"Name it," growled the King. "If thy words be true, I give a chariot's weight in gold; if false—beware!"
"Nay, radiant one," she smiled, "is Shammuramat a thief? One chariot I ask—of wood and brass—with a man to drive me whither and when I will."
"Granted," agreed the King. "Choose chariot, steeds, and charioteer, but in the name of Nebo tell us quickly of what we yearn to know."
"Wait!" said Semiramis. "My bargain must first be sealed. As to steeds, I care not, so be they sound in wind and limb; yet as to him who driveth, is of greater moment to my sale."
She turned to the listening warriors, then paused to laugh again, for half a score of men stepped forward, eager to drive her, though the road be laid through Gibil's smoking gates.
It is ill to tweak a King's impatient mood, yet this the Syrian dared to do, knowing right well the price Assyria would pay to call proud Bactria slave; therefore she paid no heed to Ninus, but wrought with his chieftains, smiling, conscious of her power.
"Nay, friends, 'tis I whose pride is roused at thought of riding forth with valiant men of war. Each—all—I love ye, for your strength, your loyalty to him who leadeth, who by his wisdom conquereth the world; yet one alone may drive my chariot, and he—"
"Prince Menon!" cried Nakir-Kish, seeking to win a friend where he dare not make an enemy, and Semiramis turned and bowed before the King.
The monarch frowned, and for a space he pondered, weighing the value of the Syrian's knowledge against the measure of his royal pride; yet it came to him that her arts had left him but a single path, for in her secret lay the nation's welfare and the King's. His chieftains plotted treason, while the army trembled between revolt and loyalty, wavering, waiting for a leader's cry to plunge them headlong into open war—a war at which the Bactrians would laugh aloud in very joy. Peace, then, the Syrian offered—peace and victory—her price the forgiveness of a single man. Forgiveness! It was galling to the King, yet, where a King drinks gall, it were well that he drain his goblet with a smile, as though the draught lay sweet upon his tongue; therefore Ninus smiled, rising to speak in a voice which all might hear:
"Listen, my children. Long have I yearned to take Prince Menon to my heart; yet, because of stubbornness, he sitteth upon his mound, devoured by spleen. If now he would once more call himself my son, a father will bid him welcome, even as he welcometh a daughter in Shammuramat."