"Then, if Ninyas sent to ask you of your father," whispered the young warrior, "you would be loath to go and rule over him and his in a palace of gold?"

"Better to serve Sarchedon in a tent of goat's-hair," was the answer; "better by far draw water at the Well of Palms for your herds, your camels, and the fair horse you rode that happy morning; better to be the meanest and lowest of your slaves, than never see your kind face again!"

Vanity, pride, ambition--the dazzling career open to him--the l.u.s.trous beauty of the queen: what were they to such love as this, but the flash and glitter of tinsel, compared to the ray of a real diamond? If a thought of Semiramis and her fatal favour crossed his brain, it did but spur him on to secure his happiness ere she could thwart it, to remove Ishtar, ere it was too late, from the sphere of the queen's displeasure, and the still more dangerous admiration of her son.

"Then I will ask you of your father before another day has gone down!"

exclaimed Sarchedon, stealing his arm round that lithe slender figure, leaning over the parapet, like the palm-tree bending to meet her mate.

"To-morrow will I send into the court below a score of camels and a hundred sheep, with a suit of the truest armour that ever brought the captain of a host unwounded out of battle, and my young men shall say to Arbaces--'they seek but Ishtar in return.'"

"So my father will summon me from amongst my maidens, to know if peradventure his daughter's heart hath gone forth to him who is so lavish of sheep and camels, so skilled in choice of armour, and what shall I say then?"

Only from the depths of a young girl's heart, happy and triumphant in her honest love, could have risen the smile that beamed on Ishtar's face. It was reflected in Sarchedon's eyes, while he answered:

"The daughter of Arbaces will tell him, that where her heart has gone forth, thither must Ishtar needs follow, and she will be mine!"

"And she will be yours!" repeated the girl, with a great sob of womanly happiness, tempered by maiden shame, the blood rushing to her face, while she hid it on her lover's breast.

Fast as her heart was beating, it had scarce counted a score of pulsations ere tramp of horses, call of servants, and flash of torches in the court below, announced the return of Arbaces from his duties about the Great King.

No sooner had he dismounted at the porch of his palace than the fond familiar voice was heard, asking loudly for his daughter; and gliding like a shadow from the embrace of Sarchedon, she was gone.

Yet even in that brief moment during which her brow was pressed against his bosom, she had discovered the amulet he wore, and knew, as women only do know such things, that it was not there when she saw him last.

Perhaps to an impulse of female tenderness was added the stimulant of female curiosity, when she whispered, even in the act of escape:

"To-morrow, beloved one, at the same hour. You will tell me then whence comes that jewel, and--and--if it was given you by the queen!"

Turning stealthily to depart, with his hand on the amulet, doubtful whether he would not tear it from his neck and trample it under foot, but in the mean time leaving it where it was, Sarchedon felt conscious of a strange depression, of vague misgivings, as though some future evil were casting its shadow about him ere it came. The air felt heavy, the night was darker, the stars had become dim. It seemed a different world as he pa.s.sed along the silent streets towards his home, and those keen senses of his, quickened by the practice of war, must have been strangely blunted, that he neither saw the form nor heard the footsteps of one who had watched his interview with Ishtar from first to last.

Sethos, no less nimble of foot than he was light of hand and heart, made such good haste in returning to the queen's palace, that he found Ninyas still seated at the banquet, flushed with wine, and more reckless, more impetuous, as he was more beautiful, for the excess.

"You are a trusty hunter," laughed the prince, steadying his uncertain steps as he rose with a hand on his favourite's shoulder, "and you followed the good hound bravely to the thicket where lies the deer? What think you? Is she worth the bending of a bow?"

"My lord had already wounded her with a random shaft," answered the cup-bearer. "It is the daughter of Arbaces, who flung him the posy of flowers as his chariot pa.s.sed beneath her in our triumph."

The intelligence seemed to sober Ninyas on the instant.

"And it is Sarchedon who contends with me," said he, pondering. "By the brows of Ashtaroth, the sport grows to earnest now, and the prize will be won by him who can strike first!"

CHAPTER XII

THE G.o.dS OF THE HEATHEN

Hastening from the queen's palace towards his stolen interview with Ishtar, Sarchedon had not failed to observe the white robe of a priest in the neighbourhood of the Israelitish exiles, though his preoccupation forbade his identifying the person to whom it belonged.

Sethos, on the contrary, whose wits were more at their master's service, had no difficulty in recognising a.s.sarac, and marvelled in his own mind what interests could exist in common between the haughty servant of the a.s.syrian G.o.d, and this fettered prisoner, a captive even amongst the captives of the Great King's bow and spear. Could he have overheard their conversation, his curiosity would indeed have been sharpened, but any ideas he might have previously conceived regarding supernatural influences must have sustained a shock very confusing to his understanding and his faith.

His interests, however, were of the earth, earthy, and he left to such aspiring spirits as the high priest of Baal those abstruse speculations which would fain penetrate the mysteries of another world.

a.s.sarac only waited till the last of the revellers had departed, the last of the thousand torches flaring in the palace court had been extinguished, to glide through the band of captives and lay his hand on the shoulder of him who seemed chief amongst the Israelites.

"Arise," said he, "my brother. Comfort your heart, I pray you, with a morsel of bread and a draught of wine, while your servant spreads his mantle for your ease, and loosens the fetters on your limbs."

He took the cloak from his own shoulders while he spoke, and folded it round the prisoner, releasing him at the same time from the chain that clanked and rung with every movement of wrist or ankle.

The Israelite accepted these good offices with the imperturbable demeanour he had preserved through all the incidents of his captivity.

Standing erect by the priest of Baal, he seemed to look on his liberator with a mild and condescending pity not far removed from contempt.

Scanning him warily and closely in the dubious starlight, a.s.sarac could not but admire the lofty bearing and personal dignity of this chief amongst a nation of bondsmen. His marked features, dark piercing eyes, ample beard, and venerable aspect denoted the sage and counsellor, while his well-proportioned figure, with its shapely limbs, inferred an amount of physical strength and activity not always accompanying the n.o.bler qualities of the mind.

There was a strange contrast between the eunuch's shifting restless glances, his looks of eager curiosity, half doubtful, half scornful, altogether suspicious and dissatisfied, with the expression of quiet superiority and contented confidence that glorified the Israelite's face, imparting to it a calm majesty like the light of sunset on a mountain.

"You offer bread," said he, "and pour out wine unto him who hath neither cornland nor vineyard. Therefore shall your harvest and your grapes return you an hundredfold."

"Baal will not suffer me to want," replied the other. "Shall I, then, see my brother hunger and thirst, while I have enough and to spare? Are you not of our race and kindred? Are not your oppressors our ancient enemies? Do we not come of one lineage and worship the same G.o.d?"

The Israelite pointed upward to the stars, and shook his head.

"Our fathers have taught us otherwise," said he solemnly; "and I, Sadoc the son of Azael, standing here in the bonds of my captivity, protest against your idols, your temples and your worship, your gashes and drink-offerings, your winged monsters, your sacred tree, and all the thousand unworthy forms to which you degrade the majesty of the Omnipotent and the Infinite!"

a.s.sarac smiled with the frank liberality of a disputant who in admitting his adversary's premises narrows, as it were, the field in which to do battle.

"Symbols," he answered, "symbols; the mere outward efforts of that inner spirit of worship which must find vent, like the mind of man, through the senses. He can see but with the eye, he can hear but with the ear, he can impart his thoughts only in those forms of speech that his tongue has learned to frame, and his fellows have skill to comprehend. How shall you express the principle of heat but by fire? How shall you comprehend the majesty of light but through the sun? How can you form a n.o.bler ideal of spirits, G.o.ds, and departed heroes than in those serene and silent witnesses who never weary of their endless watches in the unfathomable night?"

"So you send a thousand labourers to the mountain," replied Sadoc, pointing scornfully at the sculptures on the palace wall, "and bid them rend the granite from its unyielding sides till they have hewn out a creature such as was never seen in earth or sea or sky--a creature of make and qualities in direct defiance to that nature you profess to reverence--winged like a bird, headed like a man, limbed like a bull--a monster, grotesque, impossible, imposing only from its gigantic size and truthful outline. You rear it up at a prince's doorway, and call on men to fall down and worship before the hoofs of that which is lower than the lowest of the brutes in the system of creation!"

"Are you a priest among your people?" asked a.s.sarac quickly.

"Every head of a family is the priest of his own household," was the dignified reply. "There need no mysteries for a worship sublime as the eternal heavens, and clear as the light of day."

"Yet surely you cannot move the mult.i.tude without extraneous influences stronger and more tangible than those truths of the inner shrine which we the initiated know and accept at their real value," argued a.s.sarac.

"That very figure which you scorn speaks to the senses of the a.s.syrian nation far more forcibly than all the promptings from within that ever moved a prophet to leap and howl and gash himself with knives before an altar, while he foretold great actions and mighty events that should never come to pa.s.s. Not a spearman in the Great King's host but, when he looks on these carven blocks of granite, walks with a prouder step and shakes his weapon in a stronger hand. He sees in that mighty frame the over-powering forces that have made his race conquerors of the world; in that majestic face, calm and indomitable, the true spirit of victory marching unmoved over the ruins of an empire as over the ashes of a peasant's hearth; in those unfurled wings, the ubiquity of a dominion that can command ships for the sea, camels for the desert, and hors.e.m.e.n swarming like locusts to overrun the fertile plain. It is no representation of mere nature evoked by the toil, skill, and indeed the sufferings of countless labourers, but of that spirit which dominates and subdues nature for its own aggrandis.e.m.e.nt and fame. Where is the type of G.o.dlike dominion to be found, if not here, in this impersonation of conquest: strength, intellect, and audacity combined?"

Sadoc pointed to an Egyptian child sleeping a few paces off with a wild-flower grasped in its little hand.

"Is there less of the G.o.dlike power," said he, "in the skill that put together leaf and blossom for the delight of that poor infant, who has no other joy nor comfort?"

a.s.sarac pondered.

"There must be G.o.ds," he replied, "as there are stars, differing in magnitude and glory. Dagon hath dominion on the waters, Anu and Abitur in the mountain, Merodach raging in battle is yet subject to Ashur, and even that monarch of the mighty circle yields to his irresistible superior, and bows before the sentence of Nisroch, with the eagle's head."

"And your Nisroch," continued the Israelite; "hath he not also a master at whose word he spreads his wings and flies to the uttermost parts of the desert? Whence comes he? Who gave him his eagles head and his feathered shoulders? If he is substantial, he must be perishable; and when he has pa.s.sed away, who will make another G.o.d for the land of Shinar, and what shall he be called?"

"You speak with reason," replied the priest of Baal, "and you speak to one who has watched many a long night from the summit of the tower above us, and pored on those starwritten scrolls till his brain reeled, to learn that mystery which rules the heavens, and apply it to the government of men below. You speak wisely indeed. Who shall make a G.o.d for the land of Shinar? He it is who shall bring the whole Eastern world beneath his feet."