"My lord granted his request to our son at the sight of his wet eyes. Shall he withhold from the mother her soul's desire, because she cannot weep save when she fears to lose her place in the heart of the Great King?"
His head sank on his breast; he was soon weary now, withering, as it seemed, more hopelessly in the confinement of a palace than in the freer atmosphere of a camp. "Name it," said he—"it is granted: the king hath spoken."
Her eyes blazed with triumph, and the rich crimson mantled in her cheek. "I have in my possession the signet of the Great King. I ask to keep it until to-morrow at noon."
"I have said it," was the reply. "But what use will my queen make of a toy that has often cumbered my hand more wearily than ever did bridle, spear, or shield?"
"I will but use it to my lord's advantage," answered Semiramis calmly. "Is not to-day the feast of Baal, and shall not the Great King go up at nightfall into the cedar house on the roof to burn sacrifices, and pour out drink-offerings before his god? There will be long procession of priests, much leaping, howling, and gashing of themselves at the altars; the prophets of the groves too must pass before my lord, bearing earth and water, fir-cones, caskets, gold, frankincense, and gifts. My lord is weary even now. Let him take his rest undisturbed to strengthen him for the tedious labours of the night. Meanwhile I hold the signet of the Great King and his authority. I will provide for the safety of the nation, and for our own."
He was getting drowsy, and his eyes were already half-closed.
"You have my signet," he murmured. "Send to Arbaces, and advise with the chief captain for setting of the watch. And that presumptuous spearman"—here he blazed up with an expiring flame—"see that he be led forth at dawn. I have spoken, and he who dared to cross the queen's path must die before the rise of another day."
"Before the rise of another day!" she repeated mechanically; adding, as she gathered her robes about her to depart, "I thank him that his handmaiden hath found favour in his sight. I cover the feet of my lord the king, and I take my leave."
But she turned at the great gate for one last look at the sleeping form, mighty even in its ruin, and formidable in the abandonment of its repose.
Proceeding from the palace, Semiramis paused to whisper a few words in the ear of Arbaces. The chief captain seemed surprised, and even discomposed by the purport of her communication; but there was no appeal from a command backed by the royal signet, and placing her hand, with the jewel in it, against his forehead, he prostrated himself and withdrew. Had he remained, his discomfiture might have been even greater to observe the queen in deep consultation with Assarac, while Sargon, the king's shield-bearer, remained, as if in waiting, a few paces off. The eunuch's head was erect and his face bright with triumph; he wore the air of a man on the eve of some great enterprise requiring skill, courage, and intellect, but having at the same time perfect confidence in his own power to carry it through.
"Is all ready?" asked Semiramis in a hollow whisper, while her cheek paled, and a strange fire shone in her dark eyes.
"All is ready," answered the priest, in composed and measured accents, as of one who states the details of a duty satisfactorily fulfilled. "Double guards have been placed at the city gates; fifty thousand archers, and as many spearmen, are mustered under arms. Not a strained shaft nor a frayed bowstring amongst them, and every man with his hand on his weapon, devoted to the queen's interest for life and death!"
"We shall scarcely need them," was her reply. "I have commanded Arbaces to remove his own especial power without the walls. Has my son gone forth, and have you taken order for bestowing him in safety to-night?"
"A company of spearmen will escort him," said the eunuch, "and will guard the child and its new toy on the road to his refuge at Ascalon. The king's signet will insure the obedience of such warriors as are required to force the palace of Arbaces, and if the chief captain resists with the strong hand, his blood be on his own head!"
"More slaughter!" exclaimed the queen sorrowfully. "O that the road to power were not mired so deep with blood! But it is too late to turn back now. Your life, my own, that poor condemned spearman of the guard—all are at stake to-night; and we must not, wedarenot, stop. Is Sargon to be trusted? Yonder he stands, waiting for his orders even now."
"Assarac glanced to where that warrior was stationed, a few paces off, silent, erect, immovable, with the scowl of undying hatred on his brow. The priest smiled—and the queen thought his smile more fearful than the shield-bearer's frown—while he replied:
"A captive in the dungeon longs for light, and a gourd in the garden for water; but what is their desire to a father's thirst for vengeance on one who has shed the blood of his child?"
The queen passed on a few paces without speaking, yet glanced towards Assarac, who walked respectfully at her side, as though she had something of importance on her mind. At last she observed carelessly, "That spearman who has incurred the displeasure of my lord the king. Is it not the messenger who brought me the royal signet from the camp? These guards are all somewhat alike; yet I seemed to recognise his face as he fell so untowardly at my feet."
"The same," answered Assarac, in his calm unmeaning tones. "A goodly youth, and a stout warrior enough, by name Sarchedon. He has been bestowed in the temple of Baal under my authority, safe at least till nightfall. Nor can he escape, though guard and priest are out of call; for there is no egress from the last chamber in the painted gallery on the upper story where I have placed him, and whence he could scarcely fly were he to borrow all the wings of Nisroch, whose image stands over against the entrance to his stronghold. But it is not of him I would speak," continued the priest, keenly noting, though he never seemed to raise his eyes above the hem of her garment, the queen's burning cheeks and air of breathless interest. "From sunset to sunrise have I watched and waited for the decree of the Seven Stars, poring over the scroll of fire they unrolled for me, till my brain was giddy and mine eyes were dim. Great Queen, there are no secrets in the future for him who has learned to read the book of heaven. It teaches me that in the darkness of this night shall dawn unclouded glory for the land of Shinar, and supreme empire for her who is fairest and bravest among women. As the goddess Ashtaroth is Queen of Heaven above, so shall the great Semiramis be Queen of Earth below. The Seven Stars have spoken it, and they cannot lie!"
He wondered at her preoccupation, contrasting with the attention she had lately shown her present listlessness and apparent indifference to the splendid destiny thus prophesied. Something almost of scorn passed over his brow, while he reflected, that if the mighty engine of ambition failed to move her intellect, he had yet a subtler instrument with which to touch her heart.
Presently she roused herself to ask, "Did the stars promise only that I should be great, or will they permit me also to be happy?"
"The queen's greatness," answered Assarac, "like her beauty, is inseparable from her very being. Her happiness, like the robe that covers it, can be put on or off at will."
"You are right," she exclaimed, while the resolute look he knew so well passed over her beautiful face down to the very chin. "And she who stands panting at a fountain were indeed a fool not to stoop and drink. Tell me, then, their behests. What the stars bid me, that will I do."
"The Great Queen cannot read from the book of heaven so readily as a humble priest, the lowest of her slaves, though this lore, too, will I aspire to teach her at some future time; but there lies in the temple, fairly writ out in the Assyrian character and plain as the flight of an arrow through the air, a scroll that teaches us poor servants of Baal the rudiments of those mysteries into which the ruler of a mighty empire must needs inquire. It is to be found in a secure chamber of the painted gallery under the winged image of Nisroch our god."
While he spoke, not the slightest curl of his lip, the faintest inflection of his voice, betrayed a hidden motive, another meaning from that which the plain straightforward words seemed to convey. Yet the queen glanced very keenly in his face, while she stopped short in her walk and turned towards the temple, observing only—
"It is not yet near sunset. I shall have light to read the scroll."
Then she dismissed Kalmim and her women, desiring that she might be attended only by the priest of Baal, in whose steps, nevertheless, Sargon followed like his shadow.
Arrived within the porch of the temple, she gave a great sigh of relief, as though she luxuriated in the refreshing coolness of those spacious halls, with their smooth shining floors, their countless columns, their vast shadowy recesses, that spoke of calm and secrecy and repose. She had not gone far, ere Assarac stopped and prostrated himself at her feet.
"Let not the queen be wroth with the lowest of her servants," said the wily eunuch, "if he ask permission to be relieved for a brief space from attendance on her person. There is so much to be prepared for the feast of Baal, so many details to arrange for the sacrifice of to-night, that I must neglect my duties no longer. The scroll lies where all who pass may read, and when the Great Queen has studied it enough, if, standing in this spot, she will but clap her hands thus, those shall be within call who can summon me to her presence without delay."
Semiramis frowned, though the frown did but mask a smile.
"It is scarce a royal reception," said she; "nevertheless, be it so. I am content to breathe this cool and grateful air for a space, ere I return with Kalmim and the women to my palace across the river. You are dismissed."
He rose and retired, making a sign to Sargon, who watched his every movement, that caused the shield-bearer to follow him forthwith.
Clear of the queen's presence, Assarac pointed to a table on which stood a golden flagon and drinking-cups of the same metal.
"Not even to-day?" said he, while the other shook his head in token of dissent. "Trust me, Sargon, you will be faint and athirst before all is done."
"Not a drop of wine shall cross my lips," answered the shield-bearer in a fierce determined whisper, "till I have dipped my hands in the blood of him who has injured me. I have sworn it by the splendour of Nisroch. It is the oath of the Great King!"
"Is your vengeance, then, so deadly?" asked the eunuch, in a tone of pity that obviously chafed and aggravated the passion it seemed to commiserate. "Surely ten score of sheep, five yoke of oxen, a hundred camel-loads of barley, or a talent of gold should absolve the shedder of blood from farther reparation. In our land of Shinar the laws are merciful, and do not exact life for life."
"There is a law in man's heart," replied Sargon, still in the same low concentrated accents, "that sets aside the law of nations and the artificial ordinances of priests. See here," he continued, plucking from his girdle a knotted bowstring, limp and frayed, which he put in the other's hand; "a reader of the stars should be able to tell a simple spearman how many knots on that bit of twisted silk go to the score."
"It needs no great study to perceive that but one is left here now," answered Assarac with an inquiring look into the other's face.
"The bow from which I took that string had been bent many a time in the Great King's service," was the reply; "and a shaft it sped but seldom missed its mark. I have covered Ninus under shield, and defended him with my body, when arrows and javelins were flying thick as the sands of the desert before a south wind. I have waged my life, poured out my blood freely for my lord, and he has rewarded me with his own royal hand."
"He is lavish enough," observed Assarac, "be it gold or stripes, honours or death, that he awards. May the king live for ever!"
"May the king live for ever!" repeated his shield-bearer, "a god among gods, a star in the host of heaven. If an empty throne be waiting for him up yonder, may it soon be filled! When I saw my boy fall stark dead, the blood gushing from his mouth and nostrils, I prostrated myself and did obeisance to the Great King; but I drew that string from my bow, and in it I tied a score of knots, swearing with each a deadly oath, that by the splendour of Nisroch I would be avenged ere the twentieth was undone. Since then I have loosed a knot with every sunrise; and lo, a priest of Baal counts, and tells me there is but one left!"
Beneath its sallow skin a terrible smile rounded the fleshy outlines of the eunuch's face. His voice, however, remained firm while he whispered—
"We understand each other, and there must be no wavering—no escape—no mercy!"
Between his clenched teeth the shield-bearer's answer came in single syllables, hissing like drops of blood on a burning hearth—
"Such wavering as stayed the cruel hand, the deadly bow! Such escape as was afforded that light-footed youth, whom only an arrow's flight could overtake! Such mercy as he showed my boy!"
"Come with me," was the high-priest's reply; and the two ascended a spiral staircase of carved and polished wood-work, leading to the Talar or cedar-chamber on the roof of the temple, where at nightfall sacrifice was to be offered, and drink-offerings poured out in person by the Great King to his Assyrian god. Here they drew from a store-chamber within the wall several bundles of reeds, which they strewed in profusion over the wooden floor of the cedar-house, and which Assarac sprinkled assiduously with a certain fluid from a phial he had kept hidden beneath his gown.
"Every precaution must be taken," observed the priest with another hideous smile. "But if it be the will of his ancestor Ashur to descend for him in a chariot of fire, and these reeds thus saturated should catch the flame, then must the Great King, if he be not overcome with wine and sleep, escape by yonder narrow staircase. His shield-bearer will lie in wait there to help him down."
Sargon nodded, and his white teeth gleamed between the curls of his jetty beard.
"It is a faithful servant who thus risks life with his master," continued the priest. "When a subject approaches the king in his sacred office, the punishment is death."
"Death!" repeated Sargon, and his hand stole to the haft of his two-edged sword, while he burst into a mocking laugh.
Semiramis meantime, left to her own devices, strolled through the long corridors and lofty halls of the temple with wavering steps and slow, that yet bore her nearer and nearer the chamber at the end of the painted gallery, where Sarchedon was lodged. Opposite its entrance stood an eagle-headed figure of Nisroch, with beak and wings of gold. On this the prisoner's eyes were fixed, as he watched the lapse of time by the fading sunlight on its burnished edges, and, looking only for deliverance in the carelessness of the priests, longed for darkness, that he might explore the temple and find for himself some secret passage through which to gain the town. Thus gazing, it was with no assumed start of surprise that he marked the queen's beautiful figure and shining raiment emerge like a vision from under the very shadow of the god; and while he prostrated himself at her feet, he could not forbear covering his eyes with his hands in honest doubt whether he were face to face with a woman of real flesh and blood, or with some illusive creation of his own excited fancy. Perhaps no intentional flattery could have been so grateful to the queen, whose daring nature was yet sufficiently feminine to be tempered with a certain reserve and restraint in the presence of a man she loved.
Semiramis looked tenderly down on the kneeling form at her feet, leaning towards it with the graceful pliancy of the palm-tree as she bends in the evening breeze.
"Rise, Sarchedon," she whispered, dwelling fondly on every syllable of his name as it passed her trembling lips; "this is no time for empty homage and unmeaning form. Know you not that you are to die with to-morrow's dawn?"
Even that hideous prospect, even love for another woman burning at his heart, could not veil the passionate admiration that blazed from his eyes while he looked up in the fairest face beneath the sky.
Meeting his glances, her own kindled into fire. She laid her white hand on his shoulder with a gesture that was almost a caress. But the hand, so firm to draw a bow, to grasp a sceptre, to record a doom, shook like a leaf of the great tamarisk-tree in her own gardens.
"I have come to save you," she continued in a voice that sank lower and lower with her failing breath. "Was I not the cause of your offence? Do I not share your crime? I cannot let you die!"
He scarcely believed his senses. Could this be the royal lady who had ruled so calmly half the nations of the East—this panting, trembling, eager woman, changing colour, mood, and bearing with every throb of her beating heart? It was hard to find voice for the conventional declaration, that "he was the lowest of her servants, and his life lay in the hand of the Great Queen!"
"Your life, Sarchedon," she murmured. "If your life be indeed mine, what more can I desire? See, you shall take it back. It is a free gift; and again I am all alone. A queen, forsooth! Who would be a queen, to burn like Ashtaroth in heaven with fire kindled in her own heart, having none to counsel, none to cherish, none to love?"
He had sprung to his feet. He looked on the beautiful woman standing beside him, and every manly instinct of his nature rose to answer her appeal, so touching, so bewildering, and so fond. The very contrast of her flushed temples and disordered looks with those royal robes of state might have turned a cooler brain, and no consideration of danger or duty could have caused him to forbear exclaiming,
"I have but one desire on earth—to live and die at the queen's feet!"
Never had she bestowed on Ninus, perhaps never even on Menon, the husband of her youth, such a smile as now beamed from eyes and lips and brow on the impulsive warrior, who had scarcely spoken ere something in his inmost heart bade him wish his words unsaid. Her lithe and shapely figure swayed towards him, as if, but for his outstretched arms, it must have fallen. The perfume of her hair surrounded and intoxicated his senses; her breath was on his cheek, her sweet lips scarce a palm's breath from his ear, while in gasping broken syllables she murmured,
"Not at her feet, Sarchedon, but at her heart! Nay, more, you shall——"
Had Nisroch descended bodily from his pedestal, or Ninus started up like a ghost from the gaping floor, Semiramis could scarcely have changed so suddenly to the cold impassive rigidity of marble. Following the direction of her stony gaze, Sarchedon beheld, emerging, as it were, from the very pannelling of the chamber, a dark face and armed figure he recognised as those of the shield-bearer. Sargon, returning by a secret passage from strewing reeds on the floor above, had thus unwillingly interrupted an interview which his own instincts told him it was very dangerous to have witnessed. With oriental readiness, indeed, his countenance assumed an expression of unconscious stolidity; but in his heart he knew that the queen's eye had identified him. And it was too late. Sarchedon, though without a weapon, would have sprung at the intruder, but the queen laid her hand, firm enough now, on his arm.
"It is not time," she said in accents so unmoved, so pitiless, that they made his blood run cold. "To-morrow, Sarchedon, we meet again here, at the same hour." Then changing her tone to one of the deepest tenderness, added, "I will claim that amulet you wear before the whole of Babylon;" and so, whispering "farewell," was gone.
When she vanished from his sight, Sarchedon could almost have believed he was mocked by the illusions of a dream.
Ere she left the temple, Semiramis did not fail to clap her hands, and summon Assarac to her presence. With more than usual graciousness, she bade him attend her to the gate, and when beyond the hearing of certain priests who were busied about their usual offices, asked with a smile, "that shield-bearer, Sargon, is a stout warrior, I have heard. Can you depend on him?"
"To the death!" answered the eunuch. "Less will not serve him. He requires blood for blood."
"If the flames do their work, there need be no bloodshed," was the reply. "But of course he must never leave the temple alive."
"Of course," assented Assarac; and so the Great Queen passed calmly on to her own royal dwelling beyond the river.
His queen's command, backed by the signet of the Great King himself, was a matter that brooked neither hesitation nor delay; and Arbaces, retiring from the royal presence, reflected with considerable apprehension on the order he had received from Semiramis. Like many other veterans in the Assyrian army, he was devoted, body and soul, to Ninus, reverencing him perhaps less as a monarch than as the famous warrior, who had led armies to victory again and again. There is no bond so close as that which is drawn by companionship in privation, danger and adventure—by a share, however small, in that military glory, before which all other fame pales to a wan and feeble light. But between his tried captains and a despotic leader of whose authority there can be no jealousy, as there can be no cavil at his command, exists the community of interests, the mutual and reciprocal confidence of hounds with their huntsman, the wild deer in the mountain with the broad-fronted master-stag of the herd.
Arbaces, riding slowly towards his palace, while a score of bearded retainers paced beside his steed, shook his head in grievous doubt and perplexity as to his duty in the present crisis.
"To move without the wall at an hour's notice," thought the old warrior, "that tried host, which has even now marched in, triumphant and well-found in every detail, from a successful campaign; the veterans of Ninus, trained under his own eye in the field, on every man of whom I could depend as on myself, that he would shed his last drop of blood for the glory of the Great King—to leave Babylon at the mercy of the priests and that gilded army, which professes allegiance only to the queen—thus to place ourselves, weakened and defenceless, in the hands of such men as Assarac and Beladon, crafty intriguers who would shrink from no secret crime, though they would tremble like girls to set a company in array against an open foe—is it right? Is it wise? Is it for the safety of the Great King? It is on my head. I must obey. Yet will I make one effort to save him from himself, even though he consume me in his wrath while I speak with him face to face."
Drawing rein as he came to this conclusion, Arbaces dispatched messengers to the captains of the host, summoning them to meet at his own dwelling with the utmost promptitude; and, turning his horse, rode off at speed towards the palace of the Great King.
As he galloped through the wide streets, sitting erect and fair, his golden armour gleaming in the sun, his long beard waving in the wind, many an eye looked after him with glances of respect, admiration, and even regard for the successful warrior, the noted captain, the right hand and counsellor of Ninus himself. Stalwart water-carriers staggering between their jars—tawny fruit-sellers sitting amongst their gourds under booths at the street side—the very leper, grovelling and scraping himself in the dust, had heard of his achievements, and envied rather than grudged him his horses, his wealth, his splendour, his beautiful daughter, and his warlike fame.
How could they tell he was risking all these with every stride of his good steed, from a sense of unquestioning loyalty to the grim old monarch, who might put him to death on the spot for entering his presence unrequired?
Ninus in the camp was to be accosted by the meanest soldier; Ninus on the seat of judgment turned a willing ear to the lowest of his subjects; but to intrude on Ninus in the palace was a capital offence by royal decree, by the custom of the olden time, and by the laws of the land of Shinar.
Nevertheless, Arbaces waited for no announcement, but flinging his horse's rein to be held by a captain of ten thousand on duty at the gate, strode swiftly through vast halls and shining corridors till he reached the summer chamber of the old monarch's privacy. Two stalwart spearmen at the entrance, guards of his own selection, made way for him with looks of wonder and awe, while the chief captain, desperate as though leaping with lowered point and raised buckler to the breach of a fenced city, dashed headlong into the presence of the Great King.
Ninus sprang to his feet, and once again the light of battle gleamed in his eyes.
"Welcome," he exclaimed, "my trusty servant!—welcome, as the sound of trumpets that bids Assyria charge with chariots and horsemen along the whole line! It can be no light matter, by the beard of Ashur, that brings you thus into my presence. Reach your hand to the sceptre, and out with it, man. Is the city in revolt? Hath Armenia sent us a defiance? Are the rebels of Philistia swarming at the gate? O, I am weary, weary to madness of this drowsy inaction! Tell me it is something that shall force me to saddle and war-chariot. Bid me shake a spear under shield once again, or you had better have leaped into the air from the tower of Belus, rather than flown here thus, quivering and aimless, like a random shaft from a wet bowstring!"
Little reassured by the alternative, Arbaces hastened at least to take hold of the royal sceptre, and thus secure himself against the worst consequences of his indiscretion; for pardon was invariably accorded to him for whom the king extended that emblem of sovereignty with his own hand; but he dreaded the old warrior's disappointment to learn there seemed no excuse for a recommencement of the game he loved so well, and it was only because he was a brave man to the core that he looked his lord steadily in the face while he said firmly, but respectfully, "O king, live for ever! I speak not as the lowest of slaves to the highest of masters; I speak as warrior to warrior, as man to man. Arbaces asks Ninus if he has ever deceived him in council, or failed him in the field."
"Never!" exclaimed the king, on whose kindred spirit the other's manly bearing produced such an effect as might have been expected. "Never," he repeated, sitting down again, while the weary look crept over his gray old face. "You have been true to me as the buckle of my belt, the handle of my blade. Old servant, old friend, old comrade, something tells me I shall never tighten one nor draw the other again."
Arbaces burst into tears. The practised warrior, who had seen towns sacked, foes slain, and captives flayed alive without a quiver of sympathy, a throb of pity, was not proof against this unaccustomed mood in his stern old master. Slave as he really was, slave in presence of a fierce and irresponsible despot, his heart filled with a painful, piteous sympathy that unmanned him, and he wept.
The king's harsh laugh, covering, it may be, some kinder sentiment than derision, and hoarse with other weakness besides the cough of age, recalled him to himself.
"Go, get a spindle!" exclaimed Ninus. "Surely, but for that rugged face and grizzled beard, I had believed it was an old woman standing at my footstool with wet eyes to pray for her son's release out of the clutches of Arbaces, rather than the Tartan himself, whom I have seen many a time in haste, anger, and perplexity, but never in sorrow nor in fear."
The other's face brightened with joy and pride; but he had a duty to perform, and neither exultation in his lord's approval, nor dread of his displeasure, would prevent his carrying it out to the end.
Assuming the usual attitude of respect, and thus dropping, as it were, to his proper level of humility, the chief captain demanded meekly,
"Is it the king's pleasure to hearken, while the lowest of his servants makes report concerning the ordering of the host, and setting of the night-watches as in the day of battle?"
"What have I to do with the day of battle?" answered the king testily. "This is the day of priests and prophets, sacrifice and drink-offering, waste of time, treasure, and good wine. May Nisroch consume them all to ashes! Day of battle!—by the beard of Nimrod, day of folly rather, and weariness and shame! Thou too must needs come prating about it. Well, say on."
"The whole army of Egypt has been commanded to encamp without the walls," observed the other curtly. "Is this the pleasure of my lord the king?"
"Without the walls!" repeated his angry master. "Who dared give such a fool's order at such a time? And you too: have you thus disposed the host, scattered from their centre, and incapable of concentration or movement? By the belt of Ashur, you are a bolder man than I thought, to come and tell me this!"
"I took my orders from the Great Queen," answered Arbaces, "and she delivered them with the royal signet in her hand."
Ninus calmed down at once, while on his face came the smile that was never seen there, but in the presence of Semiramis, or at the mention of her name.
"It is well," he said. "Had it been any other man in the host but yourself, who came here unbidden to question such an authority, his face had been covered and his place should have known him no more. The king hath spoken."
His old heart thrilled while he thought how this unmilitary disposition of his army was but another instance of the queen's love and care; another proof of her confidence and affection. She would spare him all incitement to exertion by thus withdrawing for a time his favourite occupation, would exact a proof of his trust in thus confiding his personal safety and his kingdom to those who were avowedly at her own disposal. Well, he might not have many more opportunities to please her. Let the queen's fancy be indulged unquestioned, and her commands obeyed.
While he dismissed Arbaces, rudely enough it may be, according to his wont, there was yet a rough kindliness underlying the haughty manner and fierce peremptory tones, that caused the chief captain's heart to sink with a sense of depression, a vague foreshadowing of evil he had never felt before. As the subject raised his head, after the usual prostration on leaving his king's presence, the eyes of master and servant met. At the same moment, the same thought seemed to fall like ice on the heart of each, that henceforth neither should look in the other's face again.
Wearily and slowly the chief captain paced back towards his home, the good horse under him partaking, as it seemed, in his rider's discomfiture. It was a sore and saddened heart, contrasting painfully with his elation on the day of triumph, when he rode so proudly beneath its walls, that he now carried through the lofty portals of his palace. He had, however, one consolation left in the presence of his daughter. So long as she remained under his roof, it seemed to her father there was still peace and rest and tranquil happiness at home.
"The girl," said he, with his Oriental turn of thought and expression, "is like a light in the dwelling, a lily in the garden, a fountain in the court."
But his apprehensions were not destined to be relieved by the return of those whom he had sent to summon the principal captains of the host. With the first who prostrated himself before the Tartan while he dismounted came evil tidings, which each successive messenger arrived only to aggravate and confirm.
Ispabara, chief of the spearmen, a tried warrior and leader of repute, had been removed from his command, and cast into prison. Even now the force that hitherto acknowledged his authority was defiling through the great gate to quit the town under another captain. Scarcely was this startling announcement digested when a second breathless runner appeared to say that Sabacon, the captain of the chariots, had been summoned hastily to the presence of the Great Queen, and had not since been heard of. Meantime, the whole strength of the chariots of iron were already massed in the plain by the Well of Palms.
"What of Belasys and his trusty bowmen?" exclaimed Arbaces in deep concern and perplexity, while a third light-footed youth laid his forehead to the ground ere he made his ill-omened report.
"Let not my lord be wroth," was the deprecating reply. "Belasys cannot be found. The bowmen are in confusion, but Taracus has received orders to command them under the signet of my lord the king, and has marched them out by companies through the different gates of the city. The men of Nineveh refused to move, and were scattered like chaff before the wind by the horsemen of the Great Queen. Dagon! how the blue mantles rode through and through their ranks, piercing, hewing, trampling them down and sparing none! Men say their bowstrings had been cut when they encamped last night by the temple of Baal. The women of Nineveh shall look from their walls in vain, for by the Thirteen Gods I think not a score of that northern band can have escaped alive!"
"And all this on the feast-day," muttered Arbaces, turning into his house with a heavy heart.
It was obvious that some deadly plot had been contrived—some fearful catastrophe was imminent. It needed but little of his warlike experience to remind him that an army thus scattered, while disorganised by a change of leaders, would be useless for all purposes of resistance or offence.
Of the queen's object he could form but vague speculations; for the means she had employed to carry it out, he could not repress a sentiment of admiration, considerably dashed with fear. That the authority which devolved on her with the royal signet had been employed to place the city of Babylon, and with it the great Assyrian empire, at her mercy was too apparent; but he hesitated to believe she would use the power she thus owed to his affection, for the destruction of her husband and her king.
Arbaces was a man of energy and action, accustomed to sudden peril, fertile in the resources by which it should be met. But he was also superstitious and a fatalist. It is possible that he might have organised some scheme for the defence of his old master, made some effort to avert the storm that was gathering over the royal head, had it not been for one of those trifling events on which the fate of an empire has sometimes been known to turn.
Exhausted and perplexed, he called for wine almost as he left the saddle. Ishtar, who had been watching for her father's arrival, sprang joyfully forward and ministered to his wants, bringing him the restoring draught in a golden cup, beautifully carved, chased, and set with precious stones.
The girl's step was free and buoyant; her bearing joyous, her sweet face radiant in the light that once in a lifetime glorifies every child of earth with a ray direct from heaven.
The sun was setting, and a stream of crimson from its level beams crossed the shining floor beneath her feet. Suddenly she stopped, and looking wildly into the cup, turned pale—pale even in that rich glow of evening, tinging hands and robe and hair with red.
"O, father!" she said, "do not drink. It looks like blood!"
He set the wine down untasted, and covered his eyes with his hands.
"Enough!" he muttered. "Who shall strive against Nisroch, or flee from him who hath the four winds of heaven for his wings? The Seven Stars have spoken, and it is well!"
Then there came on him a great trembling and fear; for he looked on his daughter, and wondered who should protect her when he was gone. His own head, the life of the Great King, the fate of the empire, seemed as nothing compared to the safety of that beloved being—the child of his bosom—the one ewe lamb of his fold!
It was the divining cup of his race from which Ishtar had unwittingly been about to give him to drink, and he would have been as loath to defile his father's tomb, or question his father's honour, as to doubt its gift of prophecy, or make light of the warning it proclaimed.
He believed firmly enough that a pure maiden, looking into this mysterious vessel at any crisis of her fate, would there behold reflected, as in a mirror, a presentiment of that good or evil which the future held for her in store. And what had she seen now? By her own confession, to her obvious dismay, a hideous sea of blood!
He dismissed her from his presence gently, kindly, yet with a stern sorrow that forbade her to remonstrate or disobey. Then, alone at last, in the hall of his stately palace, he rent his mantle from hem to hem with a great cry of anguish, and sat down on the bare floor, unnerved, unmanned, in a paroxysm of horror and despair.
Above him, grand and imposing in the shadows of coming night, loomed his own sculptured image on the wall—proud, erect, triumphant—driving at speed in his war-chariot over a field of slain.
So darkness gathered round original and likeness: the fierce conqueror helmed and plated, bow in hand—the prostrate figure, with rent garments, bowed in misery to the dust. And the stars came out in golden lustre—mellow, benignant, radiant—smiling down, as it would seem, in peace and good-will on the sleep of Babylon the Great.
In the meantime, not only to his temple had been confined the preparations of his servants for celebrating the festival of the great Assyrian god. Throughout the city, wherever shrine was sculptured or altar reared, garlands had been woven, drink-offerings prepared, droves of animals made ready for sacrifice, and trenches even dug to carry off the blood that was to flow like water with the fall of night. The priests of Baal swarmed in every open space, singing, shouting, gesticulating with frantic leaps, and bare knives brandished to threaten their own naked breasts. Nothing was left undone that could excite the fanaticism of the multitude, and their hot Assyrian blood soon rose to boiling pitch under the wild excitement of the hour. Men's eyes flashed, their cheeks glowed, while they rent the air with cries in honour of their deity, and troops of women, with dishevelled hair and unveiled faces, might be seen beating their breasts, waving their arms, even dancing in grotesque unison with the mystic transports of the priests.
The prophets of the grove, too, had taken possession of every eminence that might boast a leaf of verdure, every green and wooded spot, both within and without the walls, for their comprehensive worship of the host of heaven, figured as it would seem by the countless blossoms and perennial vitality of their sacred tree—typical, it may be, of that which long ago in Eden "stood in the midst of the garden, good for food, pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise;" or that of which he must eat who would live for ever, and which seemed to have promised, far back in the buried ages, yet another tree of expiation and suffering, on which the Great Sacrifice was to be offered—the Great Sacrifice of immeasurable love and pity, that the sense of man cannot fathom, nor his words describe, nor his narrow heart conceive.
In all idolatry, in the darkness of every superstition, however foul and debasing, is there not some faint reflection of that true dawn which shall hereafter brighten into perfect day?
Amongst the crowds that surged and swayed in the main streets of the city, carried away by present enthusiasm, and agape for fresh excitement, might be seen many a proud dark face, with black curled beard and hair, looking calmly, triumphantly, it may be even scornfully, on the seething shifting throng. These faces all bore the same impress of quiet daring and prompt resolve, satisfied to bide the right time patiently, yet ready at any moment to strike the fatal blow. Their haughty looks and stern self-confidence disclosed the temper of that army which, having been left at home to protect the empire during the last campaign, had assumed to itself the title of the Great Queen's host, affecting to take its orders directly from Semiramis, to be at her especial service, and devoted primarily to her interest or person, rather than to the empire or the king.
It needed less knowledge of human nature than was possessed by Assarac to foresee that such a distinction between two such forces, as had now entitled themselves respectively the armies of Egypt and Assyria, was likely to produce feelings of jealousy and rancour, ready at any moment to break out in open hostility. The eunuch, despite attentive study of the stars, had not failed to read that book diligently which closes every page with every passing day, sealed to the curiosity that is fain to anticipate its coming chapters, but standing fairly open for those who would learn the probabilities of the future from the records of the past. He judged men's thoughts less by their deeds than their inclinations, and calculated their future conduct rather from their passions than their interests. It was through his advice that the army of Egypt had been scattered over the surrounding country, and that of Assyria, or the queen's host, concentrated in the city, by timely use of the Great King's signet. With military decision, unexpected perhaps in one whose avocations seemed unwarlike, as his character might have been thought unmanly, he had seized, and caused to be securely guarded, the principal gates of the city, the sluices that dammed its stream, even the tunnel under the great river, which afforded communication between the palaces of the king and queen. He had neglected no precaution; had provided for every emergency; had corrupted one army, disorganised another, maddened the priests, inflamed the multitude, set his snares in the very path of the noble prey he had determined to destroy; and calmly awaited the result.
Beladon looked on his chief with the admiration of a neophyte for some grand professor of his art. It seemed strange to see one on whom the fate of an empire depended, whose slightest hesitation might involve with his own the ruin of all his supporters, so calm, so confident, so unmoved. Not the careless, pleasure-seeking Sethos, whose only business in life was to fill the king's cup, as his chief recreation was to sun himself in Kalmim's eyes, could have seemed less interested in the mighty preparations going forward than was the prime mover and origin of all. Nay, that thoughtless youthdidwear some slight air of perplexity on his brow while he crossed the open space between the temple and the royal palace, on his way from the apartments of the prince.
"What is this cloud coming up from the desert now?" said the cup-bearer to the priest, as they met under shadow of the sacred building, and observed, by such of its graduated steps as were still exposed to the scorching glare, that not many hours had yet to pass before night. "The Great King covers his feet in his summer-chamber; the queen tans her fair face and heats her Southern blood hurrying to and fro, from palace to temple, from hall to gallery, from the prince's apartments to the royal judgment-seat. Kalmim keeps silence, which is in itself a marvel, shaking her head, as if she knew more than she would tell; while in the midst of these signs and wonders, Ninyas sends and bids me ride with him into the desert in this stifling heat, as a man would say to his friend, 'Brother, you are athirst and an hungered. Here is a melon and a water-jar. I pray you eat and drink.' What does it all mean, I say? The desert forsooth! By the light of Ashtaroth, I never wish to travel the desert again, after the toil and thirst and suffocation of that endless campaign!"
"The prince means to hunt the lion, no doubt," answered Beladon, "under the eyes of Ishtar, or to speak plain, in the light of the rising moon."
Sethos pondered.
"A lion at bay is no pleasant companion," said he, "by moonlight or daylight either. It is not the smile of a fair woman he puts on, I can tell you, when your horse comes up with him, and he begins to look you in the face."
"I know which is most dangerous," replied the priest; "but I doubt if Ninyas feels a wise man's fear for either one or other. Nevertheless, the hunter at night may be a prey before dawn; and the child that cries to its mother for the moon must be pacified ere it wake the household."
"You speak in parables," answered Sethos, yawning, "and during the heat of the day too! I cannot interpret parables, nor do I believe much in priests. Well, at least I am free of the palace for to-night, and have done with the Great King till to-morrow at dawn."
"Till to-morrow at dawn," repeated the other, adding, in a tone of light yet meaning banter: "When the lion turns to bay, Sethos, what is the hunter to do then?"
"He must drive an arrow through the wild beast's heart," was the reply, "unless he likes to sleep in the desert with nothing on but his bones. There is no compromise with the lion; if you slay nothim, he will surely slayyou."
"He will surely slayyou," repeated the other in the same tone. "It is a wise saying, though spoken by the king's cup-bearer. Nay, be not wroth with me, Sethos. I love you well, partly, I think, because you are not over-wise nor thoughtful, and a man may speak withyoufreely, not stopping to pick his words as if the plain truth would burn his lips. Take my advice: ride your best horse to-day, and water him freely before you mount. When Ninyas comes back from hunting, turn into the desert and gallop for your life."
"Where must I gallop?" asked Sethos, in some natural anxiety and alarm.
"Where?" repeated the priest. "Anywhere but back to Babylon. Ascalon," he added thoughtfully, "perhaps it would be the safest refuge, after all. If you go by the way of the Dark Valley and the Bitter Waters, you might reach it well enough."
"And the Great King's draught at sunrise?" said the cup-bearer, reverting to the first duty of his daily life.
"The Great King's draught is provided for," was the answer. "See, Assarac ascends the steps of the temple. I must prate here no longer. Do as I warned you. Farewell, I am loath to part, for I think we shall never meet again."
Little reassured by so ominous a leave-taking, Sethos hastened to make ready for the expedition to which he had been summoned by the prince. Though greatly perplexed and at a loss how to act, he decided so far to follow his friend's counsel as to select a true-bred steed of the plains on which to accompany Ninyas, permitting the good horse to drink its fill ere the bridle was put in its mouth. He slung also a little bag, containing a handful or two of dates, to his saddle-cloth, and might have completed farther preparations but that he was sent for to attend on his future monarch without delay.
Ninyas was already mounted and impatient to be off. His beautiful young face glowed with excitement, and a fever of longing shone in his eager eyes. Somewhat to the cup-bearer's dismay, he found that he alone was to accompany the prince, though the latter muttered a few indistinct sentences about attendants on foot and horseback, who had been directed to meet them outside the walls; but it struck Sethos, himself no inexperienced hunter, that for one who intended to make war on the king of beasts in his native fastnesses, it would have been well to carry a few more arrows in the quiver, a somewhat stiffer and heavier javelin in the hand.
With his unusual comeliness and graceful bearing, the person of Ninyas was as well known in the streets of Babylon as that of the mother to whom he bore so marvellous a likeness. Recognised and greeted with enthusiastic acclamations as he passed on, his progress through the city was one continued ovation. And Sethos wondered more and more to observe that his young lord selected the most public thoroughfares for their ride, although the absence of his usual guards, the waiving of all state or ceremony, seemed to infer that he wished to depart unnoticed and unknown.
More thoughtful than he had ever been in his life, the cup-bearer followed close on the prince's heels, anxious, silent, and sadly embarrassed by the warning he had lately received. Ninyas, on the contrary, laughed and jested with the crowd, breaking through the habitual reserve that existed between his father's subjects and the royal descendant of the gods with a joyous freedom that sat gracefully enough on one so young, so renowned, and, above all, so fair.
In an open space not a furlong from the gate by which they were about to leave the city, the multitude seemed at its thickest. The prince's horse could scarcely move in a foot's pace, although those against whom it pressed prostrated themselves to the ground, kissing the body or trappings of the animal, and even the feet of its rider. Much excitement had been caused here by a huge altar of turf raised to Baal, gay in a profusion of flowers, girt with the usual trench, and surrounded by a numerous circle of priests, leaping, shouting, waving their arms in paroxysms of an excitement too unbridled to be wholly feigned. As Ninyas came to a halt almost in their midst, one of these, springing frantically in the air, caught hold of the prince's bridle, and brandishing a broad curved knife, laid his own breast open with a wild flourish that cut, however, little more than skin-deep.
It was a startling figure, standing there so tall and lean, naked to the waist, and bleeding freely from its tawny sinewy chest. The thick black hair and beard were matted together in foul disorder, the piercing eyes rolled and glittered with the light of madness, while a long-drawn howl of mingled agony and triumph denoted that the votary was under the inspiration of his god.
Sethos trembled, the horse of Ninyas pawed and snorted while his rider smiled in scorn; but the crowd, swaying to and fro, caught the excitement of the moment, and a whisper running from lip to lip like wildfire rose to a shout of "Prophesy, prophesy! He foams, he writhes! Baal has come down on him! Prophesy, prophesy!"
Another gash, a hideous laugh, a long-drawn dismal wail, and that unearthly figure, towering above the rest, hovering as it were with arms extended towards the prince, took up its parable in raving incoherent utterances, while the gleaming teeth and restless features worked in frightful jerks, like the contortions of a man in a fit.
"I am Nerig! I am Zachiah! I am Abitur of the Mountains! I have fought with Merodach, and lain with Ashtaroth, and spoken with Baal face to face! Mine eyes are opened, and I, even I, behold the things of earth and heaven. I am no man, not I, to be born of woman, scorched with fire, slain with steel. I am three devils in one—Nerig, Zachiah, and Abitur of the Mountains—three devils, and yet I cannot lie, for it is not I who speak, but Baal! Baal has come down on me, and cast out the devils, and hereafter will I write them a bill of divorce, that they know me no more; and the voice of Baal cries, 'O king, live for ever!' and the finger of Baal points to this goodly youth, and bids him reach his hand to take the sceptre, draw his girdle to wear the sword; and the fire of Baal falls on my heart and consumes me, constraining me to cry without ceasing, 'To-morrow, and to-morrow, and yet to-morrow!' It is spoke below; it is writ above! O king, live for ever!"
Then the foam flew from his mouth, and he fell on his face, stark and senseless, under the very feet of the prince's horse. Swerving aside in terror, the animal's hoof struck sharp on his defenceless head, and he lay there to all appearance a dead man.
But neither amongst his comrades nor the bystanders was an eye turned on him in pity, nor an arm stretched to raise him from the earth. The looks of all were bent on their future monarch and favourite, now hastening to depart.
As Ninyas disappeared through the city gate, once more a shout went up into the sky; and like the countless birds of morning, with their various notes of welcome to the rising sun, all these voices had but one burden, one chorus, and thus it ran:
"The gods cannot lie! Baal hath spoken. O king, live for ever!"
With the last rays of the sinking sun, as its crimson disk went down into the desert, there rose from the echoing temple such a clang of cymbals, such a bray of trumpets, such a wild burst of loud triumphant music, as caused to ring again her hundred brazen gates, and warned Great Babylon, through all her countless palaces, that the sacrifice by fire was now to be perfected before their god, and the sacred feast of Baal consummated with the close of day.
At this given signal, thousands of torches flared out on balcony and terrace, innumerable lamps gleamed and twinkled in bower, grove, and garden; while from the beacon-fire that crowned the tower of Belus a thin red flame shot up into the night, like the tongue of an angry serpent reared on end to strike. Far below, in street and square, were massed the eager expectant multitude, their white garments and dark faces brought into strong relief under that fitful glare; while above them, in grand imposing perspective, loomed long avenues of the mighty bulls of granite, with wings unfurled and stately human mien, calm, stern, colossal, types of majesty and strength.
Not a warrior was to be seen; not a bow nor spear, nor so much as the glitter of a headpiece; but every tower at every gate, every stronghold and place of concealment within the walls, swarmed with armed men; while in the paradise that surrounded the palace of the Great Queen was arrayed such a force as would have sufficed to sack the whole city in an hour.
Semiramis, dressed in royal robes, with the royal tiara on her head, saw them served with food and wine ere she went down their ranks in person; while every captain of a thousand, for himself and his command, swore fidelity to the queen, to Ninus, to the dynasty of Nimrod, especially to the young prince, who was destined hereafter for the throne of the Great King.
In all her varying moods, the present seemed to suit her best; and many a fierce bowman remembered afterwards how lovely the queen had looked under the shade, as of coming sorrow, that clouded her gentle brow—with how tender a grace she seemed to take leave of each man individually, as if something warned her she was bidding them a last farewell. When she retired into her palace, not one but looked on its walls with something of that sweet sad longing which thrills a lover's heart who gazes on the dwelling of his mistress, on the casket that contains his priceless pearl.
But it was whispered in the rank that she had been seen afterwards in the direction of the temple, disguised and unattended, desirous perhaps of witnessing unrecognised the procession and ceremonies in which her sex forbade her to take part.
The pageant began on the very threshold of the Great King's palace, from which Ninus emerged at sundown, arrayed in his royal robes, with the royal tiara round his brows, the royal parasol held above his head. He wore a long flowing garment of silk reaching to his ankles, embroidered in mystic characters, edged with fringes and tassels of gold. Over this a second robe or mantle, trailing behind him, of the sacred violet colour, open in front, and bordered, a palm's-breadth deep, with an edging of gold. His long gaunt arms were bare, save for the shining bracelets that twined like serpents round his mighty wrists. He wore his sword also and two daggers, being the only man armed in the whole procession, except his shield-hearer, who, on the present occasion, in right of his office, bore the state parasol even at night, and was bound to attend his king as far as the upper story of the temple, on which the Talar was reared, but not a step farther for his life.
Those of his friends who were near enough to observe Sargon's face hardly recognised him. Usually so swarthy, he had now turned deadly pale, and the strong warrior's limbs dragged under him, as if he too, like his worn old master, were closely approaching the end.
Though men cast down their eyes before his splendour, appearing only to study the hem of his garment, they yet knew that the Great King looked very sad and weary; that his feet bore with difficulty that towering frame, which was still so massive a ruin; that the brave old face had grown wofully livid and sunken, the fierce eyes dull and tame and dim. Even the martial spirit of his race seemed to have died within him.
But it blazed up yet once more ere it went out for ever. When Assarac, at the head of twenty thousand priests, prostrated himself in the entrance of the temple, with a welcome, as it were, to his royal visitor, there passed over the Great King's face a light of sudden wrath and scorn.
"To-morrow!" he muttered. "To-morrow! When a fire hath licked up the locusts, mine oxen shall tread out the corn!"
And Assarac, bending low in deepest reverence, heard the implacable threat, accepting it calmly, without a quiver of pity, remorse, or fear.
Shouts louder than any that had preceded them rose from his people as the Assyrian king went up into the temple of his god. He never turned to mark it. The dull listless apathy had come over him again, as if some instinct told him that not thus, amongst odours of incense and oblation, sounds of harp and tabor, lute and viol, in the mellow lustre of festive lamps, gaudy with blazing gems and robes of shining silk, bearing peaceful offerings, surrounded by white-robed priests, should a warrior-king look his last on the nation of warriors he had ruled!
At this point the cymbals clashed in a yet wilder burst of melody; a chant, sweet, measured, and monotonous, was taken up by a thousand practised voices; while in every part of Babylon, where shrine had been adorned or altar raised, torch was laid to fagot, steel to victim; streams of blood filled the new-cut trenches, fumes of sacrifice rose on the evening breeze, loud shrieks and yells went up from his maddened worshippers, while, leaping like demons in the fire and smoke, naked priests of Baal raved and writhed and cut themselves with knives in honour of their god.
One man alone stood looking on unmoved. He was dressed as if for a journey, with a long staff in his hand. His attendants, much interested in the proceedings, held a few asses, large powerful animals of their kind, at a short distance off. It was the Israelite out of the land of Egypt, whom Assarac had released from his bonds, at liberty, and about to depart. He looked very sad and thoughtful; there was less of scorn and pity in his eye, though once, roused, as it appeared, by some unusually intemperate outbreak, a cloud of resentment passed over his face, and he muttered—
"Infinite mercy! Infinite patience! How long, Lord, how long?"
Then he withdrew from the crowd to place himself in the centre of his little band, where, formally and solemnly, he shook the dust from off his feet ere he mounted an ass; and so, followed by his handful of countrymen, proceeded gravely through the Southern Gate, outward to the desert.
Within the wide area that encircled the temple of Baal, his priests, though so numerous, were drawn out in orderly array that must have gratified the military eye of the Great King. Terrace by terrace the long lines of white stretched in endless perspective, every votary, from bearded patriarch to boy-faced eunuch, with a lotus-flower in his hand. To the image of each deity in turn, as it was borne before the monarch, they prostrated themselves with devout obeisance; while at every prostration clouds of smoke ascended from the altars, golden cups were emptied in drink-offerings, and blood spouted from the throats of fresh victims as sheep and oxen fell prostrate at the propitious moment under one well-directed blow.
Shamash passed on—the god of light, with his burnished disk representing the sun's dazzling surface, and identifying that statue of solid gold, under the weight of which its bearers, tall stalwart priests, seemed to fail and labour; Ishtar too, with her pale reflected beauty, like the moon she typified, gentle sister to the Lord of Day; and Bar and Nebo, versatile, pliant, representations of progress, improvement, human intelligence and skill; Merodach, king of battles, bold, defiant, standing on the lion's back bending his bow; and Ashtaroth, spirit of beauty, love, and light, peerless, radiant, alluring, with the bright star on her forehead and the serpent in her hand. Other images followed, of different minor influences: winged monsters threatening man, or coerced in turn by some superior spirit—the beetle, the scorpion, lions with human faces, wild bulls fighting head to head, or flying from each other heel to heel; Dagon, with more than human beauty to the girdle, foul, hideous in fins and scales below; Ashur too, monarch of the godlike circle; and Baal himself; Nisroch with the eagle's head, the burnished pinions, supreme, all-powerful, immutable, the Destiny from whose award there was no appeal, from whose vengeance no escape. Lastly, the symbolical and mystic representation of some power that must yet be superior even to Fate, some abstract essence, some intelligence infinite, inconceivable, expressed, vaguely enough, by a circle of gold encompassing a wheel of wings.
Only on such solemn occasions as the present was this emblem carried in the place of honour, immediately preceding the monarch, when he officiated in the sacred capacity of priest as well as king. It seemed to be regarded with an awe-struck reverence by all; and even Ninus, impatient as he was of such ceremonies, believing in little but his queen and his sword, could not forbear a gesture of respect while he passed beneath it, at the lowest of the steps he was about to ascend into the secluded precincts of the Talar.
Here Assarac, with another prostration, laid at the royal feet a square casket of gold, and a representation of the fir-cone, worked in the same metal, emblematic, as it were, of the two elements, fire and water; the inflammable properties of the fir-cone, with its reproductive vitality, representing the generative powers of heat; while the golden vessel seemed suggestive of that fluid which, pervading all nature and embracing the whole earth, tempering and allaying the ardour of its opposite, may be considered as the feminine influence in creation.
Thus flung down before him, these offerings signified that the Great King in his present capacity assumed vicariously the attributes of Ashur, or even Baal himself. Assarac, with considerable ceremony, now presented a cup of wine, for his sovereign to pour out in drink-offering to the host of heaven so soon as he should have reached the summit of the temple. While Ninus took it from the high-priest's hand another look of immeasureable scorn passed over the old lion face—a look that seemed lost on the eunuch, whose final prostration expressed the deepest homage, the utmost devotion, that could be rendered by a subject to his king.
The Southern night had fallen; the stars came out by countless thousands in the calm fathomless sky. Once more, high above trumpet-peal and clash of cymbal, lute and viol, harp and tabor, rose a deafening heart-stirring shout—irrepressible tribute of honour and admiration for the greatest warrior of a great warlike line. It was the farewell of his Assyrian people to their Assyrian king.
While it rang in his dull old ears, and brought the light back to his dim old eyes, the heavy folds of a curtain hanging at the foot of that sacred staircase he alone was privileged to ascend, parted, to close again for ever on the grand old form, noble even in its last decline, and majestic in the very ruin of its decay.
Assarac drew a long breath of relief; and Beladon, at the extremity of one of the lower terraces, whispered to the priest standing next him,
"What think you, brother—will they come down for him to-night in chariots of fire, as it is written in the stars?"
To which the other replied:
"Sacrifices and drink-offerings have been rendered, enough to propitiate a thousand gods; and surely brother, the stars cannot lie."
But on the face of his people, from which he had never turned in fear nor scorn, it was the Great King's destiny to look no more. Ascending into the seclusion of the Talar, he had no sooner entered its cedar-house than a strange lethargy and drowsiness enwrapped his senses. Ere he could pour out his drink-offering to the four quarters of heaven, his eyes grew heavy, his perceptions failed, his feet seemed glued amidst the rushes, strewed ankle-deep on the wooden floor, and he sank wearily into the throne prepared for him, like a man overcome with sleep.
He must have been dreaming surely, when in a corner of that chamber, at the level of his feet, he saw a dark face, brought out by a sudden glare of light—a face of which the stern lineaments, familiar surely, yet now so distorted as to be unrecognised, denoted some set purpose inassailable by pity or remorse. In the gleaming eyes, fixed steadfastly on his own, he read a horror that seemed to freeze his blood; but even then in his ghastly trance the stout old heart laughed within him, to acknowledge no sense of fear.
Yes; he must be dreaming. What else could mean these gathering shadows that oppressed his lungs, that smarted in his eyes, that numbed his faculties? He was in a glow of torpid warmth now, conscious but of a heavy drowsiness, broken by leaping flashes of light; while there passed before him, like a spirit floating across a sea of fire, the delicate head, the pale proud face, the matchless beauty of his queen. He stretched his gaunt old arms, he strove to rise, to cry out; but his limbs failed him, his head drooped, his tongue clove to his mouth.
"A dream," he thought again; "surely a dream."
But it was the last dream of the Great King, fallen into that sleep from which he never woke on earth again.