The king's eyes were not too dim to mark every movement of the woman he loved. His old heart began to beat faster and the blood stirred in his veins.

How fair and n.o.ble was the bearing of that shapely figure, as it glided on with the measured step that became her so well! How delicate and beautiful the pale face! so easily recognised even at a distance from which its features could not be distinguished, and bringing back to him as it was unveiled now, on entering her husband's dwelling, that well-remembered morning in Bactria, when she rode into the camp serene and radiant, like a star dropped down from heaven.

What was this? He started, and half rose from his throne; for she had paused amongst the guards, and one of them had fallen on his face at her feet.

Semiramis, who was above all the forms and ceremonies that trammelled weaker natures, breaking through them at will in court, camp, or palace, had resolved to take signal vengeance on Sarchedon whenever she should see him, careless alike whether they met in the desert, on the house-top, or here in the formidable presence of the king. She knew how to stab him too, and determined, at whatever cost to her own feelings, she would drive her thrust home.

How beautiful he looked, standing there in his golden helmet, with the scarlet-bordered mantle falling from his shoulders, and the white tunic reaching to his knee! Not Menon, she thought, when he wooed her by the silver lake that mirrored the towers of Ascalon, was half so fair; but Menon loved her dearly, while this man--well, she would make him eat the hardest morsel, drink the bitterest waters of affliction, and afterward he should die. What would be left her then? The love of this old dotard, the hollow pageantry, the empty pleasures, the heavy magnificence of a court. How she loathed them all! And what good would it do her even to attain supreme power if she must rule alone, without companionship, without sympathy, without love?

She had wavered in her purpose a hundred times ere she stepped as many paces. She was inflexible when she bade Sarchedon come forward from the line of his comrades, irresolute while he advanced and pitiless once more as he prostrated himself at her feet.

"You are ent.i.tled to ask a request," said she, very coldly and haughtily, "as having borne hither the signet of my lord the king. It is my part to intercede with him in your favour, and the old custom in our land of Shinar bids him grant your desire, even to the half of his kingdom."

His eyes lightened with pleasure, and her heart turned to stone. Yet even in that moment she marked that he still wore her amulet round his neck.

The name of Ishtar was on his lips, but some instinct of the palace--it may be something in the queen's face--forbade him to p.r.o.nounce it. He had wit enough to bow his forehead in the dust, and to answer,

"I do but desire the light of her countenance, and permission to abide in the service of the Great Queen."

She was not deceived by his submission, though her eyes shone with a softer l.u.s.tre while she continued, "Is there no treasure you covet, no post of honour you desire, no maiden in the whole land of Shinar you would fain take home with you to your tent?"

"I may not lift mine eyes to Ashtaroth," was his cautious reply. "If I must needs choose from among the flowers of earth, I would beg of the Great Queen to give me Ishtar, the daughter of Arbaces."

She was ready with her blow. Looking him full in the face, with the calm pitiless smile of one who puts some wounded reptile out of pain--

"It is too late," she said, in hard cutting accents. "The damsel has been promised to my son. Even now the prince is lifting her veil to salute his bride!"

In his agony he fell forward, grasping the queen's robe wildly in his hand.

The Great King sprang to his feet, his beard bristling, his very eyebrows shaking with ungovernable anger. For a s.p.a.ce he could not even find voice to speak. Then he burst out,

"By the blood of Nisroch, it is too much! He has laid hands on the queen before my very face! Were he flesh of my loins and bone of my body, he should be consumed to ashes. Ho, guards, away with him! Cover his face and lead him forth!"

A score of hands grasped the offender, a score of spears were pointed at his breast. Though it was her own act, nay, _because_ it was her own act, a strong revulsion of feeling caused the queen's stately form to shake from head to foot: and in that supreme moment she swore to her own turbulent heart that, come what might, even to the fall of the a.s.syrian empire, Sarchedon should _not_ die!

She pa.s.sed swiftly to the throne, and lifting the king's sceptre, laid one end of it against her forehead, while she placed the other in his hand.

"My lord," she said, "this is the feast of Baal. It is not lawful to slay an a.s.syrian born during the worship of the great a.s.syrian G.o.d."

There shone a red light in the king's eyes that meant death, and the foam stood on his lip. When he looked thus, it was in vain to sue for pardon. Nevertheless, he pa.s.sed his wrinkled hand over the fair brow of the woman kneeling at his feet.

"Be it so," said Ninus. "To-morrow he shall die at sunrise. The king hath spoken."

Then the guards looked furtively in each other's faces; for all men knew from such a judgment there was no appeal, in such a sentence no hope of mercy or reprieve.

CHAPTER XV

THE QUEEN'S PEt.i.tION

Sarchedon was hurried away in the custody of his former comrades, who, pitying the fate their experience taught them was inevitable, had yet discretion to take him from the presence of Ninus ere some hideous cruelty or mutilation should be added to his punishment. They were hardly out of the king's sight, however, when a priest of Baal, arriving in breathless haste, brought an order from a.s.sarac to deliver up their prisoner in the temple of the G.o.d. On the festival of that national deity, unusual respect was paid to the sacerdotal character; and as, even amongst the guards of the Great King, a.s.sarac's policy had taught him to cultivate friendship and acquire influence, the high priest's behest was obeyed readily, as if it had emanated from Arbaces or even Ninus himself.

Sarchedon therefore became only so far a prisoner that he was not permitted to pa.s.s the guards at any point of egress from the sacred building, but might roam at large through its s.p.a.cious chambers, speculating on his chances of escape when night should fall, and he could take advantage of such secret communications as his knowledge of its votaries taught him must surely exist between the temple and the town.

Meantime, however, he was a caged bird, yearning wildly for freedom because of her whom he dearly loved. The queen's shaft was shot deftly home, and the poison with which it had been tipped did its work as cruelly as the pitiless archer could have desired. It was madness to think of Ishtar in the arms of Ninyas; to feel that, whilst he was a prisoner here, she might even be struggling for personal freedom, perhaps calling on _him_ to save her in vain.

But men trained to warfare acquire the habit of reviewing calmly all sides of a dilemma, neither undervaluing its difficulties nor despairing to vanquish them; especially they take into consideration the bearing of probabilities and the important doctrine of chance. It was not long before Sarchedon reflected he had himself seen Arbaces under shield and helmet within a brief s.p.a.ce of the queen's arrival at her husband's palace; that if the espousals of his daughter were really taking place with a prince, the chief captain would hardly be absent from such a ceremony; and that Semiramis might have thought it not below her dignity to tell him an absolute falsehood for reasons of her own--reasons, he suspected, that ought to be flattering to his self-love and conducive to the safety of his person. It was impossible to mistake her avowed interest, her obvious condescension, her changing moods and the bitterness with which she accosted him in their late interview under the very eyes of the Great King. If Semiramis loved him, he thought, she would surely provide for his escape; and the first use he would make of his freedom should be to seek Ishtar and urge her to fly with him at once. Merodach could bear them both far beyond pursuit into the desert, where they would find a hiding-place from the king's merciless hatred and the queen's more cruel love.

Sarchedon, then, imprisoned in the temple of Baal, was hardly so ill at ease as the wilful imperious woman whose reckless malice had brought him to captivity and shame.

The old king scowled at her with fierce jealousy and rage as her eyes followed the retiring form of the culprit, hurried out of the royal presence with judicious prompt.i.tude by his comrades; but from the first moment Ninus ever looked on that winsome face, he had found in it a charm his heart was powerless to resist, and he was half subdued already ere she leaned towards him with tender confiding grace, and crossing her hands over his gaunt arm, rested her brow on them, while she murmured in low soft accents,

"I thank my lord that he has turned no deaf ear to the voice of his handmaiden. But enough of this. It is not well that Ninus should be moved by the misconduct of a thoughtless spearman born under an evil star. I have been summoned hastily to his presence. I feared he was ill at ease. Is it overbold of his loving servant to ask what ails my lord the king?"

"Nothing ails me," was the impatient answer; "nothing but the clamour of women's voices and the senseless outcries of priests. I sent for the queen," he added more gently, "because she is the light of mine eyes and the priceless jewel of my treasure-house."

Semiramis rose erect, and bowing her lovely head, stood with her hands crossed in the prescribed att.i.tude of humility proper for a subject.

She knew right well that in no position could she show to more advantage; the pride of her bearing softened, the tender graces of her womanhood enhanced, by its expression of shy compliance, of loving submission to her lord.

"His servant hasted hither," said she, "on the instant the king's command reached her palace. I had scarce time to tire my head and smooth my robes. Yet I would fain look my best and proudest in the sight of my lord the king."

He gazed on her with a fond admiration that was touching to see in that war-worn old face, softening its rugged outlines and bringing into the sunken eyes something of the wistful fidelity with which a dog watches for the smile of its owner.

"Tired by a score of handmaidens," said he, "blazing in a hundred jewels, or dishevelled and disrobed, with her free locks floating to her knees, not the Queen of Heaven herself is to be compared to my queen, fair and matchless to-day as on that bright morning when I saw her ride through the camp like a vision, bow in hand, and granted her the very first boon she asked me, for love of her sweet face and her soft pleading eyes."

"And am I still so fair?" smiled the queen, while a flush of hope, triumph, and pride in conscious beauty deepened the colour on her cheek.

"Nay, I shall scarce be brought to believe he is in earnest unless I can prevail on my lord the king to grant me once again the request I lay at his royal feet. If he loves me, surely he will not refuse; and--and I _think_ he loves me a little still!"

"I will have him flayed alive who gainsays it!" answered Ninus. "I have ceased to love most things now, from the roar of battle to the bubble of a wine-cup. But may I burn like a log of cedar in the fire of Belus when I cease to love my queen!"

She shot at him one of those glances she could command at will, in which mirth, tenderness, and modesty were blended with the fire of love. "I believe it," she murmured gently. "Such an affection as ours is written in the stars, and kindles into flame at the first meeting of those who are destined for each other. It seems but yesterday that my lord burst on my sight like Shamash, G.o.d of day, rising in splendour on the camp, and I turned my head away to bury my blushing face in my hands, because--because, already I loved him only too well."

With the thrill that vibrated in every fibre of the old king's frame arose the invariable accompaniment of sincere affection--a sense of uncertainty and unworthiness.

"I was a stout warrior then," said he, "and not so uncomely, for one whose life had been spent in saddle and war-chariot; but the colour has faded on my cheek now, and worse, the fire has gone from my spirit like the strength from my limbs."

There was a plaintive ring in the deep hoa.r.s.e voice, that must have touched any heart, save that of a woman with a purpose in view.

"Not so!" she exclaimed, hanging fondly about him. "Not so, my lord, my love, my hero! I swear by the host of heaven, that to me you are more n.o.ble, more kingly, more beautiful now, in the dignity of your past deeds and mature fame, than in all the vehemence and ardour of your impetuous manhood. Nay, my beloved," she added, half playfully, half sadly, while clinging yet closer to his side, "it is not I alone who think so; there were looks shot at my lord as he rode through the streets from the brightest eyes in Babylon, that had I not known full surely I was his only queen and love, would have made me so miserable I had fled straightway to the desert, and never looked on the face of man again."

Is there any age at which the male heart becomes insensible to such flattery? With ebbing life and failing vigour, battered and out-worn by a hundred battles, glorious in the splendour of a hundred victories, the Great King might surely have been above that boyish vanity, which counts for a triumph the empty gain of a woman's fancy; yet Ninus smiled well pleased, and Semiramis felt that her pet.i.tion was already more than half granted, her game more than half won.

"They know a stout spearman when they see one still," said the old hero proudly, "and they judge by the ruin, doubtless, what the tower must have been in its prime. Well, well, it stood many an a.s.sault in its day, and from hosts of many nations, nor thought once of surrender, till my queen here marched in and took possession, with all the honours of war."