They cut away his beard, washed him, and clothed his form in a garment of fine-spun wool; then they bore him in secret to a chamber on the palace mound.
And Semiramis came in to him—alone—for on that meeting nor you nor I may seek to look, when even the goddess Ishtar might have turned away in pity and in pain.
Through the long blue night he lay with his head upon her breast, weeping, babbling of the aching solitude of his prison years, caressing her hair, her features, with the crooked fingers which were now his eyes. And Semiramis rocked him in the cradle of her arms, as she might have rocked a babe, soothing, whispering her love to this poor misshapen thing, crooning, till he slept at last, to forget the tangle of his joy and grief.
Then the Queen of Assyria stole away—away from the horror of it—seeking the housetop, where none might see, where none might hear, where none might follow save the ghosts of pain. On the roof she stood and opened her robe to the cool, sweet breath of the morning stars. She looked upon Bêlit riding down the sky; she looked upon sleeping Nineveh which was builded by the King. The King! who had builded up another curse and set its walls on a woman's heart—its palace on a woman's shame! The King! who had wrenched the glory from a woman's soul and crucified it!
And now, when her soul could bear no more, she loosed one long-drawn, quivering scream—the cry of the tigress to her stricken mate.
CHAPTER XXIX
WHEN A WOMAN RULED THE WORLD
In the palace of the King there was revelry unstinted, for a change had come upon Semiramis. Through the score of years when she reigned with Ninus, she had paid the tribute of a wife, in sufferance of love which she gave not back again, bearing his son, while her heart roved ever through the hills of Hindu-Kush. She graced his throne and added to his kingdom's power; she ruled his house and gave obedience to her lord; yet the King asked more. He asked for all, not tithes, but the utmost treasure of a woman's heart—her smiles, her yearnings, and the fruits of love which ripened for her mate alone; and now, when the frost of age was set as a helm upon his locks, the hope of youth burst forth to flower again.
Semiramis smiled upon the King, and there was somewhat in her eyes which sent the hot blood bounding through his veins, which caused his breath to flow the faster and his hand to tremble in a lingering caress. Her beauty was for him—the master of men—the lord of a woman's yielding soul—the love-mad king who groveled at a shrine of craft.
So Semiramis suffered the King's caress, smiling her smiles of promise, while she hushed the curses of her fury-throated hate. She waited now, even as the tigress stalks her kill, patient, tireless, crouching till a shifting wind had passed, to rise again and steal toward the pouncing-point. King Ninus she might have slain by day or night, and there were moments when her fingers clung to a weapon hungrily; yet the King was King, and his nation might not be slain. Nay, first must she strip this man of a nation's love, strip him to the very nakedness of guilt, then nail him to a wall of suffering, even as Menon hung upon a wall of stone. So the tigress waited, and her quarry frolicked through the fields of pleasant ways.