"Read!" breathed Ninus; yet Nakir-Kish stood silent, casting a troubled gaze upon the floor. The King stretched forth a hand and pointed to the bird; and in that moment the High Priest knew that an augury of truth was but an augury of death. The master made no threat by word of tongue, yet slid his fingers down the edge of a naked sword, as he looked on the warm brown throat of Nakir-Kish—and smiled.
The trembling priest said naught. His brain swam round and round, and a mist of fear arose before his eyes, for the feather which bore the name of Ninus had disappeared in the entrails of the slaughtered crane.
"Speak!" growled the King, and the pale priest lifted up his voice and spoke, though he spoke in shame:
"Prince Menon shall pass from the sight of those who love him best! ........... The lord of the world will claim his own—and take Shammuramat—to wife!"
He ceased, and the King sat pondering, with fingers that combed his beard in a feather-touch; then the High Priest gathered up the sacred crane and went his way. On the burning sands he strode, in the glare of a molten sun, seeking to free his spirit from the shadow of a lie.
* * * * *
The King sat pondering. Unto him came a trusted spy with word that in the mountains of Hindu-Kush was gathered a mighty force of Bactrians, those who had escaped from Zariaspa and from the lesser cities round about. The monarch harkened to these tidings with a bounding heart, for in his brain an evil plan was born. Desiring to hold the secret of the Bactrian force, he spoke no word of it to any man, and put the spy to death; then mounting his chariot, he drove to the tent of Menon and Semiramis. Here he came upon them, the Syrian resting upon a couch of skins, by reason of her wounded knee, while Menon sat beside her on the ground.
The monarch greeted them, and with them held a secret council, setting forth the expedients of war. King Oxyartes he would make an ally to Assyria's might, when the scattered Bactrians had been subdued and the terms of treaty were thereby cheapened for the conquerors. Concerning Zariaspa, he would not destroy it, but would set a governor within its walls and keep it as a stronghold in the East. Therefore he begged that Semiramis would lead a force of twenty thousand warriors across the mountains, seizing upon the source of the hidden river-course, lest the Bactrians choke the cleft with stones and cheat the city of its water and its food.
Right gladly would Semiramis have wrought this deed, yet because of her wound she might not scale the mountains steeps; so, sorrowing at the idleness of many days to come, she offered her servant Huzim as a guide. The King demurred. It was not meet, he said, that a slave should win the glory of so great a thing; yet since Semiramis and the Indian alone might point the way, he would suffer Huzim to lead the army hence. So thus it was agreed, and, after discoursing on other weighty matters of the time, Ninus went forth and once more mounted to his chariot.
Now it chanced that when the King was gone Semiramis held council with her lord, and in that council wrought more woe unto herself than in all her other days since she lay, a deserted babe, among the rocks of Ascalon.