"Behold how Ashtaroth glows and brightens in the darkening night. Surely it was the Queen of Heaven who sent fair doves to pity, succour, and preserve that child of light, tender as a flower, and beautiful as a star. Day by day the fond birds brought her fruits and sustenance, till certain peasants, observing their continual flight in the same direction, followed their guidance, and found by a rill of water the laughing infant, bearing even then a promise of beauty to be unequalled hereafter in the whole world."

There was pride and sorrow in the queen's deep eyes as she fixed them on the seer, and whispered,

"Ask, then, if it had not been better to have left the child there to die."

"The stars acknowledge no pity," was his answer. "It is the first of human weaknesses cast off by those who rule in earth or heaven. Had they not written the destiny of that babe by the desert spring in the same characters I read up there to-night? They tell me how, in her earliest womanhood, she was seen by Menon, governor of ten provinces under my lord the king. They tell me how Menon made her his wife. They tell me, too, of an amulet graven with a dove on the wing, which that maiden wore hidden in her bosom when she came veiled into the presence of her lord."

The queen started.

"How know you this?" she exclaimed almost angrily. "I have never yet shown it even to my lord the king."

"I do but read that which is written," he answered. "They tell me also how, when she shall part with that amulet, it will purchase for her the dearest wish of her heart at the sacrifice of all its powers hereafter.

Its charm will then be broken, its virtue departed. She never showed it man save Menon; for the governor of those wide provinces stretching to the Southern sea would have gone ragged and barefoot, would have given rank, riches, honours, life itself, for but one smile from the loveliest face that ever laughed behind a veil."

"They speak truth," murmured the queen; "he loved me only too well."

"It was written in heaven," continued a.s.sarac, "that the servant must yield to his master, and that a jewel too precious for Menon was to blaze in the diadem of the Great King. I read now of a fenced city, frowning and threatening, far off in an Eastern land; of a bank cast against its ramparts, and mighty engines smiting hard at its gates; of archers, spears, slingers, and hors.e.m.e.n; of the king of nations seated on his chariot in the midst, pulling his grey beard in anger because of the tower of strength he could in no wise lay waste and level with the ground. But for Menon and his skill in warfare, the besiegers must have fled from before it in disorder and dismay. One morning at sunrise there were heard strange tidings in the camp. Men asked each other who was the youth who had ridden to Menon's tent in shining apparel, devoid of helm and buckler, but armed with bow and spear--beautiful as Shamash the G.o.d of Light, so that human eyes were dazzled, looking steadfastly on his face.

"Ere set of sun the Great King had himself taken counsel with this blooming warrior; ere it had risen twice, Menon was made captain of the host, and the work of slaughter commenced; for the proud city had fallen, and the G.o.ds of a.s.syria were set up in its holy places, to be appeased with blood and suffering and spoil.

"When the host returned in triumph, they left a mighty warrior dead in his tent over against the ruins of the smoking town. No meaner hand could have sufficed to lay him low, and none but Menon took Menon's life, because--Shall I read on?"

A faint moan caused him to stop and scan the queen's face. It was fixed and rigid as marble, pale too with an unearthly whiteness beneath that starlit sky; but there was neither pity for herself nor others in the calm, distinct articulation with which she syllabled her answer in his own words--"Read on!"

"They teach me," he continued, "that Menon could not bear his loss, after she had left his tent whose place was on the loftiest throne the earth has ever seen. When the triumph returned to Nineveh, there sat by the Great King's side, in male attire, the fairest woman under heaven.

She guided his wisest counsels; she won for him his greatest victories; she raised his n.o.blest city; she became the light of his eyes, the glory of his manhood, the treasure of his heart, mother of kings and mistress of the world; but she had never yet parted with her amulet to living man. All this is surely true; for it is written in those symbols of fire that cannot lie, and that trace the history of the Great Queen."

Semiramis turned her eyes on him with a look that seemed to read his very heart. The priest bore that searching glance in austere composure, creditable to his nerve and coolness; though these were enhanced by a vague conviction of his own prophetic powers, the result, no doubt, of a certain exaltation of mind, consequent on his previous fasts, his studies, and his long hours of brooding over deep ambitious schemes.

After a protracted silence, she sighed like one who shakes off a heavy burden of memories; and, giving her companion the benefit of her brightest smile, asked him the pertinent question: "Is it the amulet that controls the destiny, or the destiny that gives a value to the amulet? Do the stars shed l.u.s.tre on the woman, or is it the woman's fame that adds a glory to her star?"

For answer he pointed to a ruby in her bracelet, sparkling and glowing in the light of the mystic flame.

"That gem," said he, "was beyond price in the rayless cavern of its birth. Nevertheless, behold how its brilliancy is enhanced by the gleams it catches from the sacred fire. The stars shine down on a beautiful woman, and they make of her an all-powerful queen."

"All-powerful!" repeated Semiramis. "None is all-powerful but my lord the king. To be second in place is to be little less a slave than the meanest subject in his dominions."

He took no heed of her words. He seemed not to hear, so engrossed was he with his studies of the heavens, so awe-struck and preoccupied was the voice in which he declaimed his testimony, like a man reading from a sacred book.

"She whose counsels have won battles shall lead armies in person; she who has reached her hand to touch a sceptre shall lift her arm to take a diadem; she who has built a city shall found an empire. Walls and ramparts must hem in the one; but of the other brave men's weapons alone const.i.tute the frontier: as much as they win with sword and spear so much do they possess. The dove is the bird of peace; and for her whom doves nourished at her birth there shall be peace in her womanhood, because none will be left to contend with the conqueror and mistress of the world."

He fell back against the parapet of the tower, pale, gasping, as if faint and exhausted from the effects of the inspiration that had pa.s.sed away; but beneath those half-closed lids not a shade on the queen's brow, not a movement of her frame, escaped his penetrating eyes. He could read that fair proud face with far more certainty than the l.u.s.trous pages of heaven. Perhaps he experienced a vague consciousness that here on these delicate features were written the characters of fate, rather than yonder above him in the fathomless inscrutable sky.

She seemed to have forgotten his presence. She was looking far out into the night, towards that quarter of the desert over which Sarchedon had ridden from the camp, where an arrow from her own quiver lay under the bleaching bones of the dead lion. Her eyes were fierce, and her countenance bore a rigid expression, bright, cold, unearthly, yet not devoid of triumph, like one who defies and subdues mortal pain.

Such a glare had he seen in the eyes of the Great King when he awarded death to some shaking culprit--such a look on the victim's fixed face, ere it was covered, while they dragged him away.

It was well, thought a.s.sarac, for men who dealt with kings and queens to have no sympathies, no affections, none of the softer emotions and weaknesses of our nature. The tools of ambition are sharp and double-edged; the staff on which it leans too often breaks beneath it, and pierces to the bone. Moreover, it would have been wiser and safer to commit himself to the mercy of winds and waves than to depend on the wilfulness of a woman, even though she wore a crown. Already the queen's mood had changed: her face had resumed its habitual expression of calm, indolent, and somewhat voluptuous repose.

"No more to-night," she said, with a gracious gesture, as of thanks and dismissal. "There is much to be done before the return in triumph of my lord the king. To-morrow you will carry my commands to the captains within the city, bidding them have all their preparations made for the reception of the conquerors. Let them a.s.semble their companies under shield; let the chariots and hors.e.m.e.n be drawn up in the great square over against the palace; and let the archers look that their bows have new strings. You can answer for your own people here?"

"For every hand that bears a lotus in temple, palace, or streets--two thousand in all, without counting the prophets of the grove, and the priests of Baal, outside the walls."

"Enough," said the queen; "you have done well. I, too, can read in the future more and mightier things than you have imparted to me to-night."

She wrapped her mantle round her to depart, not suffering a.s.sarac to attend her one step on her way. Kalmim, she said, was waiting in the garden, and would accompany her to the palace. So she walked slowly down the winding staircase, grave, abstracted, as though revolving some weighty purpose in her mind. At its foot she started to see the rec.u.mbent figure of Sarchedon buried in profound sleep.

Was it a fatality of the stars? Was it an impulse of womanhood? She bent over that beautiful unconscious face till her breath stirred the curls on its comely brow, then, with a gesture almost fierce in its pa.s.sionate energy, s.n.a.t.c.hed the famous amulet from her neck, and laid it on his breast.

"It is a rash purchase," she muttered; "but I am willing to pay the price."

CHAPTER VI

A DREAMER OF DREAMS

He was sleeping, yet not so sound but that his rest was visited by a strange and terrifying dream.

He thought he was in the desert, galloping his good horse in pursuit of an ostrich, winged with plumes worthy to tuft the spears that guarded the Great King's tent. But for all his efforts of voice, hand, and frame, Merodach laboured strangely in the deep sand, of which the long-legged bird threw back such volumes as to choke his lips and nostrils, wrapping him in a dim revolving cloud, that whirled and towered to the sky. Like a stab came the conviction that he was in the midst of the pitiless simoon, and he must die. Once more he strove to rouse Merodach with heel and bridle; but the horse seemed turned to stone, till, plunging wildly, he struggled forward, only to sink under his rider and disappear beneath the sand. Then the cloud burst asunder to reveal the glories of a dying sunset, fading into the purple sea.

He was on foot in the desert, fainting, weary, and sore athirst; but he heard the night-breeze sighing through palms and whispering in lofty poplars; he heard the cool ripple of water against the sh.o.r.e, and the pleasant welcome of a stream, singing in starts of broken melody as it danced down to meet the waves; then he saw a yoke of oxen, a camel at rest, a few huts, and a boat drawn up high and dry on the beach.

He was no longer a warrior in the armies of the Great King, but a rude fisherman amongst fishermen. He ate of their bread, he drank from their pitcher; yet was he still hungry and athirst, still wore a sword at his girdle and carried a bow in his hand.

He took his share of their labour; he drew in their nets. It seemed to him he had seen their faces before, though they knew him not; but he marvelled why they moved so slowly, and neither spoke nor smiled. While he helped them, too, it was as if the whole weight of rope and meshes hung on his arm alone. So night fell; and they took him into a hut, pointing to a cruse of water and a mantle spread in the corner, but withdrawing in the same sad silence, calm and grave, like those who mourn for the dead.

He could not sleep. The moon rose and shone in on him where he lay.

After long hours of tossing troubled waking, a figure blocked the window where her rays streamed in on his couch. Then a great horror came over him without cause or reason, and tugging hard to draw his sword, he found it fastened in the sheath. Solemnly, slowly the figure signed to follow. Leaving his couch, he felt his heart leap, for it resembled Ishtar! But in the porch of the hut he seemed to recognise the clear proud features of the queen. Nevertheless, when its face was turned to the moonlight, he knew it was a.s.sarac under the garb of a fisherman, but bearing the lotus-flower always in his hand. Without exchanging word or look, with averted eyes and stealthy steps, these two set the little bark afloat and took the oars. Then at last was broken the long weary silence, by a voice that came up from the deep, saying, "Ferrymen, bring over your dead!"

Light, buoyant, and high in the water, the boat had danced like a sea-bird on the surface; but now, though never a form was seen nor sound heard, she began to sink--deeper, deeper, so that the waves seemed to peer over her sides, leaping and sporting about her in cruel mockery, as though eager to break in and send her down.

It was a hard task to row that heavy freight out to sea. Weary and horror-stricken he tugged at his oar till the sweat dropped from his brow.

The moon went down, and a great darkness settled on the waters--the thick clogging waters, through which their oars pa.s.sed so heavily. Was it the sea of the plain whereon they were embarked? Yes, surely, it must be the sea of the plain, the Dead Sea.

Was he never to approach the term of this numbing oppressive labour?

Must he row on for ever and ever, without pause or respite, having bid his last farewell to the sh.o.r.es of earth and the light of day? Thus thinking, he felt the boat's keel grate against the bottom, while the oar started from his hand.

He took courage to look about him; but mortal eye could not pierce that thick darkness; and though the toil awhile ago had been so severe, a chill air curdled his blood, and crept into his very heart.

Still and silent as the grave seemed that shadowy land, till the same voice he had heard on the other sh.o.r.e called out the name of one he knew well and loved with a brother's love. There was no answer; but the boat lightened perceptibly, and her keel no longer touched the shingle.

Another name was called, and yet another, always in the same calm pa.s.sionless accents, always with the same strange solemn result.

At every summons the boat rose higher in the water. When Sataspes was called, she swung to the flow and wash of the sluggish wave against her sides; at the name of Ninus, the Great King, she floated free and unenc.u.mbered as before she put out on her mysterious voyage.

With a heart lightened as was the boat that bore him, he pushed her off to return; for something warned him that now his task was done. He would fain have spoken with a.s.sarac; but the surrounding gloom seemed so to oppress his lungs and chest, that the words formed by his tongue could not find vent through his lips.