FORLORN
She had lost a friend, and where was there another left? Her father slain, her home despoiled, the man she loved sold into slavery and carried she knew not where: could human lot be more lonely, more hopeless? Yet she never lost heart. Plodding on in lowly guise, riding that humble animal, there was yet dominant in her tender frame a hopeful courage, such as does not always animate the warrior in his chariot, a spirit of self-reliance and self-devotion that would have ennobled a sceptred monarch on his throne.
Reaching the well-remembered spot where she used to watch for the return of Arbaces, where she had first met Sarchedon riding home with tidings from the Great King, it was no wonder that she saw the Well of Palms through a mist of tears.
Nevertheless she dashed them hastily from her eyes, and summoned all her energies, when she became aware of a troop of horsemen moving rapidly on her track. To be discovered by these, she knew too well, would entail the risk of insult, perhaps injury, and the certainty of delay. While they were yet afar off, she leaped from the ass, and, taking advantage of her familiarity with the locality, concealed herself behind a broken wall that skirted the fountain, while the animal jogged leisurely home, to the relief and comfort of its disconsolate owner.
So near the great city, a solitary wayfarer was an object of little interest. She soon perceived she had escaped observation by the movements of the party, who galloped on towards Babylon without diverging to visit her hiding-place. She determined, however, to remain concealed yet a while longer, and had no cause to regret her caution, when a single horseman, detaching himself from the rest, approached the marble basin of the Well of Palms, as if to water his good white steed, ere he passed on.
Half a bowshot off, she recognised the animal with a start of fear, suspense, surprise, sweetened by a thrill of love. She could not be deceived: it was Merodach! That spotless frame, those glancing limbs, that gallant bearing, could belong to no other animal in the land of Shinar; and where Merodach bent to the rein, it seemed cruelly hard Sarchedon's should not be the hand to guide.
