GONE TO THE STARS
Bowed in the dust, his heart torn with anguish, as his mantle was rent from hem to hem, Arbaces grovelled on his chamber floor, blind to the shades of coming night, deaf to the sounds of sacred riot and religious festivity that rang through all the city round. He was like a man in a trance; and yet, though such noises were powerless to rouse his faculties, they woke at once to a distant echo, that his practised ear knew for the tramp of an armed party, to a faint familiar music his fighting instincts warned him was the clink of steel.
With one spring he leaped to his feet, snatched spear and shield from the wall, drew his sword-belt tighter round his loins; and so, with prospect of danger and necessity for action, felt he was a man again.
Brave and wary, he ran on to a terrace of his palace which overlooked the court. His heart sank to perceive that it was already filled with spearmen, amongst whom two or three white-robed priests of Baal were conspicuous. Something told him then that his enemies were upon him. Remembering his fidelity to his old warrior lord, and the hostility he had never shrunk from provoking in that monarch's service, he knew, even while he recognised the spearmen as belonging to the queen's army, that some powerful conspiracy was in the ascendant, and he must die. At the same instant came across him the warning that Ishtar had read in his divining cup, under the semblance of blood.
They were in the court; they were crowding to the staircase. The only chance of saving his daughter was to make such a desperate stand before the women's apartments as should give her time to escape by the terrace on the roof to an adjoining dwelling, and thence fly to take refuge. Where? Not in the temple of Baal; not in the palace of Semiramis. No, the last hope of safety must lie under the roof of the Great King.
Most of the retainers were absent, partaking in the festivities of the night. Half a score or so gathered round him on the stairs, and of these he must dispatch one to warn Ishtar that they were assailed.
Even in that anxious moment he remembered how, long ago, he had held a pass in Bactria, though sore out-numbered, and the Great King said it was well and bravely done.
They called on him to surrender. They must search his palace, said their leader—one who had formerly been under his own command, whom he recognised as a bold, remorseless, and desperate man.
"You have no authority," replied Arbaces, eager but to gain time, minute by minute. "I am chief captain of all his hosts, under my lord the king."
The other was prompt and resolute enough.
"May the king live for ever!" said he mechanically; adding, in short sharp tones, "Open out, spearmen! Advance, archers, and bend your bows!"
The front rank of spears stepped aside, unmasking a line of bowmen, with every weapon drawn to the arrow's head.
To pause was instant death. Arbaces raised his buckler, leaped down the staircase, and dashed into their midst.
At first, archers and spearmen gave way before the assault of that practised warrior; but what was one in the midst of scores who had sworn to put him to death? With a gash from temple to chin, with a spear-head in his body, a javelin through his thigh, he fell where he had been lying when they roused him, under the very feet of his own image, sculptured on the wall to celebrate his fame.
An arm was raised to strike, the angry steel quivered above his head; nevertheless that threatening spearman had followed Arbaces to victory more than once, and he would have forborne to slay his old leader, had he dared. But a hoarse voice rose, fierce and savage, above the din. "Strike," it said, "and spare not! Baal hath spoken, and the stars cannot lie!"
The pitiless words came from a priest whose white robes hovered on the skirts of the encounter. They were followed by a downward thrust, a gush of blood, and a hollow groan. Turning on his face to die, Arbaces gasped a few broken syllables. The spearman who slew him, less remorseful now, like a wild-beast that has tasted blood, heard them many a night afterwards in his dreams, though they only murmured, "The king hath spoken. O king, live for ever!"
Panting, pale, beside herself with fear, Ishtar had taken refuge, as her father bade, on the roof of the palace, with the intention of escaping thence into the street. At the very spot where she had met Sarchedon, watched a cloaked figure, and her heart leapt for one wild moment with the thought that the man she loved had dropped from the skies to save her at her need. Ere she could perceive he was not unattended, almost before she was conscious of her illusion, she found her arms pinioned, a shawl cast over her head, and herself borne forcibly away on stalwart shoulders, while a sweet soft voice whispering terms of passionate endearment in her ears, left no doubt as to the object and results of the outrage to which she was exposed.
Blindfold, gagged, half-stifled, she scarcely felt she was carried rapidly down several steps into the street ere she became unconscious. With the fresh air outside the walls, her senses returned, and she knew by its sidelong pace and the rate at which it travelled that she was riding a powerful dromedary, docile as an ox, swift as a courser, and to all appearance no more sensible of fatigue than a boat.
Then a horror of despair came over her; for she felt that those two she loved best in the world must be lost to her for ever. Had Arbaces been alive he would have rescued her. In such a captivity as seemed imminent, how was she ever to set eyes on Sarchedon again? The shawl was still round her head; but its folds had been loosened, so that she might breathe more freely; and she could perceive the soft surface of the desert sand passing beneath her, as she glided on smooth and noiseless like a ghost. Utterly broken down, she bowed her head on her knees in an agony of despair; and still that whisper stole into her ear at intervals, with its hateful protestations of a love she loathed and an admiration she despised.
So she journeyed into the desert, while her father lay dead in the court of his palace, and her lover sought her wildly, hurrying to and fro in a paroxysm of grief and fear.
Once, in an early stage of her fearful journey, she was conscious that the dromedary had been urged to its utmost speed. She fancied, too, that she could distinguish shouts, and other sounds of strife. Muffled and confused, it was fortunate for her that she did not know their cause.
With the first shades of evening, Sarchedon had taken advantage of the darkness to escape. He had no difficulty in finding an egress from the temple of Baal; nor did he meet with any interruption from the priests, who, busied in their several offices, bore without exception an air of considerable excitement and preoccupation. One figure indeed he passed, wrapped in a mantle that completely shrouded face and form, of which there was something feminine in the graceful outlines, though the height was as the height of a man. It never moved, nor seemed aware of his presence, when he glided by, remaining in an attitude of profound meditation, conscious only of its own engrossing train of thought. Could he have seen the beautiful face, so fixed and rigid, behind that veil, could he have read the purpose burning under that gentle brow, he would have fled from the Great Queen in horror and loathing, faster even than he hurried towards Ishtar in anxiety and hope. No sooner was he clear of the temple than his spirits rose, his energy returned, and his project of escaping from Babylon with her he loved while there was yet time grew to a fierce over-mastering desire, like that of a man who is suffocating for the air which is his life.
Hastening to his home, he made ready Merodach for a journey, and bridled the good horse with his own hands; then took his way through the city, now ablaze with innumerable torches and ringing with sounds of festival, towards the palace of Arbaces.
But the streets swarmed with revellers, and his progress was necessarily slow. When he arrived at the well-known dwelling, it was too late.
The dead body of the chief captain lay stark and grim where it had fallen. The servants had fled, the place was empty, and Ishtar nowhere to be found.
In such a catastrophe the first impulse of a brave man seems to be one of resistance and defiance, as though his combative instincts were aroused, and he could face his fate more calmly because he feels the worst has come at last. Cool and collected, Sarchedon soon satisfied himself that the woman he loved had been carried away by force from her father's dwelling; and a few cautious questions in the streets enabled him to discover the gate by which she had left the town.
Little by little he learned the maddening truth, and traced her through the gardens and vineyards that surrounded the city walls into the desert. Once on the sand, with a rising moon to help him, he could track the footmarks of her dromedary surely as the bloodhound tracks a wounded deer. He had not travelled many furlongs ere he came up with a small band of wayfarers, plodding on their patient asses into the wilderness, and recognised the Israelite whom Assarac had released, and to whom, during his captivity in the camp of the Assyrians, Sarchedon had himself done more than one slight service.
He reined in his horse, and learnt that a party such as he was in search of had passed them not long before. There were scarce half a score; they were armed; they travelled fast; their horses were of the noblest breed, and the dromedary in their midst seemed to have the wings of the desert wind. Had he not better tarry with his informants where they meant to encamp till morning? He would never overtake those whom he pursued.
For the first time that night he smiled while he patted Merodach's neck, and put the good horse into a gallop once more.
Stretching on with that long untiring stride, he was aware of a solitary horseman wandering aimlessly towards him, and riding at a foot's pace. For all ages it has been a true saying, that he whom one meets in the desert must be friend or foe. Sarchedon bore down on the other, and halting in front of him, discovered, to his great surprise, that it was Sethos.
The cup-bearer, who accompanied Ninyas on his fictitious lion-hunt outside the walls, had taken the earliest opportunity of leaving his young prince, when the latter rode back at sundown to the city. Impressed by the vague warning of Beladon, he had followed as far as he could the advice it accompanied, and turned his horse's head towards the desert, as directed by his friend.
But it was not in the nature of Sethos to persevere for any length of time in a course requiring sustained energy or self-denial. The fatigue of the long ride before him soon suggested itself painfully to his mind. Babylon with all her charms allured him irresistibly, now that he had really turned his back on her temptations; Kalmim's dark eyes seemed to plead with his own inclinations against an abandonment of courtly life, an exchange of luxury and pleasure for hardship and privation.
It was not long before he guided his willing horse back towards the city, and so, pacing leisurely through the cool night air, came against his friend, galloping in fiery haste on his errand of life and death.
"Have you seen them?" exclaimed Sarchedon, pale, fierce, and breathless. "Shall I catch them? How long have they gone past?"
"Seen what?" asked Sethos in turn, marvelling at the other's disturbed looks and wild imploring eyes.
In a hoarse whisper, in the low quick accents of a desperate man, Sarchedon briefly described the party of which he was in pursuit.
"If it was daylight, they would be in sight even, now," replied the other; and was entering into a long description of the dromedary's extraordinary speed and powers, which he had not failed to observe, although the little band had passed him at a pace which forbade his identifying those who composed it, when Sarchedon, giving his bridle-reins a shake, went away again in more furious haste than before, neither wishing him farewell, nor thanking him for tidings that seemed so welcome and yet so sad.
"A woman," thought Sethos, nodding sagely, and thinking he would be back with Kalmim by to-morrow's dawn—"a woman must needs be the cause of all this turmoil. Surely there is wormwood with the honey, and a two-edged sword in the scabbard of velvet and gold."
But when did such pithy saws ever preserve a man from foolish deeds? Or where is the armour of proof to fence his heart from a pair of soft eyes, the mantle of wisdom that is not shrivelled to shreds in the breath of a burning sigh? Sethos rode steadily back to Babylon, and Sarchedon galloped on into the desert, like a falcon stooping for its prey.
Piercing as were his eager eyes, sharpened of love and hate and fear, he was aware, by the swelling of Merodach's proud neck and the horse's voluntary increase of speed, that they were nearing the object of pursuit long ere his sight could distinguish certain dusky shadows flying like vapours before him, but looming larger as his gallant war-horse gained on them with every stride.
"Merodach," he muttered, "king of horses, you are worthy of your name!" Then, in husky frantic tones he shrieked out: "Stand, cowards, stand!"
They were within ear-shot, and the dromedary was forced to its utmost speed; but a horseman wheeled round, and halted not a bowshot from his approaching enemy, supported by a follower, who bore his shield.
"It is a spirit," said the latter; "it is Abitur of the Mountains!"
"Fool, keep your arm down and cover me," replied the other, while, bending his bow behind the buckler, he took a long steady aim.
Swift and straight as Sarchedon dashed in, the arrow flew swifter, straighter yet. It pierced through steel and silk and gold embroidered baldrick; the very feathers that winged it were draggled red in blood.
Faint, sick, and dizzy, the strickened man lowered himself on his horse's neck, while stars and moon and desert sand spun round him like a wheel. Had not Merodach's instincts taught him to obey its movements, balancing himself as it were under the swaying body, his rider must have fallen headlong to the earth.
So while the successful archer and his shield-bearer followed their party well pleased, Sarchedon, helpless, senseless, yet cleaving still to the saddle, was carried back at a gallop towards Babylon, over the same ground that he had traversed so gallantly when he bore the signet of Ninus to his queen.
Once more the good horse snorted at an object in his path—snorted and swerved aside, casting his rider heavily to the sand, where lay a framework of gaunt white ribs, with a strip or two of putrid flesh, black and festering on the bones.
For a moment the shock brought him to life. While his horse scoured away riderless, Sarchedon was aware, as if in a trance, that he had fallen across a splintered arrow bearing the same mark as that which was drinking his own life-blood: a royal tiara, and the symbol of Semiramis the queen.
Ere he closed his eyes again, he saw a sheet of flame quiver in the sky. It flared above the city where his gods had come down in chariots of fire to take back with them the person of the Great King.