do thou love me?'
The palm was bending to her mate,I marked her meaning well;And pass'd within the city gate,The fond old tale to tell."
When he ceased, she rose on him like a ghost, from behind the parapet. In another moment her veil was up, her sweet lips parted in a greeting that was rather breathed than spoken, and both hands were abandoned to the caresses of her lover.
"Ishtar," he murmured, "queen of my heart! I scarcely dared to hope, and yet IknewI should find you here."
"I thought not you would come," she whispered, for a girl's modesty thinks no shame to veil with ingenuous falsehood the truth of which she is really proud. "But I could not sleep—I could not rest under a roof—the war is over—my own dear father has returned safe. O Sarchedon! this has been such a happy day."
It was the first time she had called him by his name, and the endearing syllables dropped like honey from her lips. It was no more to be "noble damsel," "my lord's handmaiden," but "Ishtar," and "Sarchedon," because they knew they loved each other with all the rich warmth, the stormy passion of their race and climate.
"A happy day!" he repeated, rather bitterly; "and a day of victory for the fairest maiden in the land of Shinar! Think you it was such a happy moment forme, Ishtar, when I saw the love-gift hurled from our prince's chariot to your feet?"
She had not been a woman, could she have quite suppressed a double sense of triumph—of vanity gratified by the homage of a prince, and, sweeter far, of pride in his own avowal that she could excite the jealousy of him she loved. Very tender was her smile, very soft and kind her glance, while she replied:
"You may judge how I value the gift when I tell you the handmaidens are shredding herbs in it even now. Yet is he a goodly youth, our young lord, and a comely—fair he must surely seem inyoureyes, Sarchedon, for is he not the very picture of his mother? andyouof all men would be loath to dispute the beauty of the Great Queen."
It was a feminine thrust, and planted fairly home; but here in Ishtar's presence it rather roused in him a feeling of alarm, lest he should lose the blossom in his hand, than any wish to reach the riper and costlier fruit hanging above his head.
"Beloved!" he answered gravely, "the desire of queens and princes is like the hot wind of the desert, that blasts and scorches where it strikes. It matters little what befalls Sarchedon, if he loses her who has become the jewel of his treasure-house, and the light of his path. With the young prince, to see is too often to covet, and to covet, too surely to possess! It may be, that ere the days of triumph are over, he will have asked you of Arbaces in marriage, and whither shall I go for comfort then, if I am to look nevermore on the only face I love?"
That face showed strangely pale in the wan light of the stars and crescent moon. There was a thrill of deadly fear in the whisper that appealed so piteously for succour and protection.
"Save me, Sarchedon, save me! It would be worse than death. What shall I do? What shall I do?"
He pondered, pressing the hand he held fondly to his eyes and forehead.
"Arbaces would not barter you away for treasure, like a herd of camels or a drove of captives?" he asked, after a pause.
"My father loves me dearly," she answered. "I know he fears to lose me; for he has often said, if I were to vanish from his side, like my mother, he would never wish to come out of his war-chariot alive!"
"She was a daughter of the stars," said Sarchedon abstractedly; "their love is fatal to mortal men! You see, I have learned it all, and yet I care not—I have but you in the world!"
The daughter of the stars, he thought, had surely transmitted her celestial beauty to the girl who now bent fondly over him, and shook her head.
"They say so!" she answered. "But Arbaces is loath to be questioned, and I know not what to think. She may have been the child of a priestess of Baal, espoused to the god. I cannot believe that the stars have come down from their thrones for the love of women in these later days, since the plague of waters in the olden time, before the great tower of Belus was built. I only know I would I had my mother's beauty and my father's fame, and the wealth of the Great Queen, that I might bestow it all on the man I love. You would be rich, Sarchedon, and of high repute; while I should be——very, very happy!"
"Then, if Ninyas sent to ask you of your father," whispered the young warrior, "you would be loath to go and rule over him and his in a palace of gold?"
"Better to serve Sarchedon in a tent of goat's-hair," was the answer; "better by far draw water at the Well of Palms for your herds, your camels, and the fair horse you rode that happy morning; better to be the meanest and lowest of your slaves, than never see your kind face again!"
Vanity, pride, ambition—the dazzling career open to him—the lustrous beauty of the queen: what were they to such love as this, but the flash and glitter of tinsel, compared to the ray of a real diamond? If a thought of Semiramis and her fatal favour crossed his brain, it did but spur him on to secure his happiness ere she could thwart it, to remove Ishtar, ere it was too late, from the sphere of the queen's displeasure, and the still more dangerous admiration of her son.
"Then I will ask you of your father before another day has gone down!" exclaimed Sarchedon, stealing his arm round that lithe slender figure, leaning over the parapet, like the palm-tree bending to meet her mate. "To-morrow will I send into the court below a score of camels and a hundred sheep, with a suit of the truest armour that ever brought the captain of a host unwounded out of battle, and my young men shall say to Arbaces—'they seek but Ishtar in return.'"
"So my father will summon me from amongst my maidens, to know if peradventure his daughter's heart hath gone forth to him who is so lavish of sheep and camels, so skilled in choice of armour, and what shall I say then?"
Only from the depths of a young girl's heart, happy and triumphant in her honest love, could have risen the smile that beamed on Ishtar's face. It was reflected in Sarchedon's eyes, while he answered:
"The daughter of Arbaces will tell him, that where her heart has gone forth, thither must Ishtar needs follow, and she will be mine!"
"And she will be yours!" repeated the girl, with a great sob of womanly happiness, tempered by maiden shame, the blood rushing to her face, while she hid it on her lover's breast.
Fast as her heart was beating, it had scarce counted a score of pulsations ere tramp of horses, call of servants, and flash of torches in the court below, announced the return of Arbaces from his duties about the Great King.
No sooner had he dismounted at the porch of his palace than the fond familiar voice was heard, asking loudly for his daughter; and gliding like a shadow from the embrace of Sarchedon, she was gone.
Yet even in that brief moment during which her brow was pressed against his bosom, she had discovered the amulet he wore, and knew, as women only do know such things, that it was not there when she saw him last.
Perhaps to an impulse of female tenderness was added the stimulant of female curiosity, when she whispered, even in the act of escape:
"To-morrow, beloved one, at the same hour. You will tell me then whence comes that jewel, and—and—if it was given you by the queen!"
Turning stealthily to depart, with his hand on the amulet, doubtful whether he would not tear it from his neck and trample it under foot, but in the mean time leaving it where it was, Sarchedon felt conscious of a strange depression, of vague misgivings, as though some future evil were casting its shadow about him ere it came. The air felt heavy, the night was darker, the stars had become dim. It seemed a different world as he passed along the silent streets towards his home, and those keen senses of his, quickened by the practice of war, must have been strangely blunted, that he neither saw the form nor heard the footsteps of one who had watched his interview with Ishtar from first to last.
Sethos, no less nimble of foot than he was light of hand and heart, made such good haste in returning to the queen's palace, that he found Ninyas still seated at the banquet, flushed with wine, and more reckless, more impetuous, as he was more beautiful, for the excess.
"You are a trusty hunter," laughed the prince, steadying his uncertain steps as he rose with a hand on his favourite's shoulder, "and you followed the good hound bravely to the thicket where lies the deer? What think you? Is she worth the bending of a bow?"
"My lord had already wounded her with a random shaft," answered the cup-bearer. "It is the daughter of Arbaces, who flung him the posy of flowers as his chariot passed beneath her in our triumph."
The intelligence seemed to sober Ninyas on the instant.
"And it is Sarchedon who contends with me," said he, pondering. "By the brows of Ashtaroth, the sport grows to earnest now, and the prize will be won by him who can strike first!"
Hastening from the queen's palace towards his stolen interview with Ishtar, Sarchedon had not failed to observe the white robe of a priest in the neighbourhood of the Israelitish exiles, though his preoccupation forbade his identifying the person to whom it belonged. Sethos, on the contrary, whose wits were more at their master's service, had no difficulty in recognising Assarac, and marvelled in his own mind what interests could exist in common between the haughty servant of the Assyrian god, and this fettered prisoner, a captive even amongst the captives of the Great King's bow and spear. Could he have overheard their conversation, his curiosity would indeed have been sharpened, but any ideas he might have previously conceived regarding supernatural influences must have sustained a shock very confusing to his understanding and his faith.
His interests, however, were of the earth, earthy, and he left to such aspiring spirits as the high priest of Baal those abstruse speculations which would fain penetrate the mysteries of another world.
Assarac only waited till the last of the revellers had departed, the last of the thousand torches flaring in the palace court had been extinguished, to glide through the band of captives and lay his hand on the shoulder of him who seemed chief amongst the Israelites.
"Arise," said he, "my brother. Comfort your heart, I pray you, with a morsel of bread and a draught of wine, while your servant spreads his mantle for your ease, and loosens the fetters on your limbs."
He took the cloak from his own shoulders while he spoke, and folded it round the prisoner, releasing him at the same time from the chain that clanked and rung with every movement of wrist or ankle.
The Israelite accepted these good offices with the imperturbable demeanour he had preserved through all the incidents of his captivity. Standing erect by the priest of Baal, he seemed to look on his liberator with a mild and condescending pity not far removed from contempt.
Scanning him warily and closely in the dubious starlight, Assarac could not but admire the lofty bearing and personal dignity of this chief amongst a nation of bondsmen. His marked features, dark piercing eyes, ample beard, and venerable aspect denoted the sage and counsellor, while his well-proportioned figure, with its shapely limbs, inferred an amount of physical strength and activity not always accompanying the nobler qualities of the mind.
There was a strange contrast between the eunuch's shifting restless glances, his looks of eager curiosity, half doubtful, half scornful, altogether suspicious and dissatisfied, with the expression of quiet superiority and contented confidence that glorified the Israelite's face, imparting to it a calm majesty like the light of sunset on a mountain.
"You offer bread," said he, "and pour out wine unto him who hath neither cornland nor vineyard. Therefore shall your harvest and your grapes return you an hundredfold."
"Baal will not suffer me to want," replied the other. "Shall I, then, see my brother hunger and thirst, while I have enough and to spare? Are you not of our race and kindred? Are not your oppressors our ancient enemies? Do we not come of one lineage and worship the same God?"
The Israelite pointed upward to the stars, and shook his head.
"Our fathers have taught us otherwise," said he solemnly; "and I, Sadoc the son of Azael, standing here in the bonds of my captivity, protest against your idols, your temples and your worship, your gashes and drink-offerings, your winged monsters, your sacred tree, and all the thousand unworthy forms to which you degrade the majesty of the Omnipotent and the Infinite!"
Assarac smiled with the frank liberality of a disputant who in admitting his adversary's premises narrows, as it were, the field in which to do battle.
"Symbols," he answered, "symbols; the mere outward efforts of that inner spirit of worship which must find vent, like the mind of man, through the senses. He can see but with the eye, he can hear but with the ear, he can impart his thoughts only in those forms of speech that his tongue has learned to frame, and his fellows have skill to comprehend. How shall you express the principle of heat but by fire? How shall you comprehend the majesty of light but through the sun? How can you form a nobler ideal of spirits, gods, and departed heroes than in those serene and silent witnesses who never weary of their endless watches in the unfathomable night?"
"So you send a thousand labourers to the mountain," replied Sadoc, pointing scornfully at the sculptures on the palace wall, "and bid them rend the granite from its unyielding sides till they have hewn out a creature such as was never seen in earth or sea or sky—a creature of make and qualities in direct defiance to that nature you profess to reverence—winged like a bird, headed like a man, limbed like a bull—a monster, grotesque, impossible, imposing only from its gigantic size and truthful outline. You rear it up at a prince's doorway, and call on men to fall down and worship before the hoofs of that which is lower than the lowest of the brutes in the system of creation!"
"Are you a priest among your people?" asked Assarac quickly.
"Every head of a family is the priest of his own household," was the dignified reply. "There need no mysteries for a worship sublime as the eternal heavens, and clear as the light of day."
"Yet surely you cannot move the multitude without extraneous influences stronger and more tangible than those truths of the inner shrine which we the initiated know and accept at their real value," argued Assarac. "That very figure which you scorn speaks to the senses of the Assyrian nation far more forcibly than all the promptings from within that ever moved a prophet to leap and howl and gash himself with knives before an altar, while he foretold great actions and mighty events that should never come to pass. Not a spearman in the Great King's host but, when he looks on these carven blocks of granite, walks with a prouder step and shakes his weapon in a stronger hand. He sees in that mighty frame the over-powering forces that have made his race conquerors of the world; in that majestic face, calm and indomitable, the true spirit of victory marching unmoved over the ruins of an empire as over the ashes of a peasant's hearth; in those unfurled wings, the ubiquity of a dominion that can command ships for the sea, camels for the desert, and horsemen swarming like locusts to overrun the fertile plain. It is no representation of mere nature evoked by the toil, skill, and indeed the sufferings of countless labourers, but of that spirit which dominates and subdues nature for its own aggrandisement and fame. Where is the type of godlike dominion to be found, if not here, in this impersonation of conquest: strength, intellect, and audacity combined?"
Sadoc pointed to an Egyptian child sleeping a few paces off with a wild-flower grasped in its little hand.
"Is there less of the godlike power," said he, "in the skill that put together leaf and blossom for the delight of that poor infant, who has no other joy nor comfort?"
Assarac pondered.
"There must be gods," he replied, "as there are stars, differing in magnitude and glory. Dagon hath dominion on the waters, Anu and Abitur in the mountain, Merodach raging in battle is yet subject to Ashur, and even that monarch of the mighty circle yields to his irresistible superior, and bows before the sentence of Nisroch, with the eagle's head."
"And your Nisroch," continued the Israelite; "hath he not also a master at whose word he spreads his wings and flies to the uttermost parts of the desert? Whence comes he? Who gave him his eagles head and his feathered shoulders? If he is substantial, he must be perishable; and when he has passed away, who will make another god for the land of Shinar, and what shall he be called?"
"You speak with reason," replied the priest of Baal, "and you speak to one who has watched many a long night from the summit of the tower above us, and pored on those starwritten scrolls till his brain reeled, to learn that mystery which rules the heavens, and apply it to the government of men below. You speak wisely indeed. Who shall make a god for the land of Shinar? He it is who shall bring the whole Eastern world beneath his feet."
"I speak not of gods made by men's hands," answered Sadoc. "The time must surely come ere long when there will be one worship of the true God through all the earth, as there is one sun that shines over the whole heaven. Clouds may obscure it for a season, but no less doth it exist in its warmth and splendour, giving vitality to creation and light to day."
"When there is but one worship, there will be but one dominion," argued Assarac. "The altar and the temple will then become the judgment-seat and throne, while the high-priest will be the true monarch and ruler over all. Listen, my brother; for indeed here in the house of your captivity you have found a friend. I am a priest of Baal, as you behold; but in truth I am no hot-brained votary who mistakes his own intoxicated frenzy for the inspiration of a god. My subordinates may gird their loins to leap and run and gesticulate, shedding their own blood the while in crimson streams. Such extravagances are foreign to my nature, and below the dignity of my worship. I am a priest of Baal, but I am also an Assyrian descended from a line of warriors, and to me the greatness of my country is the paramount object and interest of life. What else have such as I, who are severed, without being alienated, from their kind? To extend an empire founded by our father Nimrod from the Bactrian mountains to the Southern sea, to behold the standards of Merodach waving on the confines of Armenia and over the gates of Memphis, while conscious that I, Assarac the priest, had set in motion the armies of victory and guided the march of triumph, were worth all the fire-worshipper's dreams of luminous immortality, all the starry thrones of the gods who are supposed to be looking down in judgment on us even now."
"And when your wishes have been fulfilled," said Sadoc quietly—"wishes only to be accomplished through much bloodshed, cruelty, and sin—you will not be one whit happier than now."
The other laughed in scorn.
"Is fame nothing?" he asked. "Is power nothing? Is it nothing to cast down the mighty from their golden thrones, and to raise the lowly, as I have raised you to-night, from fetters of iron and a bed on the cold earth? Teach me the lore of your worship, as I will impart to you my own secrets of priestcraft, and hereafter—ay, sooner than you may think—I will set you in judgment over a score of nations, in a purpled robe, with a sceptre in your hand."
"Mylore!" repeated Sadoc, with a sad smile. "You would deem it beneath your understanding, as it would be above your practice. It is but to do justice, and to love mercy, dealing with man as before the face of God."
"But surely you have learned important secrets amongst the Egyptians?" urged Assarac, somewhat disappointed with this exposition of the Israelite's simple creed. "Surely they have taught you mysteries of magic and the art of divination, in which they boast their proficiency, handed down, as they profess, through scores of dynasties and hundreds of successive generations. Or is it true that your nation have been the teachers, and Egypt, with all her pride, is but the pupil of a people who took with them from this very land the art that we, its present inhabitants, have lost, the spells that compel gigantic spirits to work out their behests—rearing colossal buildings, causing wide tracts of desert to blossom like the rose, bidding the very waters of the great deep to subside and overflow at their will?"
"You know not our nation," answered Sadoc, "nor have you felt the iron hand of our oppressors, who practice the forbidden arts of which you speak, but with no result that hath ever spared groan or stripe to a single captive. The Israelite must toil under the scourge for his scanty morsel of bread. The great river indeed rises and falls at the command of one who is mightier than our task-masters, and who will not surely forget his people for ever in their bonds; but for the huge shapeless structures—the gigantic monster idols of the South—they are reared by a magic of which blood, sweat, and hunger constitute the spells, under the fierce eye that never sleeps, the cruel hand that is never raised but to urge, and smite and destroy. Yet when our fathers were driven by famine into Egypt they found there one of their own people, reigning wisely over a prosperous nation, and second only to Pharaoh on the throne; they found themselves honoured guests where now they are degraded prisoners, friends and allies where now they are hated and despised, masters, in truth, where they are slaves! And slaves to those who are themselves sunk in the degradation of a vile and brutal idolatry."
His eye blazed, and his very beard seemed to bristle with anger, while he spoke. It was in such flashes of indignation or excitement that the likeness of kindred races was to be noted on the features of Israelite and Assyrian.
"You scorn the gods of Nimrod," replied Assarac, with a sneer; "but the fathers from whom we claim a common descent have taughtus, at least, a nobler impersonation of our worship than the goose, the serpent, the stork, the locust, and the cat! If we choose the lotus, the fir-cone, or the beetle to convey an idea of that reproductive power in nature, always existing even when dormant, as the flower in the bud, or the blade in the seed, at least we do not hang our temples with carvings of the humblest animals, the most loathsome reptiles, and the meanest utensils of our daily life! It is baser, I grant you, to adore the stars than the principle which gives them light, baser to kneel before the sculptured image than the god it represents; but basest surely of all worship is that practised by the cruel Egyptian, the enemy whomwehave humbled, the master who is grindingyourpeople into dust!"
"Our God will surely free us," said Sadoc, in a low mournful tone. "It cannot be that we, the lineal descendants of his favoured servant, are to remain for ever in the house of bondage, eating the bitter morsel of slavery, weeping tears of blood under the task-master's lash! But we have neither arms nor leaders; there is no proven harness in our dwellings, nor sword, nor shield, nor spear. How are we to go out from our enemies in the garb of peace, with our wives and children in our hands? And yet, I pray that it may come to this—I, for one, would march out fearlessly to die in the wilderness rather than gather another armful of straw, bake one more brick for the useless structures that only bear witness to our sorrows and our shame."
The pride of race, the intense consciousness of a peculiar destiny, in all ages an inheritance of the sons of Abraham, gave to the words of Sadoc a truth and bitterness, marked with no slight satisfaction by the scheming priest of Baal.
"Hands that have toiled so skilfully for their task-masters," said he, "can surely strike a blow in their own behalf. Courage that has borne long years of suffering and privation will not fail at the moment of liberation and revenge. You and yours are of our blood and lineage. You shall be no captives in Babylon, as you have been in Egypt. This very night I will take order for your food and lodging—nay, fear not, they shall be found you without the temple, if indeed you entertain any scruples as to entering the abode of Baal—and you shall return to your own people in safety and honour, as a son returns to the dwelling of his father with a gift in his hand. You will tell them that here, in the great city, our warlike Assyrians look on the Israelites as their kinsmen and friends; that when the oppressed rises against the oppressor, and the children of Terah resolve once for all to throw off the Egyptian yoke, they will see a cloud rising out of the desert from the trampling of horses, countless as locusts in a west wind—they will hear a thousand trumpets sounding far and wide from the hosts of the Great King!"
The Israelite's eye sparkled and his cheek glowed but he answered solemnly,
"It must be a mightier king than yours, who leads us forth into the wilderness out of the house of our captivity."
Not the least sumptuous range of halls and chambers in the queen's palace had been devoted, from his boyhood, to the accommodation of her son. Here, surrounded by his own servants, he had lived ever since he could walk alone in princely state and magnificence, imitating, though on a less extended scale, the splendour of the Great King's court, and exacting from his attendants those ceremonious observances which somewhat chafed his father's spirit, causing the fiery old warrior to break out in words and gestures savouring rather of the swordsman's impatience than the monarch's dignity. Here too he had been trained under the queen's own eye in manly exercises befitting his rank, practising mimic warfare on the wide terraces of the royal dwelling, and even hunting the lion in dangerous earnest through its spacious paradise, a wilderness in the heart of the swarming city.
It had been the policy of Semiramis, as it was her pleasure, to keep the future monarch under her own eye and within her immediate influence, teaching him to depend on her alone for all his occupations and amusements, thus obtaining an ascendancy over his young mind, which daily custom rendered so easy and natural, that he never attempted to shake it off.
Arrogant at the feast, valorous in the fray, reckless and unscrupulous in the gratification of every passing desire, every whim of the moment, he was yet in his mother's presence the same loving wayward child, who, though wilful and petulant, had ever looked to her alone for succour and encouragement, had run to her knee with a bruised skin or a tear-stained face, and would have begged of her, with equal confidence, a bunch of grapes and a string of pearls worth a king's ransom.
It was not strange then, that, waking from his heavy slumbers after the banquet, with a vague impression of some unfulfilled desire burning at his heart, his first wish was for his mother's presence, even before he remembered the purpose for which he wanted her assistance and advice.
Semiramis, on this the morning after his return from a campaign in which her boy had won no slight reputation as a warrior, passing into his chamber according to custom, found him, as she had often found him before, tossing, heated, and restless on his couch, pushing his short dishevelled locks off his brow, while he turned on her a glance, half mirthful, half imploring, from eyes deep liquid and beautiful as her own.
The queen's head was tired, her dress arranged with the utmost skill and care, while in her gait and bearing there was a dignity of repose no less graceful than becoming; but if her dark locks had been unbound, her robes shaken into disorder, and her fair face heated with the flush of mirth, pleasure, or excitement, surely never had been seen so wondrous a resemblance as existed between that unquiet youth on the couch and the beautiful woman who bent over him to lay her hand against his hot forehead with a gesture of endearment and caress.
"What ails my boy?" asked Semiramis, looking fondly down on her graceless offspring. "Was the triumph yesterday so long and wearisome? the wine of Eshcol last night so rough and new? Or has he left his heart among the daughters of Egypt, in exchange for the fame and high repute of valour he has brought with him from the Nile?"
"I wish I had never gone there!" answered Ninyas petulantly. "I wish the reins had rotted in his hand who turned my chariot from the Gates of Brass to leave Babylon and all the pleasures it contained!"
"It would not have been like your father's child," said the queen, "to have forborne going forth to warfare with the host. You would not bemyson," she added more tenderly, "did not your heart leap to the rattle of a quiver and the roll of a chariot, wheeling at a gallop amongst the spearmen. Think you it was no pain to me when I sent you down yonder to learn your first lesson in war, under the eye of my lord the king? But you have made yourself a name for valour, and I am content."
"Valour!" repeated Ninyas. "Men have a strange way of computing courage and portioning out the fame, which is indeed of small value when you have got it. Is it such a great deed to be driven under shield in a chariot of iron through ranks of half-armed wretches flying for their lives? I saw one of our bowmen stand his ground in a vineyard, when we passed the Nile, having three arrows in his limbs and a spear through his body. But Arbaces scarce cast an eye on him as he drove by in hot haste to bring up the rearguard of spears; and I thought, if a man would be accounted mighty, it were well to be born a king's son. Valour indeed! That very day, an hour later, I would have bartered all the valour and all the fame of the Assyrian army for a cup of the roughest wine that ever burst a skin. I love pleasure, for my part; and whosoever will have it is welcome to my share of hunger and thirst, long marches, weary sieges, heat, privation, night watches, and all the troubles of war."
The queen smiled, well pleased, as it would seem, with this frank confession of opinions, in which of all women on earth she was the least inclined to share. Had she been a man, she thought, the saddle should have been her only home, the spear never out of her hand. Not even Ninus, with his insatiable desire for fame, should have flaunted so far and wide the banners of Assyria, so pushed the conquests of the mighty line founded by Nimrod the Great. And yet here was one of her own blood, her very counterpart, who, being of the stronger and nobler sex, could sit calmly down in the flush of his youth to scoff at warlike honours, to confess his unworthy preference of inglorious ease and material pleasures to the immortality of a hero.
"For one so young," said she, "you have already attained to high dignity. Even my lord the king has spoken of you as a judicious leader and a man of valour in fight. Arbaces himself was obliged to admit,—my son, you are ill at ease,—Arbaces, I say, though so devoted to the king's interests that he seems to look with an evil eye on the king's successor, could not but acknowledge that on the field you were a worthy descendant of the line of Ashur; though in camp, he added, the example of one prince was more injurious to the discipline of armies than the taking of ten towns by assault, with all the license and outrages of a storm."
There was enough of his father's nature in the lion's cub to bring the flash to his eye, the scowl to his brow, while he listened.
"Arbaces dared to speak thus ofme!" he exclaimed, springing to his feet, and grasping instinctively at a gilded javelin standing against the wall. "He must be a bold man, this chief captain of the Assyrian host."
"He must be a bold man," repeated the queen, "since he isyourenemy andmine."
"Let him beware!" said the prince. "I can take up my mother's quarrel as heartily as my own. He will have no woman to deal with if he crossesme. And yet," he added, sinking back on the couch, and turning his head aside amongst its cushions, "there is not in the whole empire one whom I would so gladly call my friend."
A shade of perplexity crossed the queen's brow; but she forced a careless laugh while she asked,
"What have you, the future ruler of all the earth, to gain from this war-worn spearman, whose very existence hangs on the breath of your father, my lord the king?"
He turned to her with one of the caressing gestures of his childhood; and even the queen's steadfast heart wavered for a moment in the merciless prosecution of her schemes.
"Mother," he said, "you have never denied me from my youth upward what I asked. Give me now the daughter of Arbaces, and I am content. If she be withheld from me, I care not to look on an unveiled woman again."
As the light of morning creeps over a fair landscape, the queen's smile brightened her face into matchless beauty; as the summer sky is mirrored in the lake, that smile was reflected on the glowing features of her son. Again how comely they were, and how alike!
"Is she then so fair," asked Semiramis, "this pale slender girl, to whom you flung a cup of gold yesterday from your chariot in return for a posy of flowers? Such exchanges, my son, are made every day in follies like yours; but I did not believe that a bow drawn thus at random could have sent its shaft so deftly through the joints ofyourharness. Is there magic about the girl, that she draws men to her feet with a mere look and sign? I have heard that her mother was a daughter of the stars."
"The daughters of earth are good enough for me," replied the prince. "But if this one comes not into my tent, I will never look in the face of woman again."
"The tent is not to be despised," answered Semiramis, glancing round the gilding and vermilion, the beams of cedar, the inlaid flooring, the purple hangings, of that painted chamber. "And she must be difficult to please, if she find fault with its lord. Nevertheless, there are obstacles in our way. Arbaces would surely neither wish nor dare to oppose us, and, if he did, could be silenced or removed. But how shall we set aside the opposition of my lord the king?"
"He would never consent," said Ninyas. "I know it too well. The mill-stone is not harder than the heart of the Great King. May he live for ever!"
"May he live for ever!" repeated the queen. "Those of Nimrod's race are indeed immortal; and you have little to hope from the lapse of time. Tell me, my son—do you really love this girl so much?"
"I would give my whole life afterwards," he answered passionately, "to bring her here into my dwelling for a year and a day."
At the moment, no doubt, he spoke truth. The stream of a passing inclination, stemmed by opposition and difficulty, had swelled into a torrent of desire he had neither power nor inclination to control.
"And if you might take this fair dove to your bosom," continued the queen, "would you consent to forego Babylon and its pleasures? Would you make your escape in secret, and remain for a season in seclusion, until the wrath of the Great King was overpast?"
"I am ready to go now," answered the impetuous boy. "My horses are of the purest breed in all the land of Shinar. I will fly with her to the ends of the earth."
"You need not go farther than Ascalon," replied his mother with a smile. "In mine ancient stronghold, rude and timeworn though it be, I can still count many a friend who would beard Ninus and all his line at my lightest word. And the common multitude are devoted to my service far more than in Nineveh, or even here in Babylon, which but for me would still have been a mere hamlet of huts in a marsh. My son, if ever you come to rule, trust no longer to the people's gratitude than while you have benefits to confer: the loyalty of a nation is seldom proof against a rise in the price of corn. Nevertheless, in lofty Ascalon you may be safe and secret enough, until time and my constant entreaties shall have softened the resentment of my lord the king. The girl is willing, of course," continued the queen, tenderly and in a half-sorrowful tone; "for such faces as yours are made to be the ruin of all who look on them too freely."
No woman, she was thinking, could resist that smile of her boy's—so fond, so winning, so like her own.
Ninyas hesitated; and once more his hand stole towards the javelin by the wall.
"There must be neither delay," said he, "nor hesitation. The girl would love well enough without doubt; but—but—" here the blood flew to his temples and the angry light to his eye—"another has seen her, and would fain make her his own: one who brought here tidings from the camp before the host marched in—a goodly youth and a brave warrior. Nevertheless, he must die."
"Not so," exclaimed the queen, turning pale. "Believe me, this is a matter to be carried through by the fine wit of woman, rather than the strong hand of man. You must abide wholly by my counsel. I have never failed you, my son. Shall I fail you now in this your great need?"
It is possible that, had he trusted implicitly to his mother's guidance, her heart might have been softened and her purpose set aside even now; but he flung his head up impatiently, and threatened where he should have confided or cajoled.
"I will not wait a day!" he exclaimed angrily. "I will not sit still while another is in my place. Sarchedon loves this girl very dearly, and in a few hours I may be too late."
"Sarchedon doesnotlove her," hissed the queen through her clenched teeth, while her face turned white. "Foolish boy!" she added, recovering her self-command, "with all your manhood and your valour, you are as much a child as when you cried on my knee for a lotus-flower or a pomegranate; and you must even have your toy to-day, at any sacrifice, though you tire of it to-morrow, like the wilful babe you are."
"I am satisfied when I have what I want," answered Ninyas. "Is it not so with us all, from the Great King to the spearman that marches by his chariot? Even Ninus will chafe and roar and lash himself into rage like the lion of the desert, if the merest trifle runs contrary to his whim. Am I not hisson, mother, as well asyours?"
"You are more easily ruled than your father," answered the queen. "And it is well for you, my boy, that with your mother's form and features you inherit her temperament—joyous, placable, and easily moulded to the wishes of those you love." She spoke in a light, bantering tone, not entirely devoid of scorn. "Carry your toy with you, if so it must be; but do not murmur at the measures I take for your safety, nor quarrel with the restraint that can alone preserve you from the king's anger, as a young warrior chafes under the weight of that harness which fences death from his heart."
"I only ask for the daughter of Arbaces," was his reply. "Give me the desire of mine eyes, and do with me what you will."
"You shall carry her off from her father's house to-night," said the queen. "Follow my counsel, and you shall pounce on the girl, swift and secure as the hawk when she strikes a partridge on the mountain. Ride out of the Great Gates, taking Sethos, or some one attendant whom you can trust, with bow and spear, as though you purposed hunting the lion in the desert. Let none see you return, but steal back to the city in the darkness of night. I will take order for such a band of spearmen to be under arms as no single household could attempt to resist, and I will place one at their head who knows neither compunction nor remorse. With these you shall force the gate of the chief-captain's palace. When they have gained possession of the court, I need scarce tell you, my son, so lately returned from warfare, the rights of those who occupy the stronghold of an enemy—the women's apartments are not far to seek. A shawl may be round her head, and the girl herself on the back of your best horse or swiftest dromedary, in less time than it will take to put to the sword such few servants as Arbaces can muster in the first watch of night. Ere the alarm is sounded and the city in arms, you should be many a furlong off in the desert, galloping towards your place of refuge, like a wild stag to the hill."
"And Arbaces?" asked Ninyas. "He has the courage of a lion. He will resist to the death."
"Arbaces will take his chance like another," answered the queen coldly. "An adversary who stands in the path, my son, must be ridden down ere we can pass on. Nevertheless, I will not have a hair ofyourhead fall in this business. A few priests of Baal shall accompany the spearmen, wrap one of their linen robes about you, and thus avoid detection as well as danger; but do not neglect to wear your armour underneath. Is that a proven harness I see yonder, thrown aside in the corner?"
"It is inlaid with gold," answered Ninyas lightly, "and curiously wrought; but Pharaoh's bowmen have blunted many a shaft on it, and it turns the thrust of a spear as it were a bulrush."
While he spoke, the queen had taken a helmet from amongst the other pieces of armour, and placed it, laughing, on her brows.
"They say I am like my mother," exclaimed her son, "in face and bearing. By the beauty of Ashtaroth, it must be true! When I look at you I seem to see my own image on the march stooping down to drink from a stream!"
It is well known that secrets are not to be kept from princes, and that for royal ears "the bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter," however scrupulously it may be hidden from curiosity of lower rank. Sarchedon's interview with Ishtar had been witnessed by Sethos, who reported it, as in duty bound, to Ninyas; and although that wilful youth, ignoring, according to custom, everything running counter to her wishes, never mentioned it to his mother, the whole affair came to her knowledge very soon after Semiramis had quitted the apartments of her son. It may be that in Assyrian palaces, below the surface of forms and ceremonies, stole an under-current of interest, intrigue, and license, which, eddying upward on occasion, troubled the courtly waters to the brim, and those who lived habitually in an atmosphere of luxury and magnificence refused to deny themselves certain relaxations of the heart or senses, that relieved the peasant's toil, and sweetened his hard-earned fare.
Sethos was a comely youth with laughing eyes. Kalmim a black-browed dame, joyous of temperament, and pleasant to look on as a summer's morning. It was natural that the woman's maturer tact and greater experience should lead the king's cup-bearer into confidences it had been wiser to withhold; and whatever Kalmim learned of good or evil, within or without the city walls, she lost no time in imparting to her mistress.
Semiramis listened, to all appearance undisturbed. Only the most practised of tire-women could have marked how the blue veins about her temples traced themselves more distinctly, how the colour turned a shade fainter in her cheek.
And yet what rage and self-contempt were tearing at her heart! That she, whose wishes were daily anticipated almost before they were formed, who, never since she arrived at woman's estate, and succeeded to her royal inheritance of matchless beauty, had left a desire ungratified, should find, here in Babylon, the citadel of her power, the very throne, as it were, of her dominion, a man who could resist the one and undervalue the other, preferring, to the Great Queen's favour, and such a destiny as the mightiest monarch on earth might envy, the smile of a sickly girl, the simple follies of a homely, humble, unpolluted love!
"Tire me nobly, Kalmim," said she, sitting before a mirror of burnished silver, that reflected her faultless form from head to foot. "There must be no crevice in mine armour to-day—not a fold must be ruffled, not a plait laid awry, since I go hence straightway into the presence of my lord the king." Thus to her woman, but to her own heart: "He will be on duty about the gates. He shall see how fair that face is he has dared to despise, and look on the beauty he undervalues, till he turns faint and sick and dizzy in its rays. I will crush him to the earth, and when he sues at my feet for the hope I bade him but yesterday to entertain, I will turn coldly away, and leave him to perish like a trampled worm. But he shall not go to this girl for comfort in his despair—no, he shall die! I have said it; he shall die! O Sarchedon, Sarchedon, I could not hate you so bitterly, did I not love you so well!"
And all the while not a quiver moved her eyelid, nor caused her jewelled hand to shake, while it smoothed the soft dark hair on her brow; the fair bosom itself, white, smooth, and polished, seemed also hard and motionless as marble. How different, the thought struck her, as she rose to depart—how different was that stately figure sweeping past the mirror from the flushed and panting woman, who, with shining eyes and heated cheeks, and dewy lips apart, had bent over the sleeping form of Sarchedon, to drop her love-token in the breast of him on whom she had set her heart! And yet, could it be because she had lost him, she asked herself, with fierce rage and longing, that he was a hundredfold more precious now?
There are women whom it is very dangerous to love, as in Eden there stood a tree that it was death to taste. But the forbidden fruit was gathered nevertheless; and these beauties seem to allure more than their share of victims, to win more than their natural meed of triumph. Perhaps it is their destiny to avenge on mankind the common wrongs of their sex, and to fall at last by the very weapons they have wielded so successfully in their march over a host of slain.
The old king's eyes were dim, and his senses failed him perceptibly, as life waned gradually, yet surely, like an unfed lamp, or a leaking vessel of wine. The pomp of royalty, the joy of battle, the feast, the pageant, the bright steel quivering in his grasp, the good horse bounding between his knees, what were they all now but shadows, memories, vague, idle dreams of the past? Was this the hand, he was fain to ask himself, that drew the heaviest bow in the broad land of Shinar, the arm that could drive a javelin through and through the lion's heart?
Yonder upon the wall was sculptured many a deed of prowess, many a noble triumph of warfare or the chase. Warriors in long array were marching to the battle or the siege; archers bent their bows, slingers and spearmen smote and slew and spared not; horsemen galloped, chariots rolled, and vultures soared over heaps of corpses. A bank was raised against a city, the battering-ram laid to its gates, while amidst a shower of arrows and javelins men were falling headlong from its walls to feed the fishes in the river below.
Again, linked in a cruel chain, the line of captives paced slowly by, bearing on their shoulders children, household stuff and goods, equally the spoil of their conqueror. The men marched sullenly, with downcast looks; the women beat their breasts and tore their hair. Here, with hook in his victim's nostrils, or knife to flay his naked flesh, a fierce warrior tortured some poor suppliant slave. There, proffering for a tribute the productions of his country—garments, gold, grain, animals wild and tame—some cringing wretch implored mercy at the feet of his executioner. But amongst all these scenes of strife, glory, and rapine, one figure still predominated, tall, fierce, and stately, the high tiara bound about its brows, bow and spear in hand; but, whether careering in the war-chariot over prostrate enemies, or sitting on the throne of state under the royal parasol, there was still poised above its head the winged mystery within a circle that heralded the sacred person of a king.
Could this be the same Ninus, he asked himself, whose limbs, so stiff and aching, now endured his silken robes with less patience than once they had carried his iron harness, whose head wavered and nodded on the lean neck that was once a tower of strength, proud, erect, colossal, like a column of stone?
And that winged figure in the circle. What was it? Did it really hover over them to protect the race of Nimrod in battle, or was this too a myth, a fable, a mere imposition of the priests? Should he know when he went to join his ancestors? and would it be long—how long!—ere he took his place among the stars?
There was not much to leave, after all! The wild bull had been driven from the plains, and could be found in no nearer fastness than the northern mountains now. He had himself exterminated the lion within the paradise round his palace, and it was weary work to ride in search of him over the scorching desert. Even the rush of battle was not what it used to be. Where were the men of the olden time, such as the champion he slew in Bactria, who stood two palms' breadths higher than the tallest warrior of either host, leaning on their spears to witness the single combat between a giant and a king? Or that fierce Ethiopian in the first Egyptian campaign, whom Pharaoh's chief counsellor had made captain of his armies for his matchless valour, and whose sturdy assault caused Ninus to reel and stagger where he stood, ere the swarthy swordsman went down under the buffets of the Great King, then in the vigour of his prime? But in his last expedition the armies of Egypt seemed to give way without a struggle before his spear, and it was hardly worth while to bid his chariot driver turn his hand into the press of battle. Even the wine of Eshcol was tasteless now; the wine of Damascus worse, and the feast had become loathsome to him as the fray. He was weary of it all, could give it up without a regret, but for the queen.
Feeling, in spite of his angry protest against his own misgivings, that the link which bound them together grew slighter every day—that, like a frayed bowstring, it must snap at last, and leave her free,—the love in his fierce old heart began to be tinged with a savage and unreasoning jealousy, such as made him intolerant of every glance she directed at another, of every moment she was absent from his side. He had summoned her to his presence with all those forms and observances, the necessary ceremonial of royalty, which chafed him now more than ever; and in his impatience he bade the light-footed Sethos hurry to and fro to see if the queen and her train of attendants were not yet at the gates, although from where he sat in his throne of state he could command a noble approach, some furlongs in length, through double lines of colossal monsters, leading to the wide entrance of his palace.
A jewelled cup, filled to the brim, stood neglected at his hand. Ever and anon he stormed at Sethos because the wine had lost its flavour, and the queen tarried so long.
"I could put on and prove ten suits of harness," said the angry old monarch, "in less time than it takes a woman to tire her head! And yet one hair of that comely head is surely better worth preserving than the whole of this worn-out body of mine, that hath scarce strength left to draw a bow or empty a cup. Saw you not, Sethos, how fair she looked on the wall above us when we rode in, slender and pliant like a spear bending beneath a truss of forage? Who was attending her, boy? My memory halts and fails me now worse than a ham-strung steed."
"Kalmim, my lord," answered the cup-bearer, "with certain of the women, and Sarchedon."
He was too good a courtier to mention Assarac, dreading the storm a priest's name was likely to bring down in the king's present mood.
"Sarchedon," repeated Ninus—"one of my own guards. A stout warrior enough, in the boy's play we call fighting now, and a comely youth—ruddy and comely as a maid. How came he absent from his duty in the ranks?"
"He had been sent by my lord from the host with the Great King's signet to the queen," was the reply. "He has remained in attendance on her ever since."
The old face turned gray with some hidden pang, and the blood-shot eyes rolled savage under their shaggy brows.
"By the beard of Nimrod, I will take better order with these golden guards of mine!" exclaimed the king. "Do they think, because Pharaoh and his bowmen are no longer flying before my chariot, I have beaten my sword into a pruning-hook, and have forgotten how to mount a war-chariot or set a company in array? Where is this deserter now?"
"He is on duty at the great entrance," was the respectful answer. "My lord the king may see him from where he sits."
Sarchedon, in truth, with a handful of his comrades, was on guard at the palace gate, conspicuous even amongst those goodly warriors by the beauty of his person and the splendour of his attire.
Ere the king could summon him to his presence, his attention was diverted by the approach of his wife, followed by the women of her household; a fair and fragrant company, that wound through the avenues of winged bulls and colossal monsters, like a growth of wild flowers trailing across the surface of a rock.
The king's eyes were not too dim to mark every movement of the woman he loved. His old heart began to beat faster and the blood stirred in his veins.
How fair and noble was the bearing of that shapely figure, as it glided on with the measured step that became her so well! How delicate and beautiful the pale face! so easily recognised even at a distance from which its features could not be distinguished, and bringing back to him as it was unveiled now, on entering her husband's dwelling, that well-remembered morning in Bactria, when she rode into the camp serene and radiant, like a star dropped down from heaven.
What was this? He started, and half rose from his throne; for she had paused amongst the guards, and one of them had fallen on his face at her feet.
Semiramis, who was above all the forms and ceremonies that trammelled weaker natures, breaking through them at will in court, camp, or palace, had resolved to take signal vengeance on Sarchedon whenever she should see him, careless alike whether they met in the desert, on the house-top, or here in the formidable presence of the king. She knew how to stab him too, and determined, at whatever cost to her own feelings, she would drive her thrust home.
How beautiful he looked, standing there in his golden helmet, with the scarlet-bordered mantle falling from his shoulders, and the white tunic reaching to his knee! Not Menon, she thought, when he wooed her by the silver lake that mirrored the towers of Ascalon, was half so fair; but Menon loved her dearly, while this man—well, she would make him eat the hardest morsel, drink the bitterest waters of affliction, and afterward he should die. What would be left her then? The love of this old dotard, the hollow pageantry, the empty pleasures, the heavy magnificence of a court. How she loathed them all! And what good would it do her even to attain supreme power if she must rule alone, without companionship, without sympathy, without love?
She had wavered in her purpose a hundred times ere she stepped as many paces. She was inflexible when she bade Sarchedon come forward from the line of his comrades, irresolute while he advanced and pitiless once more as he prostrated himself at her feet.
"You are entitled to ask a request," said she, very coldly and haughtily, "as having borne hither the signet of my lord the king. It is my part to intercede with him in your favour, and the old custom in our land of Shinar bids him grant your desire, even to the half of his kingdom."
His eyes lightened with pleasure, and her heart turned to stone. Yet even in that moment she marked that he still wore her amulet round his neck.
The name of Ishtar was on his lips, but some instinct of the palace—it may be something in the queen's face—forbade him to pronounce it. He had wit enough to bow his forehead in the dust, and to answer,
"I do but desire the light of her countenance, and permission to abide in the service of the Great Queen."
She was not deceived by his submission, though her eyes shone with a softer lustre while she continued, "Is there no treasure you covet, no post of honour you desire, no maiden in the whole land of Shinar you would fain take home with you to your tent?"
"I may not lift mine eyes to Ashtaroth," was his cautious reply. "If I must needs choose from among the flowers of earth, I would beg of the Great Queen to give me Ishtar, the daughter of Arbaces."
She was ready with her blow. Looking him full in the face, with the calm pitiless smile of one who puts some wounded reptile out of pain—
"It is too late," she said, in hard cutting accents. "The damsel has been promised to my son. Even now the prince is lifting her veil to salute his bride!"
In his agony he fell forward, grasping the queen's robe wildly in his hand.
The Great King sprang to his feet, his beard bristling, his very eyebrows shaking with ungovernable anger. For a space he could not even find voice to speak. Then he burst out,
"By the blood of Nisroch, it is too much! He has laid hands on the queen before my very face! Were he flesh of my loins and bone of my body, he should be consumed to ashes. Ho, guards, away with him! Cover his face and lead him forth!"
A score of hands grasped the offender, a score of spears were pointed at his breast. Though it was her own act, nay,becauseit was her own act, a strong revulsion of feeling caused the queen's stately form to shake from head to foot: and in that supreme moment she swore to her own turbulent heart that, come what might, even to the fall of the Assyrian empire, Sarchedon shouldnotdie!
She passed swiftly to the throne, and lifting the king's sceptre, laid one end of it against her forehead, while she placed the other in his hand.
"My lord," she said, "this is the feast of Baal. It is not lawful to slay an Assyrian born during the worship of the great Assyrian god."
There shone a red light in the king's eyes that meant death, and the foam stood on his lip. When he looked thus, it was in vain to sue for pardon. Nevertheless, he passed his wrinkled hand over the fair brow of the woman kneeling at his feet.
"Be it so," said Ninus. "To-morrow he shall die at sunrise. The king hath spoken."
Then the guards looked furtively in each other's faces; for all men knew from such a judgment there was no appeal, in such a sentence no hope of mercy or reprieve.
Sarchedon was hurried away in the custody of his former comrades, who, pitying the fate their experience taught them was inevitable, had yet discretion to take him from the presence of Ninus ere some hideous cruelty or mutilation should be added to his punishment. They were hardly out of the king's sight, however, when a priest of Baal, arriving in breathless haste, brought an order from Assarac to deliver up their prisoner in the temple of the god. On the festival of that national deity, unusual respect was paid to the sacerdotal character; and as, even amongst the guards of the Great King, Assarac's policy had taught him to cultivate friendship and acquire influence, the high priest's behest was obeyed readily, as if it had emanated from Arbaces or even Ninus himself.
Sarchedon therefore became only so far a prisoner that he was not permitted to pass the guards at any point of egress from the sacred building, but might roam at large through its spacious chambers, speculating on his chances of escape when night should fall, and he could take advantage of such secret communications as his knowledge of its votaries taught him must surely exist between the temple and the town.
Meantime, however, he was a caged bird, yearning wildly for freedom because of her whom he dearly loved. The queen's shaft was shot deftly home, and the poison with which it had been tipped did its work as cruelly as the pitiless archer could have desired. It was madness to think of Ishtar in the arms of Ninyas; to feel that, whilst he was a prisoner here, she might even be struggling for personal freedom, perhaps calling onhimto save her in vain.
But men trained to warfare acquire the habit of reviewing calmly all sides of a dilemma, neither undervaluing its difficulties nor despairing to vanquish them; especially they take into consideration the bearing of probabilities and the important doctrine of chance. It was not long before Sarchedon reflected he had himself seen Arbaces under shield and helmet within a brief space of the queen's arrival at her husband's palace; that if the espousals of his daughter were really taking place with a prince, the chief captain would hardly be absent from such a ceremony; and that Semiramis might have thought it not below her dignity to tell him an absolute falsehood for reasons of her own—reasons, he suspected, that ought to be flattering to his self-love and conducive to the safety of his person. It was impossible to mistake her avowed interest, her obvious condescension, her changing moods and the bitterness with which she accosted him in their late interview under the very eyes of the Great King. If Semiramis loved him, he thought, she would surely provide for his escape; and the first use he would make of his freedom should be to seek Ishtar and urge her to fly with him at once. Merodach could bear them both far beyond pursuit into the desert, where they would find a hiding-place from the king's merciless hatred and the queen's more cruel love.
Sarchedon, then, imprisoned in the temple of Baal, was hardly so ill at ease as the wilful imperious woman whose reckless malice had brought him to captivity and shame.
The old king scowled at her with fierce jealousy and rage as her eyes followed the retiring form of the culprit, hurried out of the royal presence with judicious promptitude by his comrades; but from the first moment Ninus ever looked on that winsome face, he had found in it a charm his heart was powerless to resist, and he was half subdued already ere she leaned towards him with tender confiding grace, and crossing her hands over his gaunt arm, rested her brow on them, while she murmured in low soft accents,
"I thank my lord that he has turned no deaf ear to the voice of his handmaiden. But enough of this. It is not well that Ninus should be moved by the misconduct of a thoughtless spearman born under an evil star. I have been summoned hastily to his presence. I feared he was ill at ease. Is it overbold of his loving servant to ask what ails my lord the king?"
"Nothing ails me," was the impatient answer; "nothing but the clamour of women's voices and the senseless outcries of priests. I sent for the queen," he added more gently, "because she is the light of mine eyes and the priceless jewel of my treasure-house."
Semiramis rose erect, and bowing her lovely head, stood with her hands crossed in the prescribed attitude of humility proper for a subject.
She knew right well that in no position could she show to more advantage; the pride of her bearing softened, the tender graces of her womanhood enhanced, by its expression of shy compliance, of loving submission to her lord.
"His servant hasted hither," said she, "on the instant the king's command reached her palace. I had scarce time to tire my head and smooth my robes. Yet I would fain look my best and proudest in the sight of my lord the king."
He gazed on her with a fond admiration that was touching to see in that war-worn old face, softening its rugged outlines and bringing into the sunken eyes something of the wistful fidelity with which a dog watches for the smile of its owner.
"Tired by a score of handmaidens," said he, "blazing in a hundred jewels, or dishevelled and disrobed, with her free locks floating to her knees, not the Queen of Heaven herself is to be compared to my queen, fair and matchless to-day as on that bright morning when I saw her ride through the camp like a vision, bow in hand, and granted her the very first boon she asked me, for love of her sweet face and her soft pleading eyes."
"And am I still so fair?" smiled the queen, while a flush of hope, triumph, and pride in conscious beauty deepened the colour on her cheek. "Nay, I shall scarce be brought to believe he is in earnest unless I can prevail on my lord the king to grant me once again the request I lay at his royal feet. If he loves me, surely he will not refuse; and—and Ithinkhe loves me a little still!"
"I will have him flayed alive who gainsays it!" answered Ninus. "I have ceased to love most things now, from the roar of battle to the bubble of a wine-cup. But may I burn like a log of cedar in the fire of Belus when I cease to love my queen!"
She shot at him one of those glances she could command at will, in which mirth, tenderness, and modesty were blended with the fire of love. "I believe it," she murmured gently. "Such an affection as ours is written in the stars, and kindles into flame at the first meeting of those who are destined for each other. It seems but yesterday that my lord burst on my sight like Shamash, god of day, rising in splendour on the camp, and I turned my head away to bury my blushing face in my hands, because—because, already I loved him only too well."
With the thrill that vibrated in every fibre of the old king's frame arose the invariable accompaniment of sincere affection—a sense of uncertainty and unworthiness.
"I was a stout warrior then," said he, "and not so uncomely, for one whose life had been spent in saddle and war-chariot; but the colour has faded on my cheek now, and worse, the fire has gone from my spirit like the strength from my limbs."
There was a plaintive ring in the deep hoarse voice, that must have touched any heart, save that of a woman with a purpose in view.
"Not so!" she exclaimed, hanging fondly about him. "Not so, my lord, my love, my hero! I swear by the host of heaven, that to me you are more noble, more kingly, more beautiful now, in the dignity of your past deeds and mature fame, than in all the vehemence and ardour of your impetuous manhood. Nay, my beloved," she added, half playfully, half sadly, while clinging yet closer to his side, "it is not I alone who think so; there were looks shot at my lord as he rode through the streets from the brightest eyes in Babylon, that had I not known full surely I was his only queen and love, would have made me so miserable I had fled straightway to the desert, and never looked on the face of man again."
Is there any age at which the male heart becomes insensible to such flattery? With ebbing life and failing vigour, battered and out-worn by a hundred battles, glorious in the splendour of a hundred victories, the Great King might surely have been above that boyish vanity, which counts for a triumph the empty gain of a woman's fancy; yet Ninus smiled well pleased, and Semiramis felt that her petition was already more than half granted, her game more than half won.
"They know a stout spearman when they see one still," said the old hero proudly, "and they judge by the ruin, doubtless, what the tower must have been in its prime. Well, well, it stood many an assault in its day, and from hosts of many nations, nor thought once of surrender, till my queen here marched in and took possession, with all the honours of war."
"And she has held it since against every woman in the world!" murmured his wife, with another of those resistless glances, and a bright flush. "Is it not so? Keep me not in the agony of suspense. Let me have the king's word for my great happiness, and swear, by the head of Nisroch, to grant me my desire!"
"I must hear first what it is," said the old warrior playfully; but observing the tears start to her eyes, he added in fond haste, "Nay, nay, beloved, the queen's petition shall be granted, whatever it be, even to the half of mine empire."
"It is more than that!" exclaimed Semiramis, with a smile as ready as her tears. "It is the whole empire I desire! I would fain sit in the seat of my lord the king, but only for a day."
Ninus shook his head. "You are like your boy," said he fondly. "Do you not remember when we took Ninyas for the first time to hunt the lion outside the walls, and the lad must needs ride Samiel, the wild war-horse, that bent to no hand but mine? By the blood of Merodach, he wept like a maid, and I had not the heart to refuse him; but when he was fairly in the saddle the tears soon dried on his cheek, for the horse broke away with him like the wind of the desert, from which he took his name. I tell you, while I stood there dismounted, I must have felt what men call fear! I never knew how I prized the boy, till my horse brought him back to me unhurt. Samiel loved not to be far distant from his lord; and now Samiel is dead, and his rider worn-out, and the queen—what was it the queen asked? That she too should ride a steed she cannot control? Does she know the pride of the Assyrian people, the turbulence of the crowd, the daily clamour for sluices to be opened and granaries unbarred, the craft of the priests, the false witness borne at the seat of judgment, and the weight of the royal word, which may not be recalled?"
But for the last consideration, the heart of Semiramis might have been softened towards one who, with all his crimes and cruelties, had yet been tender and loving in his home. The thought, however, of Sarchedon's doom, ratified and rendered inevitable by those fatal words, "The king hath spoken," swept all other considerations to the winds, and she never looked truer, fairer, fonder than now, while she answered in a tender whisper: