"Nay, lord, in matters concerning the King alone, there is one endowed by birth and mind to best interpret them—thyself."
"Not so!" cried Ninus, "for the fate of others is woven in the skein. As my deeds of arms are wrought for the glory of Asshur and the lesser gods, so, then, must the gods point out my way when their servant wandereth in the mists of doubt." He paused, then spoke again, as an humble traveller who had lost his path: "Heed, Nakir-Kish, and lend me aid. The first to stand a conqueror upon the citadel was Habal—and Habal is but a dog. Shall Habal take Shammuramat to wife? Not so! One oath is thus dissolved."
"Aye," spoke the priest, "but who was next to stand with Habal on the summit of the citadel?"
"Menon!" breathed the King, in smothered wrath. "Menon to whom I swore a second oath and gave him this Syrian for his own."
The High Priest shook his head.
"'Twould seem," he ventured, "that one covenant dissolved would bind its maker's faith to the second covenant, and thereby lift the troublous mists of doubt."
"True," the monarch nodded; "true, to the feeble mind of man; yet, mayhap, in the judgment of the gods, this matter hath a deeper trend. Shammuramat, not Menon, was the conqueror; and albeit he stood before me on the citadel, his vantage was won by trickery!—by his servant who cast me down the stairs, in the cause of his master's evil selfishness!"
King Ninus paused again, and his fingers, which had squeezed the breath from Kedha, combed gently at his beard, then dropped to the sword across his knees.
"Heed, Nakir-Kish; rive open thy sacred bird, and in its entrails seek an answer to my questionings."
So the High Priest wrought his master's will; yet the while he pondered, seeking some nook of wisdom wherein to hide himself. He slew the sacred crane and opened it; he plucked three downy feathers and, giving each a name, dropped them into the carcass, then bound the whole with a silken cord. Head downward he held the crane, and by its slender legs he swung it in mystic circles before the King, then laid it at last upon an altar-stone. When the carcass once more was opened, two feathers lay curled in a close embrace, while the third was lost to sight, and the cheek of the High Priest paled.