Semiramis smote her palms together, thrice. At the sign, a door swung open and Huzim strode in, bearing a burden in his arms, a burden which he set upon the vacant seat beside the Queen. A man it was, or the semblance of a man, whose eyes were blind; whose form was shrunken, and whose hands were curved in the manner of horrid claws.
"Look!" cried the Mistress of the World. "Look ye upon this torn, misshapen thing who was once the glory of a woman's heart! Look ye and learn from him what the King hath wrought—for you who loved him—and for me! Look! for a lie hath risen from the grave, and liveth to mark its own!"
In awe they gathered round him, though they knew him not, by reason of the horror of his state; but the warriors Prince Menon knew, and voiced his joy in meeting them again; weeping as he found the features of old friends with his wandering finger-tips; sobbing as he called them each by name, or whispered secrets known to him and their hearts alone. Then Huzim raised him up, and he called aloud on the sons of Naïri, his children of war, who would harken to a father's battle-cry; and as that cry rang out, they knew him once again, and knelt before him, weeping bitterly.
"And now," called Semiramis to her kneeling warriors, "I ask that you follow me to pluck a vulture from his roost on Assyria's throne! To cast him out, as a father might cast a serpent from the bosom of his babe! The King! who hath shorn me of my joy in life! The King! who hath stolen away my lord—who caused me to bear him a bastard son—who hath made a strumpet of your Queen! The King! The King no more! Naught do I ask but justice! Give me this, or the edge of your pitying swords!"
She ceased. She knelt at the side of her stricken mate and held him in the cradle of her arms, her eyes upturned to those who shared her suffering. From the throats of these men there came no shout of fury at the King, no wrathful curse, no sound save the wrench of a stifled sob; yet on their faces rode a look of death, as each man drew his sword and laid it at the feet of the undone Mistress of the World.
As the feast had passed in silence, so now these men departed one by one, and, treading softly, went out into the night; then each sought out his home or tent, and slept—to dream and mutter curses in his troubled sleep.
* * * * *
Through the western gate passed a troop of horse, swinging toward the south and riding as the spirits drive.
It is written of Ninyas, son of Semiramis and the King, that never one good deed came out of him; and now he rode with warnings to his father in the south, who straightway fled into Arabia, seeking a shield in the desert's sands and a sword in Boabdul's scimitar.
It was Ninyas who turned against his mother in her hour of stress. It was Ninyas who, in after years, spread forth report that Semiramis had lied—that Menon had hanged himself in Bactria—that the Queen had set a maimed imposter in his place to accomplish her evil ends.