THE CAPTIVE IN THE DUNGEON
A certain rough sympathy for his impending fate seemed elicited from his guards, as they forced Sarchedon through the palace, down a dark passage, bricked and vaulted, that led to some remote place of security, unvisited by the light of day.
"You should have held your peace, man," said one, easing a little the belt that bound the prisoner's arms. "To bandy words with Pharaoh is to throw scalding broth in the air, and stand under where it falls. Had you feigned to be stricken dumb with fear, now, not daring to raise your eyes in the face of my lord the king, you might have escaped with the loss of your nose and tenscore stripes on the soles of your feet. But that long tongue of yours has made it a hanging matter, believe me, no less, if not impalement, which is worse."
"Tush, brother!" interrupted his comrade, a comely archer, not unconscious of his sleek dark locks, marked brows, and other personal advantages; "a man can die but once. Better be stuffed and swathed decently in a large cool resting-place, with plenty of room and shade, than limp about in the heat a hideous object, crippled and disfigured for life."
"A man can die but once," repeated Sarchedon stoutly, repressing the shudder that, in this dark downward passage, chilled him to the bone. "I had hoped, however, to fall honourably from my war-chariot in the fore-front of battle, rather than hang by the heels like a trapped jackal, to rot and blacken, till my bones are stripped by the birds of prey."
"What matter?" observed the first speaker, accepting with resignation the misfortunes of another. "Men come to the same resting-place, travel the road how they will. Even the Great Sphinxes and the three royal tombs must crumble down at last. It is only Pharaoh who lives for ever."
Thus speaking, he thrust a bunch of onions and a lump of barley-bread into Sarchedon's hands, unbinding them at the same moment while dexterously pushing him through a door, which he shut and bolted on the outside, leaving his own homely meal with the prisoner, whom he thus consigned to solitude and gloom.
The Assyrian listened to the retiring footsteps of his escort as a man hanging over an abyss marks the last strands parting of a rope that links him to life and light of day. When they faded into silence, he seemed to taste already the bitterness of death. Unlike the Egyptian, however, that fatalism which sinks without effort to despair was no part of the Assyrian's character, and he soon roused himself to examine the strength and quality of his prison-house.
It was a cell of liberal dimensions, sunk deep into the earth, bricked throughout and with vaulted roof, admitting a feeble glimmer from one narrow loophole, which communicated with the passage he had left. The more minutely he studied it, the more convinced was he that his dungeon afforded no chance of escape.
He felt the walls on each side, not leaving a single brick untouched; he searched the flooring carefully for some inequality that might give hope of a subterranean passage or concealed egress; but in vain. The work seemed even and level, smooth as granite, and no more to be tampered with than the pitiless rock itself.
Wearied at length with his exertions, his ride through the night, and the events of the morning, he made up his mind to die, and in the meantime munched his barley-bread and onions ere he laid him down to sleep.
It seemed that he had scarcely rested an hour before the door of his cell was opened, to be shut again ere he could spring to his feet. Food and wine, however, of the best quality had been left for his refreshment, and to these he did justice, notwithstanding the exigencies of his situation and the prospect of a painful death.
So the time dragged wearily on, the faint streak of light that stole into his dungeon affording the prisoner no means of calculating the days as they passed by. His meals, though served regularly, were brought by a shrouded figure that vanished, phantom-like, before he could accost it. No sound from upper earth penetrated these gloomy regions. It seemed to Sarchedon that he was forgotten of men, and, as he somewhat bitterly reflected, deserted by the gods.
Could Baal not see him here, sunk surely but a fathom deep below the surface—Baal, in whose service he had so often drawn bow and brandished spear? Nor Ashtaroth, lovely Queen of Light, to whom, young, comely, gallant, he had tendered an adoration not unmixed with something of poetry and romance? Nor any of the Great Thirteen, wheeling aloft in their golden cars? Nor one amongst the countless host of heaven? Was this the reward they vouchsafed their worshipper? and would that other God, of whom Sadoc spoke, have left him thus to die? He summoned all his manhood, and it failed him; he drew on his courage, and found it but a dogged form of despair. He felt the want of something to lean on, something to trust in, something to help him from without, like a blind man seeking a friendly grasp to guide his steps. He wished he had questioned the Israelite more minutely as to that mysterious creed of his, which taught men they could never be alone nor friendless; that present with them always, but nearest at their greatest need, was a power unseen, unheard, tender, compassionate, yet irresistible and superior to Fate.
Alas, it was too late now! He turned to the wall, with something of hopeless apathy, and fell to thinking of Ishtar, fingering the while that amulet round his neck which had clung to him through all his troubles, and in which he put some vague superstitious trust.
He felt persuaded it was mysteriously interwoven with his destiny; and if this charm too had played him false, like all else, it must be time to die, since he was indeed ruined and undone.
Thus pondering, he started fiercely to his feet; for in an instant the whole cell seemed ablaze with light, not on fire, but glowing in a mild yellow lustre, which faded back to gloom ere his dazzled eyes could distinguish more than the outline of a shrouded figure standing in the midst. Some wild hope shot through his heart that it might be the phantom of his love come to bid him farewell; but a moment later he remembered his sentence, and prepared to confront a messenger from Pharaoh, sent doubtless for the purpose of leading him forth to die.
"I am ready," said the prisoner sternly. "I might strangle you where you stand, before you could summon help; but what would that avail me? You are but doing your duty. Lead on. 'Tis almost worth a life to see daylight once more."
"Life is dear," was the answer, "to the reptile in the mud, no less than to the eagle in the sky. It should be doubly dear to a man of war, who is the bulwark of a host and the favourite of a prince."
Sarchedon started, and looked piercingly at the speaker, whose voice, calm, low, and grave, seemed not entirely strange to his ear; but the cell had again become so dark, he could make out no more than a cloaked form and closely muffled face.
"What mean you?" said he. "Did Pharaoh send you here to jest with me before I die?"
"I am indeed sent by Pharaoh," was the answer; "Pharaoh, who, through my lore, can read events passing at Nineveh, at Babylon, at Thebes and Memphis, clearly as here in the City of the Cat. Have you never heard, my son, of the magic of the Egyptians?"
"I have heard of it," replied the out-spoken warrior. "But my experience of your people is at bowshot distance, and more than once at point of spear. They are skilful marksmen, I tell you fairly, and sturdy men of war enough with push of steel. They needed but little magic to help them when it came to downright blows. Yet we drove them before us, we sons of Ashur, as the lion drives the wild ass across the plain."
"The wild ass may yet spurn the lion with her hoof," answered the other. "But what are sword and spear and human might to those forces we can summon from the world of spirits at our will? Would you not tremble, my son, to behold Typhon or Abitur of the mountains standing here on the floor between you and me?"
"Seeing is believing," was the reply of the stout-hearted Assyrian.
"I will not test your courage so far," said his visitor; "the more that I know it true as the steel you ought to wear on your thigh even now. Nor would I dare to summon such powerful aid as those I have named except at utmost need, or by the desire of Pharaoh himself. Nevertheless, I will show you here on the spot such manifestations of my power as will put to shame all the lore acquired from your lofty towers or your wide Northern plains. Which of your star-readers will bid this dry rod blossom like the almond-tree, or cause a fresh lotus to spring up in flower from the arid soil of that cemented brickwork beneath our feet?"
While he spoke, the same glow as before, though somewhat milder in lustre, shone through the cell, revealing to the astonished prisoner a slender figure draped up to the keen black eyes, that never seemed to leave his own. The magician, if such he were, looked imposing neither in gravity of age nor majesty of stature; yet Sarchedon felt a strange consciousness that he was in the presence of one superior to himself.
He watched with eager curiosity every motion of his visitor.
The latter brought out from beneath his robe a lamp of transparent glass, traced with mystic characters in waving lines of gold, and which shed the radiance that had so startled the Assyrian. Over the lamp he brandished a rod some two cubits long, apparently of polished ebony; and immediately a cloud of aromatic vapour filled the cell, hiding him for a space from the prisoner's sight. When it cleared away, he reached to Sarchedon the branch of an almond-tree, equal in length to the rod he had carried in his hand, green, full of sap, and fragrant in a rich growth of blossoms bursting into flower.
"The warrior can take life," said he gravely, "and the king can level fenced cities with the plain. Is not he greater than king and warrior who can call into existence that which these have only power to destroy?"
Sarchedon gazed on him in mute astonishment and awe. That the magician should have thus appeared in a dungeon of which the walls denoted no possibility for secret entrance was of itself surprising enough; but to inhale its fragrance, and behold in luxuriant blossom that which his own eyes had told him was but now a dry rod of ebony, could only be accounted for by supernatural influences; and he became a firm believer in magic forthwith. He made a last stand, however, for his incredulity, exclaiming almost unconsciously,
"You must have brought it beneath your cloak."
There was something of the kindly patience with which one instructs a child in the other's tone, while he replied,
"Seeing is indeed believing, as you even now averred. See, then, my son, and believe!"
With that, he cast his mantle from his shoulders, and stood forth erect, letting its folds wind about his feet, and showing in the pure white robe that enveloped his person like a pillar of alabaster on a black pedestal. His features were still shrouded; but his eyes gleamed with a mocking fire.
Once more, while he passed his hand over the lamp, a cloud obscured the dungeon as before, but for a somewhat longer space. When it cleared away, he lifted his dark cloak from the floor, and there at the prisoner's very feet, springing, as it seemed, from the hard brickwork, bloomed a fresh lotus, the flower that every son of Ashur deemed specially sacred to his country and his gods.
Sarchedon was a brave man in battle; braver, indeed, than the average of his countrymen, whose courage, perhaps, was their noblest quality. Had a score of Pharaoh's archers been bending bows all round him, he would have died like a lion in their midst, without a sign of weakness or fear; but it was no part of his creed to set at defiance the powers of another world, and he fell prostrate before his visitor in abject humility, covering his face with his hands.