"His dark face grew black as night," answered Sarchedon, "and the javelin he held splintered in his grasp; but he bowed himself to the ground, and said only, 'My lord draws a stiff bow, and the king's arrow never yet missed its mark.'"

"It was a heavy punishment," observed a.s.sarac thoughtfully.

"And for a light offence," answered the other. "Sataspes did but lift her veil to look on the face of a virgin in a drove of captives who had not yet defiled by the Great King's chariot. She cried out, half in wrath, half in fear; and ere the veil fell back on her bosom, the offender was a dead man."

"Did the Great King look favourably on the virgin?" asked a.s.sarac. "A woman must needs be fair to warrant the taking of a brave man's life."

"I scarce heeded her," answered Sarchedon. "She came of a captive race, whom the Egyptians hold in bondage down yonder, imposing on them servile offices and many hard tasks--a race that seem to mix neither with their conquerors nor with strangers. They have peculiar laws and customs in their houses and families, giving their daughters in marriage only to their kindred, and arraying their whole people like an army, in hosts and companies. I used to see them at work for their task-masters, moving with as much order and precision as the archers and spearmen of the Great King."

"I have heard of them," said a.s.sarac; "I have heard too that their increasing numbers gave no small disquiet to the last Pharaoh, who was wiser than his successor. Will they not rise at some future time, and cast off the Egyptian yoke?"

"Never!" answered the warrior scornfully. "It presses hard and heavy, but this people will never strike a blow in self-defence: they are a nation of slaves, of shepherds and herdsmen. Not a man have I seen amongst them who could draw a bow, nor so much as sling a stone. Where are they to find a leader? If such a one rose up, how are they to follow him? They are utterly unwarlike and weak of heart; they have no arms, no horses, and scarcely any G.o.ds."

a.s.sarac smiled with the good-humoured superiority of an adept condescending to the crude intelligence of a neophyte. Did he not believe that through the very exercise of his profession he had sounded the depths of all faith, here and hereafter--in the earth, in the skies, in the infinite--above all, in himself and his own destiny?

"Their worship is not so unlike our own as you, who are outside the temple, might believe," said he, pointing upwards to the glowing spark on the summit of the tower of Belus, which was never extinguished night or day. "I have learned in our traditions, handed down, word for word, from priest to priest, since the first family of man peopled the earth after the subsiding of the waters, that they too worship the sacred element which const.i.tutes the essence and spirit of the universe. If they have no images, nor outward symbols of their faith, it is because their deity is impalpable, invisible, as the principle of heat which generates flame. If they turn from the Seven Stars with scorn, if they pour out no drink-offering, make no obeisance to the Queen of Heaven, it is because they look yet higher, to that mystic property from which Baalim and Ashtaroth draw light and life and dominion over us poor children of darkness down here below. Their great patriarch and leader came out of this very land; and there is a.s.syrian blood, though I think shame to confess it, in the veins of that captive people subject now to our hereditary enemies in the South."

"The men are well enough to look on," answered Sarchedon, "but, to my thinking, their women are not so fair as the women of the plain between the rivers; not to be spoken of with the Great Queen's retinue here, nor the mountain maids who come down from the north to gladden old Nineveh like sweet herbs and wild flowers growing in the crevices of a ruined wall. If this people are of our lineage, they have fallen away sadly from the parent stock."

"What I tell you is truth," replied a.s.sarac; "and I, sitting by you here to-night, have spoken with men whose fathers remembered those that in their boyhood had seen the great founder of our nation--old, wrinkled, with a white beard descending to his feet, but lofty still, and mighty as the tower of defiance he reared to heaven, though suffering daily from torment unendurable; and why? Because of the patriarch and chief of the nation you despise."

Through all the a.s.syrian people, but especially amongst the hosts of the Great King, to believe in Nimrod was to believe in Baal, in Ashur, in their religion, their national existence, their very ident.i.ty.

The colour rose to Sarchedon's brow as he pa.s.sed his hand over his lips, scarcely yet darkened with a beard, while he answered haughtily,

"Nimrod was lord of earth by right of bow and spear. No man living, backed by all the G.o.ds of all the stars in heaven, would have dared to dispute his word, nor so much as look him in his lion-like face!"

"And yet did this old man, lord only in his own family--chief of a tribe scarce numbering a thousand bowmen--beard the lion-king in the city he had founded, in the palace where he reigned, in the very temple of his worship. The patriarch reasoned with him on the mult.i.tude of his G.o.ds; and Nimrod answered proudly, he could make as many as he would, but that while they emanated from himself they had supreme dominion on earth and over all in heaven, save only the Seven Stars and the Twenty-four Judges of the World. Then the patriarch took the king's molten images out of the temple, kindled a great furnace in the centre of the city, and in the presence of all Nineveh, cast them into the midst."

Sarchedon started to his feet.

"And the king did not hew him in pieces with his own hand where he stood!" exclaimed he. "It is impossible! It is contrary to all reason and experience!"

"The king could scarce believe his eyes," continued a.s.sarac, smothering a smile, "when he saw his sacred images crumbling down and stealing away in streams of molten gold. It is even said that he uttered a great cry of lamentation and sat on the ground a whole night, with his garments rent, fasting, and in sore distress. This I scarcely think was the fashion of the mighty hunter: what I _do_ believe is, that he sent a company of bowmen after the offender with orders to bring him back into his presence, alive or dead. They pursued the patriarch through the Valley of Siddim, till they came to the bitter waters; and here"--a.s.sarac put his goblet with something of embarra.s.sment to his lips--"here the stars in their courses must have fought against a.s.syria; for our warriors turned and fled in some confusion, so that the daring son of Terah escaped. Then it is said that he prayed to his G.o.d for vengeance against our lion-king, entreating that he who had been conqueror of the mightiest men and slayer of the fiercest beasts on earth, should be punished by the smallest and humblest of that animal creation it had been his chief pleasure to persecute and destroy. His G.o.d answered his prayer, though he raised no temples, made no golden images of man, beast, bird, nor monster, and sacrificed but a lamb or a kid in burnt-offering on the altar of unhewn stones in the plain.

"A tiny gnat was sent to plague great Nimrod, as the sand-fly of the wilderness maddens the lion in his lair. Under helm or diadem--in purple robe or steel harness--at board and bed--in saddle, bath, or war chariot, the lord of all the earth was goaded into a ceaseless encounter where there was no adversary, and exhausted by perpetual flight where none pursued.

"Then he sent for cunning artificers, who made for him a chamber of gla.s.s, impervious even to the air of heaven, so that the king entered it well pleased; for he said, 'Now shall I have ease from my tormentor, to eat bread and drink wine, and be refreshed with sleep.'

"But while he spoke the gnat was in his ear, and soon it ascended, and began to feed on his brain. Then the king's agony was greater than he could bear, and he cried aloud to his servants, bidding them beat on his head with a hammer, to ease the pain. So he endured for four hundred years; and then he--then he went home to his father Ashur; and when the Seven Stars shine out in the Northern sky, he looks down, well pleased, from his throne of light, on the city that his children have built, and the statue of gold they have raised to his name."

"And this is true?" exclaimed Sarchedon, whose love of the marvellous could not but be gratified by the priest's narrative.

"True as our traditions," answered a.s.sarac, with something like a sneer; "true as our worship, true as our reason and intellect, true as the lessons we have learned to read in the stars themselves. What can be truer? except labour, sorrow, pain, and the insufficiency of man!"

"Every one to his own duty," replied the young warrior. "Slingers and bowmen in advance, spears and chariots in the centre, hors.e.m.e.n on the wings. It is your business to guess where the shaft falls; mine is but to fit the arrow and draw the bow. I am glad of it. I never could see much in the stars but a scatter of lamps to help a night march, when no brighter light was to be had. The moon has been a better friend to me ere now than all the host of heaven. Tell me, a.s.sarac, can you not read on her fair open face when I shall be made captain of the guard to the Great King?"

"What you ask in jest," said the other, smiling, "I will hereafter answer in sober earnest. I go hence to the summit of that high tower, and all night long must I read on those scrolls of fire above us a future which they alone can tell--the destiny of nations, the fate of a line of kings, nay, the fortunes of a young warrior whom the queen delighteth to honour, and who may well deserve to sleep to-night while others take their turn to watch."

Thus speaking, he spread his mantle over a heap of silken cushions, disposed at the foot of the stairs leading to the tower of Belus so as to form a tempting couch, in the cool night air, for one who had ridden so far through the heat of an a.s.syrian day.

He had not ascended three steps towards the tower, ere Sarchedon, overcome with fatigue, excitement, and Damascus wine, laid his head amongst the cushions and fell into a deep sound sleep.

CHAPTER V

THE STARS IN THEIR COURSES

Casting his eye on the fire of fragrant wood that burned in its brazen tripod at the summit of the tower, pa.s.sing his fingers, as it seemed, mechanically through its flame, and with the same unconscious gesture touching his right eyebrow, a.s.sarac leaned his ma.s.sive figure against the parapet, plunged in a train of deep engrossing thought.

The tapering structure he had ascended was built, as his traditions taught him to believe, for purposes of astral worship and observation.

It afforded, therefore, a standing-point from which, on all sides, an uninterrupted view of the heavens could be obtained down to the horizon; yet the eyes of a.s.sarac were fixed steadfastly on the great city sleeping at his feet, and it was of earthly interests, earthly destinies, that he pondered, rather than those spheres of light, hanging unmarked above him in the golden-studded sky.

A soft but measured step, the rustle of a woman's garment, caused him to turn with a start. He prostrated himself till his brow touched the brickwork at her feet, and then, resuming an erect position, looked his visitor proudly in the face, like a teacher with his pupil, rather than a subject before his queen.

"a.s.sarac," said Semiramis, "I have trusted you with a royal and unreserved confidence to-night. I do not say, deserve it, because your life is in my hand, but because our wishes, our interests, and the very object we aim at, are the same. Many have served me in slavish subjection through fear. Do you serve me with loyal regard as a friend?"

She laid her white hand frankly on his arm, and he, priest, man of science, as he was, ambitious, isolated, above and below the strongest impulses of humanity, felt the blood mount to his brain, the colour to his cheek, at that thrilling touch.

"Your servant's life," he answered, "and the lives of a thousand priests of Baal, are in the queen's hand to-night; for doth she not hold the signet of my lord the king, sent with Sarchedon from the camp in token of victory? And more than my life,--my art, my skill, the lore by which I have learned to compel those G.o.ds above us, are but precious in my sight so far as they can advantage the Great Queen."

"You will unfold the mysteries of the sky," she replied eagerly. "You will bid Baalim, Ashtaroth, and all the host of heaven speak with me face to face, as a man speaks with his friend. If you will answer for the G.o.ds up yonder," she added with a touch of sarcasm on her sweet proud lip, "I will take upon myself to order the actions of men below."

"Something of this I _can_ do," said he gravely, "or I have watched here night by night, and fasted, and prayed, and cut myself with knives before the altar of Baal, in vain. But, first, I must ask of the queen, doth she believe in the power of the G.o.ds? Doth she trust her servant to interpret truly the characters of fire engraved by them on the dark tablets of night?"

She scanned him with a searching look. "I believe," she said, "thus far--that man makes for himself the destiny to which hereafter he must submit. I believe the G.o.ds can foretell that destiny, and I would fain believe, if I had proof, that you, a.s.sarac, their faithful servant, possess power to read up yonder the counsels of the Thirteen, and all their satellites."

"What proof does my queen desire?" asked the priest. "Shall I read off to her from those shining tables the plastic mouldings of the future, or the deep indelible engravings of the past?"

The queen pondered. "Of the future," she replied, "I cannot judge whether they speak true or false. Were they to tell me of a past known only to myself and one long since gone from earth"--she sighed while she spoke--"I might give credit to their intelligence, and shape my course by those silent witnesses, as men do in the desert or at sea."

"Look upward, my queen," answered a.s.sarac, "and mark where the belt of the Great Hunter points to that distant cl.u.s.ter of stars, like the diamonds on your own royal tiara. Faintest and farthest shines one that records her past history, as yonder golden planet, glowing low down by the horizon, foretells her future destiny."

He stopped, and from a vase of wine that stood near the sacred fire, sprinkled a few drops to the four quarters of the sky. "I pour this drink-offering," he said, "to Ashtaroth, Queen of Heaven! Shall I tell the Queen of Earth a tale I read in those stars forming the symbol which, rightly interpreted, contains the name of Semiramis?"

The queen nodded a.s.sent, turning her beautiful face upward to the sky.

"Could it all be true?" was the wild thought that fleeted for an instant through his brain, "and had not Ashtaroth herself come down from heaven to look on her adoring votary?"

With a glance almost of awe into the queen's upturned countenance, a.s.sarac proceeded: "I read there of a city in the South, a city beyond the desert, pleasant and beautiful in the waving of palms, the music of rushing waters, built on the margin of a lake, where leaping fish at sundown dot the glistening surface, countless as rain-drops in a shower.

On its bank stands a temple to that G.o.ddess who, like Dagon, bears half a human form, terminating in the scales and body of a fish. Very fair is Derceta to the girdle, and, womanlike, fanciful as she is fair. Near her temple dwelt a young fisherman, comely, ruddy, of exceeding beauty and manhood, so that the G.o.ddess did not scorn to love him with all the ardour of her double nature, only too well.

"Yet it shamed her of her human attributes when she gave birth to a child, though the stars tell me, O queen, that never was seen so beautiful a babe, even amongst those borne by the daughters of men to the host of heaven.

"Nevertheless, a foul wound festers equally beneath silk and sackcloth; so that the G.o.ddess, in wrath and shame, carried her infant into the wilderness, and left it there to die.