And now the war-wings ceased their feeble flutterings, to close upon Boabdul and his men, to take them in as a mother might take a wanderer in her arms; though on that mother's breast they found no peace of heart. The Bedouin horsemen backed upon themselves in a close-packed, tangled mass, fighting with scimitars against a storm of darts and the thrusts of spears; then a lane was opened, and into the boiling ruck drove Semiramis and her wedge of chariots.
In the car of the Queen stood Huzim, holding the reins and striving to guard his mistress with a mighty shield of bronze; yet to-day Semiramis cared naught for shields, nor recked of death, so long as she came upon the Vulture of Assyria. For him alone she sought—the King!—and never before had the tigress raged as she raged this day. Where an hundred scimitars flashed about her head, she rode them down and bored toward the King—bored till her steeds were slain and her chariot overturned, then she arose from the earth and bored on foot into the press.
She cared not for a thousand swords, and yet one scimitar there was which she might not pass unscathed. High up it swung, in the fist of Prince Boabdul; but ere it could descend upon her, Huzim leaped and dragged the Arab from his horse. On the blood-wet sands they battled, beneath the hoofs of plunging steeds, where dying Bedouins sought with dagger thrusts to claim still one more death ere they stood before their gods; and Huzim, who was once the Arab's slave, prevailed against Boabdul, gripped him tightly, and whispered into his ear:
"Peace, little master! for it grieveth me to crack thy bones. Peace, then, for I hold thee fast!"
Now the Prince whose rage and mirth went ever hand in hand, forbore to strive with his mighty conqueror, and laughed because of Huzim's words; yet the Arabs, seeing their chieftain fallen, surged backward and burst their way through Assyria's wall of men. Beaten, they fled like foxes from the trap which Semiramis had set for them; and in the van of their flying pack rode Ninus, on a matchless steed of Barbary. Away they sped through the desert's shimmering haze, where Assyria might not follow after them, nor did Semiramis seek to follow, for in her brain was born a craftier design.
In the grove of palms she caused Boabdul to be brought before her where she cut his bonds and offered him her hand.
"My lord," she spoke, "with thee I have no cause for war, nor did I seek to bring a harm to these thy followers who are dead or scattered o'er the plains. My concernment is with the Vulture of Assyria, and him I will snare though I rake the sand-wastes of Arabia from end to end."
Then she told Boabdul of all things which had come to pass—how the King had crucified Prince Menon whom the Arab loved, and had stolen his wife for the space of a score of years; and so great was Boabdul's wrath that he rent his robe and swore by his gods of fire to follow after Ninus, to find him, and to nail him on a wall of woe.
"Fear not," he cried, "for my desert is but a prison-yard, where the wardens of heat and thirst will hedge our captive round about and drive him to the arms of those who seek. Fear not, for soon will we come upon the King."
And thus Semiramis had won unto her cause the man who above all other men could aid her in her quest; the man who balanced a thousand tribes on the edge of his whetted scimitar; the man who now sent forth his riders, recalling all who had scattered across the plains.