Huzim gazed out and saw that her words were true, though he joined not in her merriment.
"Nay, mistress," he murmured, "this Dagas is but a fool; yet deeply was I troubled for thy fate, till streams of sweat poured out upon my skin. Thou didst say that Syria had risen in revolt—that Hittite chariots advanced—that Nineveh was but a blotch of mud upon the plain. 'Twas witful craft, I grant, though hazardous, for truth was twisted inside out, even as women wring their garments at a washing time."
"Aye," sighed Semiramis, dreamily, as she rested on her hunting spear and watched the riders vanish in a cloud of dust, "aye, good Huzim, in song and legend this truth of which thou speakest is a wondrous thing, yet oft must the god of wisdom robe himself in the splendor of a lie."
CHAPTER XXI
THE RIDDLE OF THE SECRET WAY
The day waxed old. The sun plunged down into a fiery death, as though a Moloch swallowed it, to breathe back flames from his brazen throat; then the crimson glow grew faint and faded from the west; the twilight deepened, while a purple haze stole up on the mountain slopes, to wrap the loftiest crags in gloom, till the moon rode forth and set them free.
Semiramis and Huzim now paused for rest and food, for the way grew more precipitous, and naught might be accomplished while the darkness held; so when the Indian had eaten he stretched himself in sleep, but for the Syrian there was none. She sat with her chin upon her hand, gazing in thought upon the mountain stream which tumbled noisily beside the resting place, while through her brain a question rioted and gave no peace—a question which mocked, yet lured her on through swamps of deep perplexity. Whence came these stores of food to Zariaspa? and why in the name of Nebo should the Bactrians set the place on the further side of a mountain range? To cross the ridge was but to meet with Ninus and his ring of warriors. How pass them and win to the city walls?
"Ah, little stream," she murmured, with a heavy sigh, "what secrets of the hills thy hundred tongues could tell did I but understand thy strange, wise songs!"
The stream sang on, a roar of dull monotony that lulled her senses into drowsiness, and again the Syrian sighed as she stretched her limbs for sleep; yet slumber hid itself away as hid the answer to her quest, and suddenly a silence fell—a silence so deep that the wind-gods seemed to hold their breath as for a coming storm, while through the hush ran a whispered chant of insects of the night—that murmurous hum from the tongues of tiny, things.
The Syrian started, sat upright on the earth, and stared at the stream in wide-eyed unbelief. Where, before, a torrent rushed along its way, leaping the stones with a foaming, boisterous swirl, now ran a trickling rivulet. Its song was stilled; black rocks protruded from its bed, and a stranded fish flapped clumsily upon the sand. For a moment longer stared Semiramis, then leaped to her feet and shook the sleeping Indian.