Now Ninus loved his Queen, to the verge of madness, and naught was there which he would not do to gladden her or indulge her whims; yet Semiramis loved not the King, for in her heart rose ever the image of one man alone—Menon the Beautiful—who dwelt with the dead in a valley of Hindu-Kush.
Thus, since her passion slumbered with him who would wake no more, ambition borrowed of love's desire and rode on a chariot of war. War, red war! till the peace of remotest lands was rent by the screams of battle-horns. Thus the kingdom of Assyria grew apace. The fathers of men had fashioned a map of the countries of all the world; yet it fitted not the fancy of Semiramis, so the War Queen changed it, with a finger dipped in blood.
Where the fury of battle knotted its tightest snarl, there she would drive her chariot, to leap at the throat of danger, breast the surf of death, ride over it, and leave a crimson trail behind. And the warriors bowed down and worshipped her, half in unknowing passion, half in awe, forgetting the glory of the high god Asshur in the glory of a woman-god. As she rode in her chariot of gold, so she rode in the hearts of men, driving them on with a feather-lash, yet driving where she willed; and Ninus became not jealous of her worship or her deeds, for the Queen was his, and the glory of Shammuramat was, also, his.
As the years of war went by, she changed not in the beauty of form and face, for her strange, unearthly charms remained with her, thus causing all to wonder at her immortality; yet with Ninus it was otherwise. Grizzled he grew; the furrows of age ran, straggling, across his brow, and his great beard whitened, even as the coat of a battle-steed is streaked with foam. There were moments when his wrath would burst all bounds, without a cause therefor, and he seemed a man who harkened to a whisper-ghost that hunted him and worried at his ears. Each year a trusted messenger brought report from Zariaspa that Menon's spirit still tarried in the body of the man; yet the master knew no peace throughout his days, and a dog was ever hateful in his sight. By night he would awaken at the distant baying of a hound, then lie in the sweat of fear, huddling for comfort at a woman's side.
The finger of Fate swept slowly round in a circle of a score of years, and the monarch's path of evil led homeward to its starting point. In the Zagros mountain lay a mighty gap through which, in after years, would pour a race of the white-skinned sons of Iran, conquering the world and holding proud dominion till the end of time; and through this gap now crept a train of Bactrians, hiding by day and faring forth again in the hours of night. With them they bore a curtained litter wherein lay a man whose fingers curved like the claws of birds, whose feet were shrivelled so that he might not stand thereon, and his weak hands wandered always, as if groping on a darkened road.
Nearer, nearer drew this blind, misshapen thing, moaning as his litter rocked from side to side, helpless, shorn of strength; yet better far for Ninus had the hounds of Ishtar fallen on his trail. Outside the walls the Bactrian train lay hidden in the night; then, presently, a warrior chief came knocking at the gates of Nineveh.
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE CRY OF THE TIGRESS TO HER MATE
Semiramis, Queen of all Assyria, sat in the royal gardens, in the light of a great round moon which swung above the walls of Nineveh. About her were grouped her maidens, lolling on the fountain's rim, splashing their tiny feet in the coolness of the waves, while their laughter vied with the gurgling music of a water-song. This song burst forth from the fountain's heart, low, soothing, in the summer night, yet was marred of a sudden by the shrieks of Ziffa, a timorous maiden from the north on whose white knee a clammy little frog had sprung. So Ziffa shrieked, till saved by a laughing warrior, the son of Sozana and Memetis, now grown into a man; then the maidens crowned him with a wreath of lily leaves, and their merriment waxed shrill in the gladsome foolishness of youth.
In this harmless mirth Semiramis took no part, for to-night her heart was sad. Her fancy roved through the thickets of a score of years, led on by a thread of memory, and lingered in the vale of Hindu-Kush. Again she looked upon the everlasting hills and the plain below, that thirsty plain on which her cup of water had been spilled, which drank her joy and made a brother-desert of her soul.