And Ninus answered him and said:
"An army of chosen warriors to hedge thee in safety round about—my daughter Sozana to sit beside thee on a throne."
A silence fell. Each looked into the other's eyes, in measure of the final cast; then Menon spoke a single word in answer:
"No!"
Again fell silence, till the monarch's cloak of gentleness was pealed away, leaving him a brutish ruler over men—a ruler naked in his flame of power—before whose passion the passions of lesser men must be consumed and die.
"Heed well," he cried, and pointed a finger, trembling in spite of will, "'tis better far to sit a throne in Syria than to rot and be forgotten in the hills of Hindu-Kush. Choose, then, to live or die! Choose now, for I tell thee this: though the arch of heavens fall, Shammuramat shall be thy wife no more—but mine!"
For answer Menon set one foot upon the dais of the throne, and, curving his spine, struck fiercely with a doubled fist. It sank into the monarch's beard, and deeper, to the cruel mouth beneath; whereat King Ninus reeled, and the great dim hall spun round and round in a misty smear of light. Then Menon's sword came rasping from its sheath, for he, too, looked through a blinding mist, though the mist was red; yet ere he could smite, the eunuchs Neb and Ura fell upon him, dragging him to the floor where they bound his wrists with thongs.
The King arose, though leaning dizzily against his throne. He wiped a blood stain from his wounded lips and spoke, in a voice which was strangely calm:
"Bear me this dog to a chamber beneath the citadel and nail him to the wall!"
So the eunuch Neb went out and cleared the passage-ways of all who lolled therein, while Ura covered Menon with a cloak and bore him on his back to a distant chamber where the city cisterns were. Here they stripped him of his armor and of all he wore besides, even to the little fish of malachite; then, deaf to his curses, they pierced his hands and feet and nailed him against the wall, where he hung in agony.