Aryas smiled, and his eyes glittered like a hawk's.

"Bring in the messenger," said he in calm sonorous accents; adding in a lower tone to his bowbearer, "When, in return for fair words, costly gifts, and a dishonourable demand, I sent two arrows to the land of Shinar, the one a headless shaft, the other barbed and pointed, it was a token that Armenia, though desirous of peace, would never shrink from war. Had a dog sought my protection, he should have been safe behind a nation of hors.e.m.e.n. Shall I deliver up my _friend_ at the whim of a proud lascivious woman, though she be twenty times a queen?"

"Alas," replied the other, "my lord knows not the might of Semiramis.

She is immovable by pity, she is insensible to fear. All the hosts of heaven could not turn her purpose, nor thwart her desire. I will be the bearer of an emba.s.sy speaking words of peace from my lord the king. I will go back to put my neck under her foot, and abide my doom."

"Let her come and take you!" was the gallant answer. "By the sword we worship, she shall find the task a hard one!--ay, if for every bodkin she looses from her head-gear she can set in array a hundred thousand men!"

The messenger, a rude and hardy horseman of the north, had now arrived in the king's presence. Prostrating himself but once, and with scanty ceremony, he stood erect to deliver his tidings in frank bluff tones.

"I have ridden night and day from the southern frontier," said he.

"Thiras the governor sends greeting to the king. He bids me tell him the south wind has brought up a flight of locusts, that darken heaven and cover earth with their swarms. Shall I speak yet farther in the ears of the people who throng the gate?"

Aryas shot one glance of intelligence at Sarchedon.

"Say on," he exclaimed; "I have no secrets from those who sit at meat with me in the city, and stand beside me in the field."

Thus adjured, the messenger proceeded:

"The sons of Ashur have come up in their might from the land between the rivers. Their war-chariots shake the mountain as they pa.s.s, their horses drink the streams dry where they ride through. Thiras cannot count their numbers, and what could he do but offer earth and water for tribute, seeing that they muster under the banner of the Great Queen?"

Aryas started as if he were stung. The comely face flushed dark red, and rarely as he lost his self-command, some outburst of anger would surely have followed, but that another messenger arrived on the heels of his predecessor, if possible more hurried, more jaded, more travel-worn than the first.

He, too, scarcely prostrated himself in the royal presence, and through the s.h.a.ggy locks which fell across his brow his eyes shone with the terror of some wild forest creature hunted by the wolves.

"From Sambates, governor of Beznun," he stammered, "to the king greeting. They have cast a bank against Betlis, they have surrounded the great lake, and called it by the name of their queen. They have overrun the province, taking fenced cities, burning villages, laying waste cornland and vineyard, slaying men, and carrying into captivity women and children. They are swifter than the south wind that brings them, fiercer than leopards, more terrible than the lightning, and numberless as the stars of heaven. What could Sambates do but offer earth and water for tribute, seeing that they muster under the banner of the Great Queen?"

Once again Aryas winced and coloured, but controlled himself the more effectually for the emergency of the situation. In the same instant he realised his peril, resolved to meet it, and calculated his powers of resistance. His first aim was to inspire his followers with confidence.

Filling his scarcely-tasted goblet to the brim, he advanced to the outer court, and standing in their midst, bade them follow his example, while he drank the national pledge--"To the Men of the Mountain and the Sons of the Naked Sword!" Then, taking his bow from Sarchedon, he broke it across, and cast the fragments at his feet in token that war was declared, while he thus addressed them:

"The wolves of the wood came up against the mountain-bull, and thought to slay him, saying, We are fierce and daring, my brothers, because we live on blood; and this creature cannot resist us, for his food cometh up under the dews of heaven, and he slakes his thirst in the murmuring stream of the hills. Also, we outnumber him a hundred to one. Therefore will we encircle him, and leap on him, and pull him down; so shall we fatten on his carca.s.s, and drain the warm life-blood from his throat.

Let us go up against him without fear, in an open s.p.a.ce, rejoicing that he has been delivered unto us for a prey.

"But a herd of wild deer were feeding in the plain, and when the wolves approached they took to flight; so the mountain-bull, grazing far above them, raised his head, and was aware of his enemy crowding and circling towards him, like the waves of the Northern Sea. Then he withdrew into a thicket, where he set his back against the solid rock; and when the wolves made at him, fiercely, but one by one, they dashed themselves to pieces in vain against his s.h.a.ggy front, writhing under his feet, falling pierced and mangled by his mighty horns.

"Men of the Mountain and Sons of the Naked Sword, is not Armenia strong and tameless as the wild bull of her hills? Are not the sons of Ashur innumerable and pitiless as the wolves that scour the forest, leaving only bones white and bare where they have pa.s.sed? Ye have learned by these messengers that our country has been entered and our honour a.s.sailed. The banner of a.s.syria is flaunting in Armenian breezes, the sons of the Mighty Hunter are trooping in by thousands from the south, to slay and ravage and destroy. Therefore I call on you at my need, therefore I bid you to council; not to deliberate on a question of peace or war, for the bow is already broken and the sword unsheathed, but to advise with your king and leader how best we shall rid us of our enemy, and drive the wolf back, cowed, mangled, halting, and howling, to his den!"

Wilder, fiercer, louder with every peal, rose the shouts that greeted the Comely King's harangue, while he paused and looked about him, stately and graceful, like a master-stag at bay. Brawny arms were tossed, and naked swords brandished aloft in very ecstasy of warlike defiance, nor, of all those manly russet-bearded faces, was there one that failed to express intense hatred of the stranger, implicit trust and confidence in the might of Armenia, with a fixed resolve to die, if need be, at worst, fighting hard to the very end.

When the council which Aryas had summoned took their places for deliberation, there seemed but one opinion--that, gathering all their forces without delay, they should pour down into the plain, like their own rivers in flood, and, overwhelming the foe in their onslaught, sweep him back to the place from whence he came. Who could stand before the hosts of the North? Were they not Men of the Mountain and Sons of the Naked Sword?

It was the king's bowbearer whose skill and experience tempered this bold resolve with a degree of caution, resulting from his own knowledge of the a.s.syrians' warlike resources. When it came to his turn to speak, though somewhat mistrusting his advice as an alien, none could gainsay the soundness of his argument, agreeing as it did with the half-expressed opinion of the Comely King.

Insisting strenuously on the countless numbers of the enemy, and their over-powering strength in chariots and hors.e.m.e.n, he urged that it would be the height of imprudence to meet them in the open plain, where they would too surely be encircled and crushed by their enemy in a resistless girdle of steel.

"The wild bull," said he, "in the words of my lord the king, hath his rock, and the Men of the Mountain have their fastnesses. The wolves of the wood may dash themselves to pieces against the one, and the sons of Ashur spend their might in vain against the other. Let them advance here to meet us in the heart of Armenia, and so, falling on them weary, impoverished, and exhausted, let us fight a decisive battle under the very walls of Ardesh, and so destroy them, once for all, never to bend a bow nor lift a spear again."

After much discussion, the stranger's advice was allowed to be sound and good. It was resolved, therefore, that the Armenian forces should be concentrated in the very centre of the kingdom, there to await the attack of Semiramis with her innumerable hosts; and the same decision seeming also good when discussed, according to Armenian custom, over the wine-cup, every man went home to sharpen his sword and fit his bowstring for the coming fray.

CHAPTER XLVII

THE FENCED CITY

"The storm has broke at last," said Aryas, stooping to lift a headless arrow that had fallen at his feet. "If it hail no deadlier missiles than this, there will be little glory in sheltering under buckler and headpiece, behind stone b.u.t.tress and unbroken wall."

Sarchedon took the arrow from the king's hand.

"Behold," said he, "the feathers are dipped in blood. Such a token is the deadliest of all defiance from my countrymen. My lord the king hath ever measured glory by danger. Trust me, he will have enough of both who holds a fenced city against which the armies of a.s.syria come up to cast a bank."

"So be it," was the dauntless answer. "The G.o.d of our nation hath never failed us yet, and those can scarce refuse to accept the award of battle who worship no other power but that of the naked sword!"

They were standing on the wall of Ardesh, scanning anxiously the lines of the a.s.syrian camp, which now encircled them. The Comely King had here concentrated all his forces, and the hosts of Semiramis, disappointed, it may be, that they met so little resistance on their march, completely invested the capital of Armenia, where the men of the north had taken their stand, determined to put forth all their strength in a single blow, and finish the struggle once for all.

The a.s.syrians had surrounded the city by night. At dawn their trumpets sounded about it on all sides, and ere noon the siege had so far commenced, that the headless arrow, formerly dispatched to the Great Queen as a token from Aryas, was shot into his stronghold, to alight at his very feet, wet and stained with blood.

"She is here in person," observed Sarchedon in a low grave voice, while he turned the arrow round and round in his hand. "None of her servants would have dared to send such a messenger as this. It means war to the death, no ransom for the captive, no mercy for the wounded, no burial for the slain."

"Is she, then, so pitiless a conqueror?" asked the Comely King, repressing certain hideous misgivings, that he had undertaken a task beyond his strength, and that not only his own life, which he was always willing enough to wage freely, but the safety of his people and the very existence of his kingdom were in the utmost peril.

"Merciless!" repeated Sarchedon. "An eagle has mercy when she turns from the dead carrion, a lion has mercy when he is gorged; but how shall men look for mercy from the solid impenetrable rock? That woman has, indeed, the lion's courage and the eagle's ken; but her heart is stone. And yet she is so beautiful,--so beautiful," he added, while a tide of wild and thrilling memories imparted a mournful tone to his revilings; "I have seen a poor wretch she has condemned turn on her his last look, full of love and worship, ere they covered his face and led him forth to die. Is she not more than woman? Is she not Ashtaroth, Queen of Light, come down to lead the sons of Ashur to their doom?"

The king was straining his eyes towards the camp of the enemy. He cared as little for the beauty of Ashtaroth as of Semiramis.

"If she is with her armies in person," said he, "and leads the attack, I will slay her with mine own hand. Behold, when I have cut the string, her captains and men of war shall bend the bow in vain. Look out yonder, Sarchedon, over the eastern slope. You know the array of your countrymen in camp or line of battle. Surely where the chariots of iron are ma.s.sed, down yonder by the waterside, between the lines of horses, should be the abiding place of the Great Queen."

From the rampart whereon they stood, a bluff face of rock descended precipitously towards the camp of the a.s.syrians. Such, indeed, was the defence of Ardesh on every side; the natural difficulties of the stronghold being enhanced by a solid wall of masonry, against which, even after a bank had been raised by the besiegers to the necessary height, their battering-rams might be plied for a considerable period without effect. Save on the eastern quarter, the fall was nearly perpendicular, affording no encouraging prospect to an attacking force; but here the cliff sloped off in an incline, up and down which a goat might travel freely, or an active man unenc.u.mbered with armour might pa.s.s to and fro. If Ardesh were to be carried by a.s.sault, this was its only practicable point, although the inequalities of the surface were so trifling, and the angle so imperceptible, that the ascent looked perfectly smooth and upright from below.

Leaning over, with his attention riveted on the camp of the enemy, the king let his helmet fall from his head at this very spot. It rolled several cubits down the incline, till caught by a projecting corner of rock, where it hung bright and glittering, like a morning dew-drop on a dead autumn leaf. Aryas looked after it and laughed.

"Token for token," said he. "A headless helmet in answer to a headless shaft. If it ever gets down to their camp, they may summon their wise men to read the riddle in vain."

"It must not remain _there_!" answered Sarchedon. "The flash of steel will draw every eye in the host to the only joint in our harness; and I know their cunning of warfare well. Let my lord the king shelter for a s.p.a.ce beneath the wall, lest I draw on him a storm from yonder dark cloud of archers in the vineyard when I show myself. We shall have no more headless arrows shot into Ardesh to-day."

"I would I had known in time!" muttered Aryas. "Not a leaf had been left on the vines to screen a marksman, not a hand's breadth of green but had been scathed and shrivelled by fire within a bowshot of the walls. Well climbed, Sarchedon! By the sword of my father, the a.s.syrian hath a leap and a footfall like a goat!"

While he spoke, the royal bowbearer crept cautiously down the precipice, taking advantage of every inequality that afforded foothold, of every tuft and fibre of vegetation that he could grasp. Slinging the recovered helmet round his neck with a bowstring, and thus leaving both hands at liberty for his ascent, he returned even less laboriously than he departed; and surmounting the wall, stood by the king's side, panting, breathless, but exulting with boyish glee in the achievement of his exploit.

"And they marked me not from below!" said he triumphantly; "though I dared not often trust myself to look down, I could have seen if bow had been bent or arrow pointed from the camp. Surely the a.s.syrian sleeps on his post; surely they have lost their discipline since I carried a spear in the guards of the Great King!"

"We will give them a lesson in warfare ere long," answered Aryas, but though his tone was bold enough, his eye wandered uneasily over the mighty array of tents and banners that covered the plain below. "We can hold them at our pleasure till the snow winds come to help us from the north, unless they give the a.s.sault at this very spot beneath our feet, and here, too, we are guarded by the river, shallow though it be, for if to-day it steals smoothly and gladly through the water-flowers, like a youth wooing a maiden to the dance, to-morrow it comes roaring down in a seething flood, unbridled and irresistible as a host of northern hors.e.m.e.n with a broken enemy in their front."

But the king's prevision and the keen eyes of his bowbearer were alike at fault. Thus it fell out that the only a.s.sailable point in the defences of Ardesh was laid open to an enemy who never failed to strike home without delay at the weakest place.