CRUEL AS THE GRAVE
The queen passed on a few paces without speaking, yet glanced towards Assarac, who walked respectfully at her side, as though she had something of importance on her mind. At last she observed carelessly, "That spearman who has incurred the displeasure of my lord the king. Is it not the messenger who brought me the royal signet from the camp? These guards are all somewhat alike; yet I seemed to recognise his face as he fell so untowardly at my feet."
"The same," answered Assarac, in his calm unmeaning tones. "A goodly youth, and a stout warrior enough, by name Sarchedon. He has been bestowed in the temple of Baal under my authority, safe at least till nightfall. Nor can he escape, though guard and priest are out of call; for there is no egress from the last chamber in the painted gallery on the upper story where I have placed him, and whence he could scarcely fly were he to borrow all the wings of Nisroch, whose image stands over against the entrance to his stronghold. But it is not of him I would speak," continued the priest, keenly noting, though he never seemed to raise his eyes above the hem of her garment, the queen's burning cheeks and air of breathless interest. "From sunset to sunrise have I watched and waited for the decree of the Seven Stars, poring over the scroll of fire they unrolled for me, till my brain was giddy and mine eyes were dim. Great Queen, there are no secrets in the future for him who has learned to read the book of heaven. It teaches me that in the darkness of this night shall dawn unclouded glory for the land of Shinar, and supreme empire for her who is fairest and bravest among women. As the goddess Ashtaroth is Queen of Heaven above, so shall the great Semiramis be Queen of Earth below. The Seven Stars have spoken it, and they cannot lie!"
He wondered at her preoccupation, contrasting with the attention she had lately shown her present listlessness and apparent indifference to the splendid destiny thus prophesied. Something almost of scorn passed over his brow, while he reflected, that if the mighty engine of ambition failed to move her intellect, he had yet a subtler instrument with which to touch her heart.
Presently she roused herself to ask, "Did the stars promise only that I should be great, or will they permit me also to be happy?"
"The queen's greatness," answered Assarac, "like her beauty, is inseparable from her very being. Her happiness, like the robe that covers it, can be put on or off at will."
"You are right," she exclaimed, while the resolute look he knew so well passed over her beautiful face down to the very chin. "And she who stands panting at a fountain were indeed a fool not to stoop and drink. Tell me, then, their behests. What the stars bid me, that will I do."
"The Great Queen cannot read from the book of heaven so readily as a humble priest, the lowest of her slaves, though this lore, too, will I aspire to teach her at some future time; but there lies in the temple, fairly writ out in the Assyrian character and plain as the flight of an arrow through the air, a scroll that teaches us poor servants of Baal the rudiments of those mysteries into which the ruler of a mighty empire must needs inquire. It is to be found in a secure chamber of the painted gallery under the winged image of Nisroch our god."
While he spoke, not the slightest curl of his lip, the faintest inflection of his voice, betrayed a hidden motive, another meaning from that which the plain straightforward words seemed to convey. Yet the queen glanced very keenly in his face, while she stopped short in her walk and turned towards the temple, observing only—
"It is not yet near sunset. I shall have light to read the scroll."
Then she dismissed Kalmim and her women, desiring that she might be attended only by the priest of Baal, in whose steps, nevertheless, Sargon followed like his shadow.
Arrived within the porch of the temple, she gave a great sigh of relief, as though she luxuriated in the refreshing coolness of those spacious halls, with their smooth shining floors, their countless columns, their vast shadowy recesses, that spoke of calm and secrecy and repose. She had not gone far, ere Assarac stopped and prostrated himself at her feet.
"Let not the queen be wroth with the lowest of her servants," said the wily eunuch, "if he ask permission to be relieved for a brief space from attendance on her person. There is so much to be prepared for the feast of Baal, so many details to arrange for the sacrifice of to-night, that I must neglect my duties no longer. The scroll lies where all who pass may read, and when the Great Queen has studied it enough, if, standing in this spot, she will but clap her hands thus, those shall be within call who can summon me to her presence without delay."
Semiramis frowned, though the frown did but mask a smile.
"It is scarce a royal reception," said she; "nevertheless, be it so. I am content to breathe this cool and grateful air for a space, ere I return with Kalmim and the women to my palace across the river. You are dismissed."
He rose and retired, making a sign to Sargon, who watched his every movement, that caused the shield-bearer to follow him forthwith.
Clear of the queen's presence, Assarac pointed to a table on which stood a golden flagon and drinking-cups of the same metal.
"Not even to-day?" said he, while the other shook his head in token of dissent. "Trust me, Sargon, you will be faint and athirst before all is done."
"Not a drop of wine shall cross my lips," answered the shield-bearer in a fierce determined whisper, "till I have dipped my hands in the blood of him who has injured me. I have sworn it by the splendour of Nisroch. It is the oath of the Great King!"
"Is your vengeance, then, so deadly?" asked the eunuch, in a tone of pity that obviously chafed and aggravated the passion it seemed to commiserate. "Surely ten score of sheep, five yoke of oxen, a hundred camel-loads of barley, or a talent of gold should absolve the shedder of blood from farther reparation. In our land of Shinar the laws are merciful, and do not exact life for life."
"There is a law in man's heart," replied Sargon, still in the same low concentrated accents, "that sets aside the law of nations and the artificial ordinances of priests. See here," he continued, plucking from his girdle a knotted bowstring, limp and frayed, which he put in the other's hand; "a reader of the stars should be able to tell a simple spearman how many knots on that bit of twisted silk go to the score."
"It needs no great study to perceive that but one is left here now," answered Assarac with an inquiring look into the other's face.
"The bow from which I took that string had been bent many a time in the Great King's service," was the reply; "and a shaft it sped but seldom missed its mark. I have covered Ninus under shield, and defended him with my body, when arrows and javelins were flying thick as the sands of the desert before a south wind. I have waged my life, poured out my blood freely for my lord, and he has rewarded me with his own royal hand."
"He is lavish enough," observed Assarac, "be it gold or stripes, honours or death, that he awards. May the king live for ever!"
"May the king live for ever!" repeated his shield-bearer, "a god among gods, a star in the host of heaven. If an empty throne be waiting for him up yonder, may it soon be filled! When I saw my boy fall stark dead, the blood gushing from his mouth and nostrils, I prostrated myself and did obeisance to the Great King; but I drew that string from my bow, and in it I tied a score of knots, swearing with each a deadly oath, that by the splendour of Nisroch I would be avenged ere the twentieth was undone. Since then I have loosed a knot with every sunrise; and lo, a priest of Baal counts, and tells me there is but one left!"
Beneath its sallow skin a terrible smile rounded the fleshy outlines of the eunuch's face. His voice, however, remained firm while he whispered—
"We understand each other, and there must be no wavering—no escape—no mercy!"
Between his clenched teeth the shield-bearer's answer came in single syllables, hissing like drops of blood on a burning hearth—
"Such wavering as stayed the cruel hand, the deadly bow! Such escape as was afforded that light-footed youth, whom only an arrow's flight could overtake! Such mercy as he showed my boy!"
"Come with me," was the high-priest's reply; and the two ascended a spiral staircase of carved and polished wood-work, leading to the Talar or cedar-chamber on the roof of the temple, where at nightfall sacrifice was to be offered, and drink-offerings poured out in person by the Great King to his Assyrian god. Here they drew from a store-chamber within the wall several bundles of reeds, which they strewed in profusion over the wooden floor of the cedar-house, and which Assarac sprinkled assiduously with a certain fluid from a phial he had kept hidden beneath his gown.
"Every precaution must be taken," observed the priest with another hideous smile. "But if it be the will of his ancestor Ashur to descend for him in a chariot of fire, and these reeds thus saturated should catch the flame, then must the Great King, if he be not overcome with wine and sleep, escape by yonder narrow staircase. His shield-bearer will lie in wait there to help him down."
Sargon nodded, and his white teeth gleamed between the curls of his jetty beard.
"It is a faithful servant who thus risks life with his master," continued the priest. "When a subject approaches the king in his sacred office, the punishment is death."
"Death!" repeated Sargon, and his hand stole to the haft of his two-edged sword, while he burst into a mocking laugh.
Semiramis meantime, left to her own devices, strolled through the long corridors and lofty halls of the temple with wavering steps and slow, that yet bore her nearer and nearer the chamber at the end of the painted gallery, where Sarchedon was lodged. Opposite its entrance stood an eagle-headed figure of Nisroch, with beak and wings of gold. On this the prisoner's eyes were fixed, as he watched the lapse of time by the fading sunlight on its burnished edges, and, looking only for deliverance in the carelessness of the priests, longed for darkness, that he might explore the temple and find for himself some secret passage through which to gain the town. Thus gazing, it was with no assumed start of surprise that he marked the queen's beautiful figure and shining raiment emerge like a vision from under the very shadow of the god; and while he prostrated himself at her feet, he could not forbear covering his eyes with his hands in honest doubt whether he were face to face with a woman of real flesh and blood, or with some illusive creation of his own excited fancy. Perhaps no intentional flattery could have been so grateful to the queen, whose daring nature was yet sufficiently feminine to be tempered with a certain reserve and restraint in the presence of a man she loved.
Semiramis looked tenderly down on the kneeling form at her feet, leaning towards it with the graceful pliancy of the palm-tree as she bends in the evening breeze.
"Rise, Sarchedon," she whispered, dwelling fondly on every syllable of his name as it passed her trembling lips; "this is no time for empty homage and unmeaning form. Know you not that you are to die with to-morrow's dawn?"
Even that hideous prospect, even love for another woman burning at his heart, could not veil the passionate admiration that blazed from his eyes while he looked up in the fairest face beneath the sky.
Meeting his glances, her own kindled into fire. She laid her white hand on his shoulder with a gesture that was almost a caress. But the hand, so firm to draw a bow, to grasp a sceptre, to record a doom, shook like a leaf of the great tamarisk-tree in her own gardens.
"I have come to save you," she continued in a voice that sank lower and lower with her failing breath. "Was I not the cause of your offence? Do I not share your crime? I cannot let you die!"
He scarcely believed his senses. Could this be the royal lady who had ruled so calmly half the nations of the East—this panting, trembling, eager woman, changing colour, mood, and bearing with every throb of her beating heart? It was hard to find voice for the conventional declaration, that "he was the lowest of her servants, and his life lay in the hand of the Great Queen!"
"Your life, Sarchedon," she murmured. "If your life be indeed mine, what more can I desire? See, you shall take it back. It is a free gift; and again I am all alone. A queen, forsooth! Who would be a queen, to burn like Ashtaroth in heaven with fire kindled in her own heart, having none to counsel, none to cherish, none to love?"
He had sprung to his feet. He looked on the beautiful woman standing beside him, and every manly instinct of his nature rose to answer her appeal, so touching, so bewildering, and so fond. The very contrast of her flushed temples and disordered looks with those royal robes of state might have turned a cooler brain, and no consideration of danger or duty could have caused him to forbear exclaiming,
"I have but one desire on earth—to live and die at the queen's feet!"
Never had she bestowed on Ninus, perhaps never even on Menon, the husband of her youth, such a smile as now beamed from eyes and lips and brow on the impulsive warrior, who had scarcely spoken ere something in his inmost heart bade him wish his words unsaid. Her lithe and shapely figure swayed towards him, as if, but for his outstretched arms, it must have fallen. The perfume of her hair surrounded and intoxicated his senses; her breath was on his cheek, her sweet lips scarce a palm's breath from his ear, while in gasping broken syllables she murmured,
"Not at her feet, Sarchedon, but at her heart! Nay, more, you shall——"
