"Am I then so dangerous to look upon?" said she; "the face of a queen should be gracious to a faithful servant. I say to _you_, Look and live!"

A thrill of intense triumph and pleasure shot through him with her words. He took courage to scan the form and features of that celebrated woman, whose intellect and beauty had already made her mistress of the mightiest nation in the East.

She was beautiful no doubt, in the nameless beauty that wins, no less than in the lofty beauty that compels. Her form was matchless in symmetry, so that her every gesture, in the saddle or on the throne, was womanly, dignified, and graceful, while each dress she wore, from royal robe and jewelled tiara to steel breastplate and golden headpiece, seemed that in which she looked her best. With a man's strength of body, she possessed more than a man's power of mind and force of will. A shrewd observer would have detected in those bright eyes, despite their thick lashes and loving glance, the genius that can command an army and found an empire; in that delicate, exquisitely chiselled face, the lines that tell of tameless pride and unbending resolution; in the full curves of that rosy mouth, in the clean-cut jaw and prominence of the beautifully-moulded chin, a cold recklessness that could harden on occasion to pitiless cruelty--stern, impracticable, immovable as fate.

But Sarchedon only saw a lovely woman of queenly bearing, glancing approval on his glowing face. His Southern nature seemed to expand like a flower in the sunshine of her smiles.

His looks could not fail to express admiration, and she, who might have been satiated with homage, seemed well pleased to accept as much as he had to offer.

Bending towards him with a gesture of condescension, that was almost a caress, she bade him advance yet nearer to her couch.

"And now," said she, "that you have looked on this terrible face of mine without perdition, tell me your tidings from the camp. What of the war?

what of the host? what of my lord the king?"

"The war is ended," he answered briefly; "the host is victorious. My lord the king will return in triumph ere another day be past."

She started, but controlled herself with an effort.

"Enough," she answered haughtily and coldly; "you have done your duty--you are dismissed!"

Then she clapped her hands, and from behind the silken hangings appeared the woman who had guided Sarchedon into the temple.

"Kalmim," said the queen, still in the same constrained voice, "take this messenger to a.s.sarac without delay; bid the priest report to me, at sunset, all the details he can learn from him regarding the host. But stay"--her tone changed to one of winning sweetness, soft, sad, and irresistible--"not till he has had food and rest. You have ridden day and night through the desert; you have looked on your queen's face and lived. Take courage, you may live to look on it again."

With the last words she turned on him one of her rare intoxicating smiles, and the strong soldier left her presence helpless, confused, staggering like a man who wakes out of a dream.

Within the gardens, or paradise, belonging to the royal palace stood a vast pile of building, dedicated to the worship of Baal, and surrounding the lofty tower of Belus, raised on the same site, and nearly to the same alt.i.tude, as that by which human rebellion presumed to offend after the Flood. Here, at the head of a thousand priests, dwelt a.s.sarac in solemn state and splendour, officiating daily in sacrifices offered to the G.o.ds of a.s.syria, and their numerous satellites--a.s.sarac, who combined in his own person the leadership of religion and of politics; for, during the absence of Ninus on his Egyptian expedition, it had been the ambitious eunuch's aim to share, if he could not guide, the queen's counsels, and, as far as he dared, to centre in his own person the executive of government.

Sarchedon found himself, therefore, again threading the shady paths by which he had come, but on this occasion under the conduct of a guide less swift of foot than the priest but, as became her s.e.x, more nimble of tongue. Kalmim made no scruple of unveiling, to afford her companion the whole benefit of her charms.

"A good beginning indeed," said this saucy dame, with a smile that did justice to the reddest lips and wickedest eyes in Babylon; "you are in favour, my young lord, I can tell you. To have seen her face to face is no small boast; but that she should take thought of your food and rest, and bid me charge myself with your guidance through this deserted wilderness! why, I cannot remember her so gracious to any one since--well--since the last of them--there, you needn't look so bold at an unveiled woman--I ought never to have brought you here alone!"

It was almost a challenge; but he was busy with his own thoughts, and made no reply. Kalmim, unaccustomed to neglect, attributed his silence, not unnaturally, to exhaustion and fatigue.

"You are weary," said she kindly; "faint, doubtless, from lack of food, and would not confess it to save your life? O, you men, how your pride keeps you up! and why are you only ashamed of those things in which there is no disgrace?"

He compelled himself to answer, though his thoughts were far away.

"I am not ashamed to be faint and athirst. I have ridden two nights and a day, and drank water but once--at the Well of Palms."

"The Well of Palms!" she repeated, her woman's wit marking his abstraction, and a.s.signing to it a woman's cause. "It is the sweetest water in all the land of Shinar. It would taste none the worse when drawn for you by the daughter of Arbaces."

"Ishtar!" he exclaimed, while his whole face brightened. "You have seen her--you know her! Is she not beautiful?"

Kalmim laughed scornfully.

"Beautiful!" she echoed, "with a poor thin face, white as ivory, and solemn as Dagon's yonder, in the fishing-temple! Well, well! then she _is_ beautiful, if you like; and we shall learn next that she is good as well as fair!"

"What do you mean?" he asked, stopping short to look his companion in the face.

Kalmim burst into another laugh.

"I mean nothing, innocent youth!--for strangely innocent you are, though the beard is budding on your chin. And a modest maiden means nothing, I suppose, who frequents the well at which every traveller from the desert must needs halt--who draws water for warriors to drink, and unveils for a stranger she never saw before! Yes, I am unveiled too, I know; but it is different here. The queen's palace has its privileges; and, believe me, they are sometimes sadly abused!"

"Not by one who has just left the light of her presence," answered Sarchedon, angered to the core, though he scarce knew why. "I have never been taught to offend against the majesty of a king's house--to believe a fenced city taken because a bank is cast against it, nor a woman my lawful prize because she lifts her veil."

Next to making love, Kalmim enjoyed quarrelling. To tease, irritate, and perplex a man, was sport only second to that of seeing him at her feet.

She clapped her hands mischievously, and exclaimed,

"You are bewitched, my lord! Confess, now. She unveiled to turn her eyes on you before you got to horse and went your way. Is it possible you do not know who and what she is?"

"Good or evil," he answered, "tell me the truth."

"She bears her mother's name," replied Kalmim; "and, like her mother, the blood that flows in her veins is mingled with the fire that glitters in the stars of heaven--a fire affording neither light nor heat, serving only to dazzle and bewilder the children of earth. Arbaces took a wife from that race whom, far off in the northern mountains, the daughters of men bare to the spirits of the stars, tempting them down from their golden thrones with song and spell and all the wiles of grosser earth-born beauty;--deceiving, debasing the Sons of Light, to be by them deceived and deserted in turn, left to sorrow through long years of hopeless solitude and remorse. Old people yet speak of some who had themselves heard the voice of mourning on those mountains in the still sad night--the shriek of woman wailing for the lost lover, in whose bright face she might never look again! Ishtar, the wife of Arbaces, possessed her share of the unearthly influence hereditary in her race.

Her husband became a slave. He loved the very print of her feet on the sand. Travelling here from Nineveh, while this great city was building, he halted in the desert, and Ishtar walked out from her tent into the cool starlight night. They say he followed a few paces off. Suddenly she stopped, and stretched her hands towards the sky, like one in distress or pain. Rushing forward to take her in his arms, she vanished out of his very grasp. At sunrise a camel-driver found Arbaces senseless on the plain, and Ishtar was seen no more in tent or palace. But all the love he bore the mother seemed henceforth transferred to the child. Doubtless she has bewitched him too. Beware, my lord--beware! I have heard of men leaving real springs in the desert for shining rivers and broad glittering lakes, that faded always before them into the hot interminable waste. I am but a woman; yet, had I your chance of fortune, I would think twice before I bartered it away for a draught of water and an empty dream!"

He seemed very sad and thoughtful, but they had now reached the temple, and he made no reply. A white-robed priest received the young warrior at its portal with every mark of respect, and ushered him into the cool and lofty building, where bath, raiment, food, and wine, he said, were already prepared, casting a look of intelligence at Kalmim, who answered with as meaning a glance, and one of her brightest smiles. Then dropping her veil, since n.o.body was there to see her handsome face, she tripped back a good deal faster than she had come to her duties about the person of the Great Queen.

CHAPTER IV

THE TEMPLE OF HIS G.o.d

In the hierarchy of Baal, as in other religious orders, false and true, it was deemed but right that the priests should want for nothing, while the altar was well supplied with offerings. To one who had dismounted from a two nights' ride, such luxuries as were scattered profusely about the temple of the great a.s.syrian G.o.d formed a pleasing contrast to camp lodging and camp fare.

If Sarchedon, weary and travel-stained, was yet of so comely and fair a countenance as to extort approval from the queen herself, Sarchedon, bathed, refreshed, unarmed, clad in silken garments, and with a cup of gold in his hand, was simply beautiful. a.s.sarac the priest, sitting over against him, could not but triumph in the sparkle of that bauble by which he hoped to divert and dull the only intellect in the Eastern world that he believed could rival his own.

The servant of Ninus and the servant of Baal sat together on the roof of a lower story of the temple; below them the pillars and porticoes of the outer court, behind them vast piles of building, vague, gloomy, and imposing in the shades of coming night. High over their heads rose the tower of Belus, pointing to the sky, and many a fathom down beneath their feet the stir and turmoil of the great city came up, terrace by terrace, till it died to a faint drowsy murmur like the hum of bees in a bed of flowers. The sun was sinking in uninterrupted splendour behind the level sky-line of the desert, and already a cool breeze stole over the plains from the hills beyond the marshes, to stir the priest's white garments and lift the locks on Sarchedon's glossy head, while for each it enhanced the flavour and fragrance of their rich Damascus wine, bubbling and blushing in its vase of gold. Between them stood a table, also of gold, studded with amethysts, while the liquor in their golden cups was yet more precious than the metal and brighter than the gem.

Something to this effect said Sarchedon, after a draught almost as welcome and invigorating as that which he had drained in the morning at the Well of Palms; while, with a sigh of extreme repose and content, he turned his handsome face to the breeze.

"It is so," answered a.s.sarac; "and who more worthy to drink it than the warrior whose bow and spear keep for us sheep-fold and vineyard--who watches under arms by night, and bears his life in his hand by day, that our oxen may tread the threshing-floor, and our peasants press out their grapes in peace? I empty this cup to Ninus, the Great King, yonder in the camp, in love, fear, and reverence, as I would pour out a drink-offering from the summit of that tower to Ashtaroth, Queen of Heaven."

"And the Great King would dip his royal beard in it willingly enough, were it set before him," answered the light-hearted warrior. "I saw him myself come down from his chariot when we crossed the Nile, and drink from the hollow of his buckler mouthful after mouthful of the sweet vapid water; but he swore by the Seven Stars he would have given his best horse had it been the roughest of country wine; and he bade us ever spare the vineyards, though we were ordered to lay waste cornland and millet-ground, to level fruit-trees, break down water-sluices, burn, spoil, ravage, and destroy. Who is like the Great King--so fierce, so terrible? Most terrible, I think, when he smiles and pulls his long white beard; for then our captains know that his wrath is kindled, and can only be appeased with blood. I had rather turn my naked breast to all Pharaoh's bowmen than face the Great King's smile."

a.s.sarac was deep in thought, though his countenance wore but the expression of a courteous host.

"He is the king of warriors," said the priest carelessly--"drink, I pray you, yet once more to his captains--and beloved, no doubt, as he is feared among the host."

"Nay, nay," answered the other laughing, for the good wine had somewhat loosened his tongue, while it removed the traces of fatigue from his frame. "_Feared_, if you will. Is he not descended from Nimrod and the Thirteen G.o.ds? Brave, indeed, as his mighty ancestors, but pitiless and unsparing as Ashur himself."

"Hush!" exclaimed the priest, looking round. "What mean you?"

"I have not counted twenty sunsets," answered the other, "since I saw the Great King's arrow fly through buckler and breastplate, aye, and a brave a.s.syrian heart too, ere it stuck in the ground a spear's length farther on. He has a strong arm, I can bear witness, and the man fell dead under his very chariot; but it should not have been one of his own royal guard that he thus slew in the mere wantonness of wrath. Sataspes, the son of Sargon, had better have died in Egypt, where he fought so bravely, than here, under an a.s.syrian sky, within a few days' march of home."

"Sataspes!" repeated the other; "and what said his father? It is not Sargon's nature to be patient under injury or insult."