On the brow of the Comely King lowered a cloud of anxiety and concern. He sat in the great stone hall of his rude palace, surrounded by chiefs and followers, to take counsel with them for the turning of this overwhelming tide, and foiling of the enemy at his gate.
Though, contrary to the custom of his nation, he rarely tasted wine himself, mighty flagons and capacious drinking-cups stood within each man's reach, so that while they pondered and stroked their beards, and shook their shaggy heads with ominous wisdom, many a deep draught was quaffed by these rugged heroes in silent pledge to the weapon they professed to worship, and of which they boasted themselves the offspring. In the middle of the hall, on a massive stone altar, springing as it were from a groundwork of ferns and mosses, stood a naked broadsword, pointing to the roof; and not Baal himself, thought Sarchedon, in his stately temple of Babylon, with countless victims, streams of blood, libations of wine, and all the pomp of his white-robed priests, could have boasted a more sincere devotion than was offered by these rugged champions to the warlike symbol of their faith.
His bowbearer stood on the king's right hand. It did not escape him that, although treated by Aryas with marked confidence and consideration, angry brows were bent and suspicious glances levelled at him from many in the assembly, who seemed to take exception at this promotion of an alien to such a post, more especially at a time when the stranger's own countrymen were pressing them so hard.
The haughty Assyrian winced and chafed under these symptoms of ill-will like a gallant steed, whose rider dare not trust his mettle, resolving that, ere long, some daring act of valour in the field should reinstate him in the good opinion of warriors, to whom success was a convincing proof of merit, and desperate courage the only test of worth.
To rush fiercely against the ranks of his own nation, hewing, sword in hand, at the very men with whom he had heretofore broken bread in the city and marched to conquest in the field, went indeed sorely against the grain; but Sarchedon reflected that, besides the ties of gratitude which bound him to Aryas the Beautiful, there were many reasons, hardly less weighty, for his desertion from the banner of Ashur, and abandonment of his service under the Great Queen. To become once more a mere toy and plaything at the caprice of Semiramis was a thought too humiliating to be endured, even could he escape the usual doom of those on whom she cast a favouring eye, while it was probable that she would at once take cruel vengeance for the vexation and disappointment of which he had been unwittingly the cause. So long as she remained mistress of the world, it was hopeless for him to think of honour and safety, above all, of Ishtar, liberty, and love. But if the Assyrian host could be defeated under the walls of Ardesh—if, baffled, scattered, and disorganised, they could be driven back on the rugged defiles and barren deserts that lay between them and their home—what was there to prevent an Armenian army from marching to the gates of Babylon? and how could Ishtar escape his search, who, at the conqueror's right hand, would scour the land of Shinar through its length and breadth, till he found the woman whom he had never ceased to love?
While such thoughts were teeming in his brain, he was not likely to endure with patience doubts of his fidelity to the cause he had espoused.
Many and opposite were the opinions of the warlike council. Saræus, a wealthy chieftain, arrayed with something more of luxury than his fellows, and lord of many a fertile valley beyond Mount Aragaz, as yet unoccupied and unheard of by the Assyrian, urged strenuously the prudence of standing a siege.
"We have fuel," said he, "we have shelter; casks of wine to broach, herds of beasts to slay. Let us eat, drink, and be merry, while the enemy perishes with hunger at our gates. The river runs between us, our walls are strong, our rocks are steep. Like the eagle on her eyrie, I would sit with folded wings and scream my defiance to the leopard prowling below."
"Scream till thou art hoarse!" exclaimed Thorgon, a giant from the northern desert, armed in chain harness and clad in undressed skins, "but remember, 'He who hath the gullet of Saræus, should have his larder to keep it full.'"
There was a general laugh at this application of a well-known proverb, founded on the wealth and fertility of the last speaker's dominions, and the luxurious habits of their owner. Thorgon proceeded, much pleased with the effect of his unaccustomed eloquence:
"When thy father summoned me to council, O king, he never paused to take my vote on a question of peace or war. Aramus knew and trusted his old comrade well. 'Thorgon' said he, 'is a steed always saddled, a bow always bent.' I am ready, as I have ever been, to lead my long-swords into the fore-front of battle. But let not the king deceive himself: we have an enemy down yonder in the plain accustomed to conquer, inured to danger, skilled in all the arts and artifices of war. This is no broad-leafed oak into which we must drive the old Armenian wedge, but a front of solid earth-fast rock!"
Men looked in each other's faces, discouraged and alarmed. It was something new to hear this fiery patriarch express doubts of victory. A hint of caution from Thorgon was tantamount to forebodings of defeat from milder spirits; and a short but ominous silence fell on the assembled council, while each realised the danger he had hitherto shrunk from acknowledging even to himself.
It was broken by the king.
"There is a courage to endure," said he, "as there is a courage to assail. When the snow-winds come, they will rid us of our enemy, without bending of bow or shaking of spear. But our grapes are yet green in the vineyards, our barley scarce whitening on the plain. How many days, think you, my brothers, will meat and drink be forthcoming if we elect to remain up here, cooped within the walls of Ardesh like a swarm of bees in a hive?"
Again opinions varied; some thought they might hold out a hundred, some barely a score. Thorgon offered to break through the lines of the enemy, and bring in sheep and horses from the wind-swept plains of his home.
"When we have eaten the last down to their hoofs," growled the fierce warrior, "we can always run out, sword in hand, and take what we want from the tether ropes of this scolding housewife whom they call the Great Queen!"
"Sarchedon," said Aryas, turning to his bowbearer, "you have held your peace too long. Give us your counsel, man; for you best know the strength and the designs of our enemy."
There was a stir in the hall at this appeal to the stranger, and more than one sword leaped a hand's-breadth from its scabbard. Murmurs of "Traitor, traitor!" rose by degrees to louder outcries. "Out with him!" "Down with him!" "Slay him and cast him over the wall to his own people, who have come hither at his desire!" were the mildest of these revilings, while a scuffling of feet and crowding of shoulders about his place at the king's right hand denoted no good-will to the Assyrian, small chance of mercy or even justice if national prejudice and panic should get the upper hand. Aryas flushed dark red with anger; but Thorgon interposed his massive person between the bowbearer and those who threatened him, while his deep hoarse voice cried "Shame!" in accents that might have been heard by the besiegers outside.
"A stranger, and treated thus in the king's council-chamber!" he shouted. "By the sword that begot our nation, I will stamp the life out of the first man who steps across the hall! What! the Assyrian came to our gates a captive and a suppliant, and shall we deliver him up, were he ten times a traitor, at the bidding of the loudest-tongued shrew that ever wore a smock? Nay, my brothers, stand back, I say; give every man a fair hearing, and room to swing a sword!"
Thus adjured, the assembly subsided into their places, and Sarchedon took advantage of restored order to protest earnestly against the suspicions of those with whom he had come to dwell.
"I am an Assyrian," said he, facing boldly round on such as had been most vehement in their outcries "and I am proud of my birth as of my nation. But I was also a soldier of the Great King, who could never be urged to war within the confines of Armenia, and I owe no allegiance to her who has taken unlawful possession of his throne, who would establish herself thereon with tyranny and injustice. I came here a weary footsore slave; I was fed, comforted, and raised to honour by my lord the king. Every drop of my blood shall be poured out to do him service. Bethink ye too, Men of the Mountain, if the Assyrian takes me fighting in your ranks he will strip the skin from my body to make sandals for his feet. Those strike fierce and hard who have no retreat; and if honour, good faith, gratitude, count for nothing, at least you may trust him for whom defeat is a cruel and shameful death. My lord the king hath demanded my counsel. To so noble an assembly it is not for me to offer advice, but I am enabled to give information. I have returned but a short space from the outer wall. Since daybreak the enemy hath been busied in turning the course of the river, that he may advance to the assault dry shod. You yourselves best know to what purpose you can defend the city from an attack on its weaker side; but my lord the king hath demanded counsel of his servant, and it is not for me to shrink from speaking because of angry threats and scowling brows. Were I King Aryas of Armenia, as I am his faithful bowbearer, I would go down to battle with the Assyrian, and strive with him, man to man, outside the city-walls!"
Loud shouts of applause greeted this daring speech, and Thorgon, striding across the hall, laid his broad hand on the Assyrian's shoulder, with a gesture of unqualified approval and respect. The enthusiasm became general, so that even Saræus, shouted and gesticulated with the rest; but Aryas, stepping proudly into the midst, drew his sword from its sheath, and kissing its handle, raised its point towards the roof. Each man present followed his example, and thus, with naked weapons gleaming in their hands, they listened in silence to the words of the Comely King.
"It is well spoken!" said he. "Surely the bowbearer hath shot his arrow home to the mark. If indeed the river be turned, steep rock and solid wall will avail us little against the huge engines and innumerable archers of the Assyrian. It is wise to attack when it seems hopeless to defend; and who shall stand against Armenia coming down in her might, like one of her own torrents from the snow-topped hills? I am a free king, ruling over a free people, yet can I count on you, my friends and followers, as on the steel in my own right hand. Let us set the battle in array, and fight the quarrel to the death. The stranger never turned from our father's gate in peace, nor entered it in war. Shall we forget whose sons we are to-day, because of a fierce people, riding on horses, worshipping strange gods, and mustering countless as the snowflakes in a storm? I call on you, as Aramus would have called on your fathers, to rally round his son; and I pledge you in that sacred cup to which, since Armenia became a nation, traitor or coward hath never dared to lay his lips!"
With these words, the king filled a mighty bowl with wine, and bringing the edge of his sword so briskly across his naked fore-arm that the blood spouted from the gash, suffered a few drops to drain into the liquid; then, raising the vessel to his lips, drank heartily ere he passed the bowl to Thorgon, who, following his example, sent it round amongst the rest, each man quaffing his share with the zeal and gravity of one who partakes in a religious rite. When at last the bowl reached Sarchedon, there was scarce a mouthful left; but the Assyrian, catching the spirit of this strange ceremony, pierced his own arm without hesitation, and thus pledged his new comrades in a draught of blood.
Any lingering suspicions they might have entertained were completely dissipated by so ready a compliance with their ancient custom, and not one but went out from the presence of his lord to prepare for battle with a confidence as implicit in the fidelity of the stranger as in his own.
With measured steps, lowered weapons, and a grave aspect, as having before them a task it would tax all their strength to accomplish, these Men of the Mountain departed one by one, each, as he left the hall, turning with grim salute to do obeisance to the Naked Sword. When the last had vanished, Sarchedon, looking into the face of his lord, felt his heart sink and his blood run cold; for on the brow of the Comely King, though courageous and serene as ever, there was imprinted the seal of the destroyer—there seemed to sit that cloud, so awful and so mysterious, which is the shadow of coming death.
"It is our only course against such a foe," said Aryas, after a gloomy silence, during which lord and servant seemed to have been following out no cheering train of thought. "For any nation on earth to oppose thy countrymen in warfare is to wield a shepherd's staff against a blade of tempered steel. But one heavy blow from the club, well-aimed and unexpected, may sometimes shiver the deadlier weapon to its hilt. Our long swords of the mountain bite sharp and true. The wedge of Armenia can pierce a column, however dense, and the gap widens as we fight on. Surely it will cleave the might of Assyria, as a woodman's axe cleaves the sturdy oak of the hills."
"But the oak is rooted to its place," objected Sarchedon, "while the Assyrian can wheel and stoop and strike like a falcon in the air. His horsemen will open out, and bend their bows till they have wrapped the advancing wedge in a storm of deadly hail—till its men fall thick, and its might is loosened from the rear. Then will Semiramis order up her war-chariots on either flank; and, once broken, as well he knows, there is no rallying for the long swords of my lord the king."
"They shallnotbe broken," exclaimed Aryas. "With Thorgon to lead them on foot, with their king to direct the battle in his chariot, with thy skill of warfare, Sarchedon, and our own good cause, I commit the result to that power which hath ever befriended Armenia, in attack and in defence—the might of the Naked Sword. Yet I would we could fight them at a vantage, nevertheless," he added, his enthusiasm changing to deep anxiety and concern. "Their armour, their weapons, their horses, are better than ours, and they outnumber us ten to one."
"True, O king!" replied Sarchedon; "therefore must we fall upon them unawares. Behold! In their ranks every spearman hath been taught to handle spade, every slinger uses the pick deftly as he whirls the thong, each third man carries a mattock or a shovel; and the Great Queen values their labour no dearer than their lives. This night one half her host will be employed to turn the course of the river that keeps your city on its eastern side. Let my lord the king summon his men of war in the hours of darkness, and at daybreak go down to battle. If he conquer, it will be with the first onslaught. If he fail, then may Sarchedon, his friend and servant, pay back the life he owes, and die at his lord's feet."
Again that ominous shadow passed over the king's face: he laid his hand kindly on the other's shoulder, and spoke in a low sad voice.
"Sarchedon," said he, "when I shielded thee from the demand of an Assyrian embassy, it was for jealousy of my father's honour—for the cause of the stranger and the oppressed. When I took thee out from under thy horse—ay, from off the very horns of the wild bull—it was for care of a faithful servant risking life at the pleasure of his lord. Now we are master and slave, crowned king and belted bowbearer no more, but friends in esteem and affection, brothers in confidence and love. I tell thee that the days of Aryas, the son of Aramus, are numbered, and the Mountain Men must choose them another king to guide their counsels and lead their long swords into battle. Last night I dreamed a dream; and it needs no wise man, no cunning soothsayer, to read the interpretation thereof. Behold, I was hunting in the mountain, riding to and fro with bow in hand and hound in leash, seeking to take a prey. In vain I traversed hill and valley, rock and river, stately forest and scattered copse—leaf, grass, and flower were alike scathed and blighted. It seemed that a flight of locusts had passed over all. Then I cursed the nakedness of the land in my wrath; and while thrice I shouted 'Barren, barren, barren!' mine own voice sounded hideous in mine ears. So I rode slowly on, and beneath my horse's feet I beheld three things that caused my blood to curdle and the hair of my flesh to stand on end.
"The first was a slain eagle pierced by a headless shaft; the second was a wild bull noosed in a woman's girdle; the third was a dead man lying on his face with the king's sandals on his feet, the king's baldrick on his shoulders, and the king's quiver at his back. I tell thee, Sarchedon, the warning lies betwixt thee and me. Let us drink a cup of wine in fellowship to-night; for if we go down to battle with to-morrow's dawn, one of us shall have quenched his thirst for ever by noon of day."
"On my head may it fall!" exclaimed Sarchedon. "Let the slave perish, and let his lord, who raised him from the dust, ride forth to victory!"
"Nay, hear me," replied the king; "for I have already told thee lord and slave are no words between Aryas and Sarchedon. If I accept the vision for myself, I am willing to face its interpretation freely as I would face the horsemen of Assyria and the chariots of the Great Queen. I might die many a baser death than to fall in battle with Thorgon and his long swords at my back. But if it is for thee that the dream has been sent, I tell thee, my faithful friend and comrade, I cannot bear to think that thy share in our joint venture should be all loss and no gain. When I took thee into my palace, rude and homely though it seem, I swore its halls should be a harness of proof and a tower of defence for the stranger who sought its shelter. When I gave thee a place in my heart, I resolved I would bring thee to promotion and honour—not to danger, defeat, and death. Go out from among us, Sarchedon, ere it be too late. Return, as of thine own free will, to the Assyrian, with fair words and costly gifts. Buy their favour and the safety of thy body with that fair province of the south that lies by the Glassy Lake. Behold, it is a gift from me to thee. Tell them that the open hand of Aryas is heavy as his clenched fist. Bid the Great Queen depart in peace; but if she must needs come to buffets, there is space enough to fight a kingly battle beneath the walls of Ardesh. If she desires to seize my father's crown, she must take it off my brows by force where I stand, in my war-chariot armed with bow and spear."
For all answer, Sarchedon stripped the quiver from his shoulders, took the sword from his thigh, and laid the weapons at his lord's feet.
"It is enough," said he. "If the king can believe his servant capable of thus ransoming one poor life at the cost of honour, I have served him already too long. There are many brave men among his subjects better fitted than Sarchedon for the highest post Armenia has to offer. Poor and naked as he came, let the Assyrian return to the station from which he was raised by the favour of my lord the king. Yet, if true service and a grateful heart may plead for him, even now he will but ask to take his place to-morrow in the fore-front of battle, and, habited like a simple soldier of Aryas, march with the Men of the Mountain to his death."
The king's features worked with emotion. "Not so," he exclaimed in hoarse and broken accents. "True and faithful servants I can number by scores, but such a heart as this cleaveth to a man, be he king or herdsman, once in a lifetime. Surely it sticketh faster than a brother. I have proved thee, Sarchedon, as one proves the harness that is to keep his life. I tell thee, we will go down to battle side by side; together we will bend the bow and point the javelin. Honour, danger, and triumph we will share alike; and when the end comes, as something warns me come it will, peradventure in death we shall not be divided."
Then he lifted belt and baldrick from the stones, and with his own hand fastened the quiver at Sarchedon's back, girt the sword on his thigh, thus reinstating the bowbearer in all the honours he had voluntarily resigned.
Standing side by side in this reversal of their relative positions, it chanced that the servant caught sight of his own figure and his master's reflected in the burnished surface of an empty wine-flagon over against him. Remarking, not for the first time, their extraordinary similarity of form and features, Sarchedon now ventured on a request that only the high favour in which he stood, and the humility of his tone while proffering it, could have rendered palatable to his listener.
"Let not the king be wroth with his servant," said he, hesitating, like one who tries a plank with his foot ere he commits it to the whole of his weight, "if we ask yet another proof, in addition to all the honours heaped on him, of the trust in which he is held by his lord. Behold, like the sand that sucks the desert spring, he thirsteth yet for more! Let the king grant him the desire of his heart, and live for ever!"
"Say on, man!" replied Aryas, somewhat impatiently; "surely there needs not all this ceremony between thee and me. By to-morrow's sunset," he added, in a lower, sadder tone, "the same wild dog may be scaring the vultures from us both."
"Then, if we are to meet our death together," replied Sarchedon, "let it be in the same habit and the same armour. This is the boon I earnestly beg of my lord to grant. Men have said, ere now, that armed and in the field there is some such resemblance between Sarchedon and him who is called Aryas and Beautiful, as between the illusive verdure of the desert and those groves and waters that it represents. Let me take upon me then to array myself in such attire and harness as are worn by my lord the king; so, in the press of battle, the advantage of his presence and conduct shall be double, while the risk from his enemies—for my people strike ever at the head—will be but half."
Aryas pondered.
"And if I fall," said he, "wilt thou bring on the Men of the Mountain like a free Armenian king, leading the long swords to the charge again and again, even unto death?"
"I will do my best," replied the other; "for, indeed, whither am I to retreat? and what will be my fate if I am made a captive? Surely I have nothing to fear but defeat. If the long swords will follow, I ask no better than to lead them through the ranks of Assyria—to the very chariot of the Great Queen!"
The king's eyes blazed with unwonted fire.
"Swear it!" he exclaimed vehemently.
"I swear it by the everlasting wings!" answered Sarchedon; and so they made their compact with death.
It is not to be supposed that the warlike skill which assisted Ninus to form his plans, and the courage which rivalled his own in carrying them out, would fail Semiramis now that she was unfettered by the counsels and commands of her lord. The sons of Ashur had never yet been led so judiciously, organised so carefully, as in this daring expedition to the north, under conduct of the Great Queen.
Aryas little knew with whom he had to deal, when he spoke of surprising her by sudden onslaught, or hoped to rout her in the fury of his attack. Her watchmen were posted, her defences prepared, her dispositions made to meet his wiliest stratagems; and all the time, while every working-party was covered by a guard of twice its number, the labour progressed steadily, and the river, on which the besieged chiefly depended for security, waned cubit by cubit and hour by hour.
None knew better than this woman-warrior how the presence of a commander infuses spirit into the operations of an army, how the ubiquity of a leader promotes that attention to details which alone insures success: there was no period of the day or night but the queen's white horse might be seen flitting through the lines of her innumerable host, while the lovely face smiled its calm approval, or expressed displeasure, no less fatal because so grave and quiet; always pale, immovable, and serene, under gleam of moonlight, flash of torches, or glare of day.
Men wondered when she ate and slept, inclining to believe that this supernatural beauty must be above such human wants, tended and nourished by the stars from whence it came.
Only Assarac perhaps, in all that host, knew too well that the Great Queen's passions and affections were of earth, earthly; that the flame which scorched her heart and blazed in her eyes was no enlightening radiance, but a devouring fire to wither and consume—knew too well, yet loved her all the more; for the eunuch's whole being was now saturated with a sentiment noble in its origin, disastrous in its results, that yet springs from the fairest and sweetest instincts of man's nature, as poison may be distilled from flowers.
It caused him to labour and watch, to endure hunger, thirst, heat and fatigue. It bade him forget pride, ambition, self-respect. It made him a warrior, a hero, and a slave. It rendered him brave, pitiful, generous, and unhappy.
Twice since sundown had the queen ridden out through the camp with Assarac at her rein. Once more she was astir an hour before daybreak, yet, as she mounted at the entrance of her pavilion, the eunuch stood there in waiting to help her to the saddle, and attend her in her ride. Without a word she galloped through the lines, at such speed as the dubious light permitted amongst the numerous obstacles of a camp, nor drew bridle till she reached a spot by the river, where certain masses of shadows looming against the sky denoted that the walls of Ardesh would be visible with dawn of day. Here she halted and broke silence.
"A city of defence," said she with a gentle laugh, "like a blade, or a pitcher, or a woman, or anything else you please, is no stronger than its weakest place. On this side alone is Ardesh not impregnable. I have made thee a warrior, Assarac, as a girl spins her hank out of a tangle of flax, with the patient heart and the gentle hand. Show me thou hast profited by my lessons, and tell me why I brought thee here at a gallop before dawn?"
Brightening as he always did with the sound of her voice, Assarac answered, reasonably enough, "To scan the place warily as soon as it is light: to learn every bush and stone, count every blade of grass on the ground where we mean to give the assault."
"Not so," she answered, in the same light tone. "All that was done in this poor head of mine when first I marked the spot. No; the warrior-eunuch has yet much to learn from the warrior-queen. It is not enough to set your own host in array, and mark your own plan of battle; you must also fight for your enemy, put yourself in his place, and so, anticipating him in every plan he can devise, force him at last to accept the contest when and where you choose to offer it. The reason women always foil men is, that theycannotput themselves in our places, nor foresee what we may or may not do in the plainest situation. But this concerns neither thee nor me. I think I have even less of the woman than thou, Assarac, of the man."
He answered not a word, moving uneasily in his saddle, as if from a sudden hurt.
"Nay," she added, guessing his discomposure from his silence; "I meant we are both above the weaknesses of our fellows—kindred spirits treading down all obstacles in our path, knowing no law but our own will and our own desires. Listen, then, thou priest of Baal in harness of proof—listen, and learn while I teach thee that which shall be of more service to-day than all the lore aching neck and dazzled eyes ever yet gathered from the stars. Is not this the weak side of the fortress, and therefore the better for our assault?"
"Aryas must know it also," replied the eunuch, "and will have mustered here his chief power of defence. Peradventure we might surprise him, with less loss, on a stronger quarter."
"An apt scholar," replied the queen, "and worthy to be a captain of ten thousand; nevertheless, in so far at fault that he sees not with the eyes of his enemy. Behold! The Armenian, hopeless of defending his city from such a host as mine in the process of a regular siege; and seeing the river in which he trusted turning to dry ground beneath his eyes, will determine to hazard a battle here on this narrow strip where he can fight at a vantage, while half the attacking army is engaged with pickaxe and spade. Listen, priest. I hear the tinkle of their tools even now, borne on the light breeze that steals in advance of day. He little guesses the work was all completed by the middle watch of night; that every company is bending, armed, over a feigned task in order of battle; that, at the first note of a trumpet from the queen's pavilion, be it dark or daylight or gray uncertain dawn, the hosts of Assyria will set themselves in array without hesitation or confusion, every bow bent, every horse mounted, every man in his place.
"Since my tent was pitched yonder by the stream, I have not found a moment till now to breathe the cool night air and loose the buckle of my belt. Is it not grand and joyous, this pause before the storm? At such a moment I feel how noble it is to lead the sons of Ashur to battle. To-night, Assarac, Iknowthat I am the Great Queen!"
She seldom thus divulged her own thoughts, her own sentiments. The tones of that voice, always so bewitching, thrilled to his heart's core; and with irrepressible admiration he burst out, "Queen of the sons of Ashur! Queen of the whole earth! Were there indeed crowns of fire above, queen of the host of heaven! What have I to offer in earnest of such devotion as never worshipper yielded to his god? It is little enough to give this poor brain in council, this poor body in battle; but O that I could take the heart out of my breast now, this moment, and lay it down before thee there, to trample beneath thy feet!"
"It is too much," she answered, almost in a whisper. "I may tread warriors in the dust, but I make no footstool of a servant's heart, be he man of war, eunuch, or priest of Baal. Keep it in thy harness, good friend, and see that to-day it turn not to water in the face of the Comely King."
Dawn was still below the mountain, and he could not read her countenance; but on his ear, sharpened by intense emotion, there jarred a something in her voice that broke its full melodious ring. Was it kindness? Was it pity? Maddening thought! was it the insult of covert mirth?
"I am not like others," said he. "I know it too well; and yet my adoration of my queen is less the blind man's yearning for the day he hath never seen than that desire of the spirit for some star it must not hope to attain, which yet raises it, by the very agony of its despair, towards the light for which it longs."
She had a brief space of leisure before the joyous revelry of battle would commence. There was no better pastime, she thought, at hand. Why not examine into so strange a phase of human suffering, and learn how much the heart, even of such a man as this, could be made to bear, before it maddened him past all endurance? Surely such studies, so curious in themselves, enhanced the flavour of that pursuit she dignified with the name of love; a pursuit far inferior, no doubt, to war, equal though, and perhaps in very hot weather preferable, to the chase. Here a memory of Sarchedon came to disturb her equanimity; but so much of bitterness and vexation mingled with the thought, that her heart grew all the harder for its indulgence. What had she to do with pity, she who had slain beasts by scores and men by hundreds to pass an idle day? Had she ever wished her shaft recalled when it pierced the lion through from shoulder to shoulder; and were these human creatures half so brave, so noble as the brutes? Was she not the Great Queen, answerable to none on earth, and fearless of the very stars in heaven? Besides, it amused—more, it interested—her. So she, the conqueror of the world, thought no shame to trifle with him as a village maid trifles with her peasant lover, as a cat trifles with its paltry little prey.
"There is a light," she said, reverting gently to his wild confession of idolatry, "that blinds a man's eyes, besides burning his fingers. It is not that by which he sees his way clearly to safety or success."
"And of what avail are safety and success tome?" demanded Assarac, striving in the early twilight to read his doom on that remorseless face. "Success, the prize of him who hopes; safety, the desire of him who fears. If I am below hope, surely I am also above fear. My queen, look on that shadowy mass of wall and tower, darkening every moment against the coming light of dawn. How many bold warriors, think you, are within that city who to-day will draw the sword and throw away the scabbard once for all? I too have drawn the sword and rushed upon my fate. Like one who leaps into air from the tower of Belus, I cannot recall my plunge. Great Queen, I have dared to love the very dust beneath your feet. Here, in the day of battle, I dare to tell you so. Ere set of sun, Semiramis shall be ruler over all the world, from the warm river of Egypt to the bleak snow-deserts of the north; or Assarac shall be down in the strife of horsemen, trodden out of all likeness to humanity. Enough! I can but serve her at the end as I have served her from the beginning; and for wages I do but ask, great glorious queen, look kindly on me ere I die!"
His voice came hoarse and broken, his smooth face worked convulsively from chin to eyebrows. Surely any other woman must have been moved—at least to compassion; but Semiramis, pulling her horse's head up from the wet morning herbage he was cropping with avidity, gazed intently on the walls of Ardesh, now visible in the light of dawn.
Was not the great stake for which she played enclosed within those towers, the desire of her eyes, the treasure of her wilful heart? She could understand, she thought, those longings on which the eunuch laid such stress, but of pity, save for her own sufferings, she had none to spare.
"Listen!" exclaimed the queen, turning round on her companion with one hand held in air, as though she had not heard a syllable of his appeal, "they are mustering even now within the place. Stand still, Merodach! Good horse, the ring of steel stirs thee like thy mistress! What say you, Assarac—can we creep on a bowshot nearer to make sure? The light is behind them, and we may defy their archers for a few moments yet."
Thus speaking, she moved her horse forward a score of paces, followed by the priest, vexed, smarting, dizzy with anger and shame.
But his tortures were not over, his punishment not yet complete. Sitting calmly on her horse, though day was breaking fast, and every instant brought nearer the certainty of a storm of arrows from the wall, Semiramis looked round with a careless smile, like some light-minded dame chattering with her tirewoman.
"What think you, Assarac?" she whispered. "Is he waking yet, this Comely King?—of whose beauty they make such a prate you would suppose he was Shamash, god of day. I would fain see him rise from his couch; for I like well to look on beauty, both of man and beast."
Then she patted Merodach on his swelling neck, sighing and smiling too while she caressed her favourite: the sigh was for memory, the smile for triumph and for hope.
"We shall rouse him to some purpose," answered the eunuch, mastering his emotion bravely. "And the Great Queen shall judge of his beauty for herself, naked and a prisoner, bound at her chariot-wheels."
He spoke firmly, even gaily, as behoved one who had made up his mind for the worst. That day, he resolved, should see the end of all this doubt, and longing, and misery. In the front of battle he would perform such deeds of valour as should force the queen's regard forhim, the eunuch, who could thus put to shame her stoutest men of war, or in the ranks of the long swords he would find out the great secret, and start for yonder place, wherever it might be, that Ninus and Sargon, and so many others, had reached long ago.
Semiramis caught up her rein with an exclamation of delight.
"I was sure of it!" she said; "I knew it from the first! They will fight in the plain—they are moving the host down even now. Behold, I can see their archers on the wall! It is time for you and me, Assarac, to prove the mettle of our horses and the surety of their archers' aim."
As she spoke, she urged Merodach to a gallop, while an arrow whistling by her cheek quivered in the ground a spear's length farther on. The good horse only sped the faster, and ere morning had brightened the mountain's crest, Semiramis reached her pavilion, and her trumpets rang gaily out, to set the sons of Ashur in array.
It was a goodly sight, could the queen have waited to behold it, that downward march of the Armenian host to meet their enemy in the plain. The flower and pride of all the north, formidable in size, number, and length of weapons, they deployed, squadron by squadron, and company by company, under cover of their archers on the wall, till they found space near the river's empty bed to form that wedge, or solid triangle in which it was their custom to offer battle. This mass consisted of spearmen, who with levelled points and raised bucklers seemed to present but an impervious hedge of steel to the efforts of an adversary. It was designed to penetrate and cleave asunder by sheer weight and pressure the opposing force, while Thorgon and his long swords, mounted on their swift hardy horses, held themselves in readiness to cut up and destroy in detail the fragments of an enemy thus riven the wider the more it gave ground to its assailants.
Such a method of fighting was considered by the mountain men to insure victory; and the queen's eye sparkled, her cheek glowed, when she beheld the hosts of Aryas the Beautiful thus eager to engage her own on a system of which she had mastered all the details, prepared to worst it at every point.
"The lion is astir," she said, "and walking deliberately into the toils without an effort at escape. By the light of Ashtaroth, I will have his claws pared, his fangs drawn, and the beast as tame as a kitten, before close of day!"
Splendidly armed, ablaze with gold and jewels that flashed in the morning sun, she stood in her chariot, looking like the goddess by whom she swore, her beautiful face radiant with pleasure, her heart beating high with courage, triumph, and the wild tumult of unbridled love.
Her shield-bearer's place still remained vacant, and save a youth to drive her horses, she was alone in the chariot; for Assarac, who remained as usual in attendance, occupied another at her side.
The eunuch's face was very grave and sad; its fleshy outlines had fallen, the eyes were sunk and haggard, while about the lips care and sorrow had carved those anxious lines that age itself fails to imprint when the heart remains at ease.
He looked little like a priest of Baal, less like a warrior of Ashur: but never prophet burned with fiercer fire, never were nerves of champion strung to more desperate courage, than glowed in the vexed heart and wounded spirit of Assarac the eunuch, thus waiting on Semiramis the queen.
He had galloped back with her to the camp before sunrise, and at the first trumpet call ascended into his chariot, that he might aid her with his counsel, perhaps shield her with his body in the press of battle.
In the disposal of her power she had shown her accustomed skill. Dark masses of horsemen gathered like clouds on either flank. Her spearmen, in a solid column, occupied the centre, protecting a bristling array of war-chariots, ready to be launched against the enemy so soon as he advanced into the plain; while forming her own guard and a reserve to be hurled, as it were, at the critical moment on any point she should select, rode a picked body of warriors clothed in blue, shining with gilded armour, and chosen from the flower of her men of war by the queen herself.
Aryas the Beautiful, surveying from his chariot the line of battle thus opposed to him, felt, while his courage rose with its very hopelessness, a sad conviction of the impossibility of his task. He whispered as much to Sarchedon, who accompanied him.
"Behold," said he, "how the wolves are gathering to hem in the mountain bull on every side. I knew not they were so many, nor so fierce. Surely he is a daring leader who joins battle with the sons of Ashur."
The other, while acknowledging so obvious a truth, could not repress a thrill of exultation in the fair and formidable array of warriors with whom he had heretofore gone out to victory.
At the same moment Semiramis turned to Assarac, whose chariot now stood by her own, and pointed with a radiant smile to those long lines of steel glittering in the morning sun.
"The blade is out," said she, "and balances so well in my hand, I can smite when and where I will. Who would care to be a queen, but that the arm which sways a sceptre has such strength to draw a sword? Behold, the very auxiliaries stand fast, as if they too felt they carried on their spears the honour of Assyria!"
"Trust not their patience too far," urged the eunuch. "Great Queen, they are clamouring to engage even now!"
"Fools," she returned gaily, "I mean to sacrifice them soon enough. But I can scarce trust them in the first shock of the assault, or I would leave our own people to come in and reap the victory."
"Let not the Great Queen scorn the words of her servant," replied Assarac, "humble man of peace though he be. The children of Anak, led by their woman-captain, claim the advance as their right. Behold, they are fierce champions, tall as palms, greedy as beasts of prey, acknowledging no law save the customs of their tribe. How shall these be satisfied when the fight is over, the victory gained, and the spoil divided? Grant them their wish: let them hurl themselves against the enemy. If they loosen his formation, it is well; if they turn back in confusion while he smites them hip and thigh, it is better. Assyria can do without them in the day of triumph as in the day of battle."
The queen scanned him from head to foot.
"Do you think I cannot rein a steed," she asked, with a scornful laugh, "because it is strong and wilful, or rule a handful of horsemen because they stand a span higher than their fellows? Go to, Assarac; I thought you knew me better. I have a task in store for these same Anakim, and I purpose leading them myself. They shall help me to take this Comely King captive from the very midst of his host. I tell you I mean to look at his beautiful face before sunset, as close as I am to you!"
"May the queen live for ever!" was his reply, for Assarac's whole attention seemed now engrossed by the strength of Armenia advancing to the attack.
The wedge came on, solid and impenetrable as if it were indeed a living mass of metal. Thus it crossed the level ground by the river's bed, directing its point steadily for the centre of the Assyrian line; and so long as it moved upon an even surface, nothing could be more warlike than the mechanical regularity of its advance—nothing, perhaps, save the discipline of the Assyrian archers, whom the queen kept so perfectly in hand, that in spite of a tempting proximity to the Armenians not a man moved in his saddle, turned his rein or bent his bow. But when the huge triangular phalanx reached the channel, now dried up indeed, yet rough with broken banks, sandy ledges, shingle, and boulders of rock, a shiver seemed to pass over it like that which ripples the hide of some huge monster in its death-pang, and Aryas drove furiously down in his chariot to rectify the disorder ere it was too late.
In compliance with his bowbearer's entreaties, the attire and harness of the Comely King, though less simple than usual, were such as might be worn by any captain or leader of his host. There was nothing about him to identify his royalty but the handsome form and face. Sarchedon also was armed and dressed in a precisely similar manner, so that at the interval of a spear-length it was impossible to distinguish one from the other. The bowbearer too had divested himself of the quiver that denoted his office, and while he stood upright and brandished a spear in the war-chariot, Aryas covered him with a shield. Even old Thorgon, riding up to his lord for final orders, rubbed his eyes and pulled his shaggy beard in angry confusion at its success, while he admitted the wisdom of this stratagem.
With voice and gesture, Aryas and Sarchedon strove in concert to restore that dense consistency to the mass which constituted its strength and safety; but eyes as quick, and skill more practised, were watching their opportunity, so that as the leading Armenian spearman made his first false step, the arm of Semiramis went up, a trumpet sounded, and the horsemen of Assyria set themselves in motion by thousands, with bows bent and arrows drawn to the head.
There is a moment, and none knew it better than the Great Queen, on which the tide of battle turns.
"In the toilsnow!" she murmured viciously, "and that fair head of yours will be at my mercy to-night, as sure as I hold this bow in my hand. Assarac," she continued, in the calm ringing accents with which it was her wont to issue her commands in battle, "let them feed that force of archers thousands by thousands, as they want them, from the columns on their flanks. When the Armenian host arrives at yonder white stone, bring up the reserve of spearmen, and I will attack with the whole line."
Ere this landmark could be reached, she was well aware that the advancing phalanx, stumbling at every step, galled on all sides by mounted bowmen, who, circling swiftly round, wrapped it in a deadly storm of arrows, must become so loosened and disorganised as with one well-supported charge to be broken up and cut to pieces in detail.
Already darting an upward glance at the towers of Ardesh, she was doubting whether to occupy it with a strong Assyrian garrison or to burn its palace, and level its defences to the ground. For a space all went as she desired. Wheeling in clouds, succeeded and relieved by squadron after squadron, each fresher, fiercer, more daring than the last, it seemed to Aryas that the horsemen of Assyria were inexhaustible and intangible as the locusts of their own fertile land. With each discharge of arrows, his phalanx hesitated, tottered, and opened out. It was no longer a solid wedge, but an irregular mass, melting and crumbling like a snow-wreath in the southern breeze. There was not a moment to lose, and the Comely King, whose habits of wood-craft had at least gifted him with that promptitude of decision which is so necessary in war, saw the crisis and prepared to meet it.
"Sarchedon," he exclaimed, "leap on my horse, the bay standing there behind the chariot! Ride down to Thorgon like the wind. Bid him bring up his long swords steadily, but without delay. At the first step taken by the enemy's spearmen, he must charge and drive them back amongst their chariots. It is the last chance left. Away! Two Armenian kings are fighting side by side this morning; Sarchedon, if at set of sun there is but one left, my faithful friend and servant, fare thee well!"
Touching his lord's hand reverently with his lips, the bowbearer flung himself into the saddle, and galloped off at speed; while Aryas, snatching reins and whip from his charioteer, shaking the former and plying the latter to some purpose, flew towards that white stone which the keen eye of Semiramis had already marked as the turning-point of conflict.
When they parted, scarce a bowshot intervened between the king's chariot and the handful of Anakim who were drawn up in the position they had clamoured to occupy, waiting with fiery impatience an order to begin.
Their queen sat motionless at their head, her face concealed as usual, her eyes intently scanning those hostile ranks in search of the man she loved.
Suddenly she dropped the rein and clasped her hands upon her heart. Surely that was his figure yonder, riding, as he alone could ride, along the river bank! A dead archer lay in his path, and the bay horse, swerving wildly aside, brought his rider round with a swing that showed his front to the enemy.
"Sarchedon, Sarchedon!" she cried, in a stifled voice, then stretched her arms out piteously, and, gasping for breath, flung the veil back from her face.
It was the signal they had expected since daybreak, the gesture by which they were taught to believe their enemies would be consumed like thorns crackling in a fire. The wild blood of the desert would take no denial now; and with a shout that rang round the towers of Ardesh, reins were loosed, spears lowered, while, sweeping their bewildered leader onward in their centre, the children of Anak carried all before them in a desperate and irresistible charge.
The brow of Semiramis turned black for very anger, while the beautiful features were distorted with a spasm of rage and scorn.
"The fools!" she hissed between her teeth. "If but one comes out of the press alive, I will impale him in the centre of the camp! And for their leader—if she be wise, she will die on those Armenian spears, rather than answer this mad frolic in the face of the Great Queen!"
The next moment, with smooth calm smile and royal dignity, she beckoned Assarac to her chariot, and gave her directions in that calm assured tone which with Semiramis denoted a crisis of extreme peril, and perfect confidence in her own powers to meet it.
What she anticipated did indeed come to pass. The common saying, "Who shall stand before the children of Anak?" had doubtless grown into a proverb because of its undisputed truth. Individually, the champions of Armenia went down before these stalwart horsemen like corn under the sickle. Iron buckler made no better stand than wicker shield against their mad thrusts and crashing strokes, linked harness proved no stronger fence than linen gown, and bearded men of war seemed as but puny infants contending with this gigantic foe. Charging against the head of the Armenian phalanx, they drove its leaders back upon their fellows; and while they hewed and shouted and smote without remorse, the little band reared about them a barrier of ghastly mutilated corpses, rising to their very girths.
But while thus pressing sore against the front of their enemy, they condensed him into his original formation; and the Great Queen, always intolerant of shortcomings in discipline, had the mortification to witness her well-digested plan destroyed, her whole order of battle put to confusion, by this untoward advance of a force she intended reserving to the last moment for a purpose of her own.
"And ten more spear-lengths would have sufficed," said she, veiling her vexation as best she might. "Behold, Assarac! In war, as in peace, it is better to trust a haltered ass than an unbridled steed!"
Sarchedon, galloping furiously on his mission, yet cast more than one glance over his shoulder at the battle raging behind him. He too marked the overwhelming charge of the Anakim, and its effect on that solid mass against which its might was hurled. Trained in the subtlest school of war, by the great captain of the age, he perceived at once that if ever they were to be routed, now was the critical moment at which the discomfiture of his countrymen must be achieved. The bay horse reeked with foam and reeled from want of breath when it reached Thorgon's side; and Sarchedon, deeming not an instant should be lost, ventured so far to extend the command he had received as to urge on that old warrior the necessity of putting his men in motion at a gallop. Thorgon frowned and bit his lip. "Go to!" said he. "I am not to be taught by an Assyrian youth how to set the battle in array. Nevertheless, if thou wilt share in a death-ride to-day with the children of the north, pull that knife of thine out of thy girdle and come with me."
Thus speaking, he drew his own long heavy sword, and waving it round his head, placed himself in front of his horsemen, and led them against the enemy at a rapid pace, which, when within a bowshot distance, he increased to their utmost speed.
The Anakim had now penetrated so far into the ranks of the Armenians as to be nearly surrounded, while victorious, by the very foe they were engaged in defeating. It needed but this charge of Thorgon and his grim long swords in their rear to complete the circle that hemmed them in.
Semiramis, from her chariot, marked the crisis and the manner in which it must be met. "Assarac," said she, in her calm modulated voice, "I cannot trust the children of the desert. They would not retire if I bade them, and so weaken the wedge by drawing it after them in pursuit. We must check these wild cattle of the mountain, nevertheless. Bring up my spears in solid column of a thousand men in front, masking the chariots. When I raise my bow, let them open out and every driver urge his horses to a gallop. I will not give the signal till I see my opportunity, so watch me like a falcon over a fawn. Send for my horsemen clothed in blue. Ten squadrons may serve to bring the Anakim out of peril, and with the rest I will myself make a dash for the person of this Beautiful King."
Her commands were implicitly obeyed. With a shout that denoted their courage and unshaken confidence, the chief strength of the Assyrian army advanced steadily to the attack.
Meantime the Anakim were fighting at considerable disadvantage. Hemmed in by falling foes, encumbered by dead of their own slaying, they had no space to turn their horses, scarce elbow-room to swing their swords. Twice had Ishtar's rein been seized by a dismounted enemy, and her horse dragged down to its knees; twice had his veiled queen been rescued by some tall champion, who pierced her assailant to the heart, or clove him to the chin. But, nevertheless, the farther these desperate giants fought their way towards the centre of the Armenians, the more difficult became the task of extrication, the more hopeless their chances of retreat. It seemed that all was indeed lost when Thorgon and his long swords came pouring down upon their rear.
To Ishtar the events passing before her eyes were but as the horrors of some ghastly dream. Faint, gasping, terrified, stunned with the din, choked in the dust, blinded by the flash of weapons, sickening at the smell of blood, she was only sensible she had seen Sarchedon, as in a vision, and had cried to him for assistance in vain.
Helpless and bewildered, she must have been slain a score of times but for the chief of the Anakim, whose weapon kept her assailants at bay, while his hand guided her horse through the press of battle; but even this protection failed her when that formidable champion found himself engaged with Thorgon hand to hand.
Wary and experienced, hardened and toughened by continual toil in warfare and the chase, the old Armenian knew every wile of the swordsman, every turn of the horseman, familiarly as he knew the spring of a panther or the rush of a mountain bull. But he was no match for the larger frame and lengthier limbs of an opponent who was a younger, stronger, and quicker man, riding a better horse. While he waved his long sword round his head to cleave his adversary to the girdle, the other smote him sharp and true below the fifth rib, and, with a loud curse on the only god he acknowledged—the weapon that had failed him—Thorgon fell headlong from his saddle, dead before he reached the ground.
Men, horses, flashing weapons, reeling banners—all swam before Ishtar's eyes; and, swaying blindly forward, she was scarcely conscious that a protecting arm supported her, a careful hand guided her bridle, towards the outskirts of the fight.
The fall of their leader seemed in no way to discourage the mountain men; rather they fought with greater fierceness and obstinacy than before. The children of Anak too, considerably out-numbered, and disheartened by the helplessness of their Veiled Queen, began to give way, striking furiously about them indeed, without a thought of flight, yet obviously bent on effecting a retreat, if possible in good order, but at any sacrifice a retreat.
In this imminent crisis of battle, the Comely King and the Great Queen were moved simultaneously with a conviction that now was the moment at which to throw all the weight attainable into the scale. If either side could be driven back but a score of spear-lengths, it might be made to give ground imperceptibly, till wavering grew to flight, and flight culminated in defeat. For Armenia, it seemed the only hope to push forward the wedge till it penetrated and divided the queen's solid columns of spearmen; for the sons of Ashur the sure path to victory lay in a breaking up of that dense obstinate mass, already weakened and mutilated, while its nucleus should be annihilated by their chariots, and its component parts cut to pieces by their horsemen hovering on its flanks.
Therefore Aryas, standing erect in his chariot, encouraged his men of war, with voice and gesture, in the very fore-front of battle. Therefore Semiramis, scanning with undisguised approval the ranks of her body-guard clothed in blue, placed herself joyfully at their head. The Armenian monarch had resolved to save crown, kingdom, and friend, or die, like a true mountain man, in his war-harness; while the Great Queen, thirsting for victory as the drunkard thirsts for wine, was urged by her longing after Sarchedon and the spur of a feminine desire to behold Aryas the Beautiful face to face.
They were now scarce ten spear-lengths apart, on the dried-up river's brink.
The ground was rough and broken, the wheels of her chariot drove heavily, and Semiramis found herself more than once in danger of being thrown from her elevated position between the horses that plunged and laboured over slippery rock or yielding sand.
Against the carved and inlaid panel beside her hung a quiver with its single arrow—one of those sent to Babylon in return for her embassy, and which she had sworn by Nisroch to plant in the breast of Aryas the Beautiful with her own hand. She snatched it from its case, made a sign to the attendant who led him, leaped on Merodach, and, looking proudly round, raised her bow aloft to brandish it over her head.
Then, while spears went down and bridles shook, a shout rose from the warriors in blue raiment that was caught up by the whole Assyrian army, and every man called lustily on Baal, swearing a mighty oath that he would fight to the death for the Great Queen.
Aiming, as was her custom, at the heart of the enemy, Semiramis broke furiously through the opposing long swords, now deprived of their leader, with the view of first extricating the Anakim from their perilous position, and afterwards directing all her force against the Armenian king in person.
Assarac too had done his part like a practised warrior. The deep array of spears, a solid column many furlongs in length, strong in its front of a thousand marching men, was nearing the conflict every moment, with that smooth and even step, that mechanical regularity of approach, which seems the very impersonation of discipline and power. Concealed behind its masses, betrayed only by an unceasing jar of iron and roll of wheels, came on those formidable war-chariots, so irresistible by an enemy who had sustained a check that caused the slightest confusion in its ranks; and wielding the whole array, governing at once each element of the storm, drove Assarac the eunuch—he of the cool brain, the steadfast courage, the pitiless heart, who could be moved but by one sentiment on earth—his mad infatuation for the queen.
Aryas marked it all, and knew that now the end was very near. Glancing towards Sarchedon, he beheld his bowbearer, scarce ten spear-lengths off, in the hottest of the struggle, defending, as it seemed, from stroke and thrust some object at his side. The Anakim gathered about him; while the long swords, shouting "Aryas! Aryas!" were making desperate efforts to approach, believing, no doubt, they were rallying round their king.
Semiramis neared her object with every stride. Aryas had stooped to take another arrow from his quiver, and, as he raised his head again to confront his enemy, looking boldly over his shield, behold! for the first time, he stood face to face with the Great Queen.
Deceived by the likeness, duped by her own wild heart and reckless longing, she called on him she loved by the name she had learned to whisper in her dreams; but the hoarse shriek that cried "Sarchedon, Sarchedon!" was so different from the full soft tones in which she was used to doom a culprit or direct a battle, that her guards pressed fiercely in, thinking their leader must have been stricken with a death-hurt.
Casting down horse and rider in the fury of her career, she urged Merodach towards the chariot, every consideration of war and policy, all care for herself, her army, her people, lost in a fierce thrill of triumph that the desire of her eyes had not escaped her, and she had found him even at the last.
Surrounded by the chosen horsemen of Assyria, over-matched, out-numbered, and now at his sorest need, Aryas shouted to his bowbearer for help; and Sarchedon, still struggling in the strife as a swimmer fights and reels amongst the breakers, answered lustily to the call.
The Great Queen, making, as she believed, for another, was now within ten paces of Aryas the Beautiful himself.
In that hideous din of battle she neither heard his cry nor the voice that replied to it; but the white horse with the eyes of fire had a truer memory and a sharper ear. Recognising his master's accents, he swerved aside to reach him, but meeting the wrench of the queen's practised hand on his bridle, reared high with tossing head, and plunged blindly forward against the king's chariot, struck himself and his rider heavily to the ground.
As the good horse rolled over a maimed Armenian, the dying mountain man shortened the sword he grasped fiercely even then, and buried it in the animal's bowels.
Agile as a panther, Semiramis extricated herself, and was up like lightning; but when she saw the beast she prized so dearly dead at her very feet, her heart burned, and her eyes blazed with a fury wilder, fiercer, madder, than the rage of any beast of prey.
Baffled, stunned, bewildered, she only knew that Merodach lay slain beneath her; that an armed enemy stood above with shielded face and javelin raised to strike; that here across the body of her horse was the turning-point of battle, and that she held a bow and arrow in her hand. Unconsciously, she fitted the one to the string, and drew the other at a venture, as it were, in self-defence.
It was the Armenian arrow, cut in Armenian forests, tipped with Armenian steel. It had travelled to Babylon and back as a symbol of dignified remonstrance and royal self-respect; now the white cruel arm impelled it straight and true, to find its home in the heart of an Armenian king.
Stricken below the buckler, he felt his life-blood oozing down to wet its feathers, drop by drop.
"Turn thy hand out of the battle," murmured Aryas to his charioteer, "since I am hurt even unto death!"
But he never spoke again; for the Great Queen's men of war, making in to aid their leader, hurled him from his chariot, gashing with pitiless sword-strokes the comely face so fair even in death, crushing under trampling hoofs the stately form that, maimed, bruised, and mangled, was grand and kingly still.
So the horsemen of Assyria triumphed; her spears made victory secure, her chariots rolled over the slain. The blue mantles smote and spared not; the Anakim extricating themselves, not without considerable loss, departed in good order; and the pursuit rolled on till the sons of Ashur sacked the town of Ardesh—to burn, pillage, and destroy, even unto the going down of the day.
But men looked in vain for her who had led the attack and achieved the victory, asking each other with eager looks and anxious faces,
"What tidings of the Great Queen?"