"How art thou called?" she questioned, looking straight into his eye.
"Dagas," he answered, with a bow and a smile of merriment.
The woman was fair to look upon and easy in her speech, yet spies were ever prone to claim a friendship with their foes in a hope of deceiving them; so the Bactrian smiled, and was not to be deceived.
"Ah!" sighed Semiramis, stretching her hand to him. "Then bear me wine, good Dagas—the best—for to-day I have journeyed far and am athirst. See, likewise, to our steeds and to my servant here, who—"
She paused, for now the chieftain laughed aloud because of her impudence, while those about him joined in a roar of mirth; yet mirth was turned to wonderment, when a gust of fury lit her eyes, and she struck at the head of Dagas with a haft of her hunting spear.
"Fool!" she stormed, "is the sister of Oxyartes to be mocked by a brainless dog?"
The shaft went home. The laughter died upon their lips; yet, ere their startled senses woke again, Semiramis swept on:
"What! Know ye not that Babylon is in revolt? That Tyre and Sidon fling aside the yoke? That Syria flies to arms and sends her armies forth to crush King Ninus as a grain of corn? Does Bactria sleep, as sleeps Assyria's lord, when Nineveh hath tumbled to the earth—a blotch of mud upon the plains? Does Dagas know not that the hosts advance, with horsemen countless as the forest leaves, with slingers, axemen, hordes of Hittite charioteers, and a swarm of riders from the desert lands?" She flung back her head and laughed. "O worms of ignorance! O sons of fishes, knowing naught beyond their slimy pool! Go out and guard each road—each mountain pass—lest fugitives slip by and cry disaster to the King!"
She paused for lack of breath, and a buzz of confusion rose among the men-at-arms; then, at their chieftain's questioning glance, Semiramis spoke again:
"Five days must pass ere the vanguard cometh, yet I and my servant hasten on to warn the King of Zariaspa; for when our warriors pour down the mountain sides, then must Oxyartes sally forth and take King Ninus in his rear."