"Stay!" cried Semiramis, seeing that the crowd was pushed by frenzy to the danger line. "If your hearts are hot against the King alone, why then would ye seek to harm my lord who standeth between the wrath of Ninus and your worthless carcasses?"
A reckless speech it was, and well she knew that she laid her finger on an open sore.
"Why?" the leader thundered. "Why? Because we would strike the master through the man! A Governor shall be no more in Syria, save a Governor dead!" Amid hoarse shoutings he lifted up his voice again: "If Menon would plunder bread from the mouths of women, let Menon come forth alone, to reckon with their sons—their brothers—and those who love them as they love their land."
A tumult now arose. The torch-lights flickered on a sea of upturned faces, black with wrath, distorted by the passions of ferocious men full ripe for a deed of blood. They gathered for a rush; great stones were raised aloft, and flaming brands were whirled in eager fists.
But Semiramis had one shaft in her quiver still, and, setting it upon the string of craft, she let it fly. She flung her arms toward the sky, and laughed—a shrill, derisive peal that echoed far beyond the outskirts of the band and for an instant checked its charge; then, from the housetop, she pointed a scornful finger at the black-browed chief.
"Thou child!" she cried. "Thou suckling babe! Thou fool! to whom the asses of the wilderness are as oracles! What! Hast thou, then, not heard?" She paused, to give her listeners the space of an indrawn breath, then full in their teeth she launched a master-lie.
"Harken!" she cried, "and bend your knees in gratitude. King Ninus hath lifted his tax from Syria—and no man needs must pay!"
A hush of wonder fell upon the throng, and in the silence Semiramis heard a rustling at her side. Turning, she looked into Menon's eyes, grown large in fear, and seeming larger still against the pallor of his pain-drawn face. He had heard the tumult and had risen from his couch, to crawl to the house-top, trembling in the weakness of his state.
"Bêlit!" he gasped in hoarse dismay. "What madness wouldst thou do?"
"Nay, wait!" she whispered. "Huzim, hold thy master, that these madmen see him not." Then she turned to the crew below. "Oho!" she scoffed. "I see that ye are filled with shame; yet hear the end. At the prayers of my lord the Governor, King Ninus harkened to your murmurings, and giveth unto Syria what he giveth no other land. Not only doth he lift the burden of your tax, but commandeth that no man pay a sum which he payeth not of his own desire; wherein the King would measure generosity, not by force, but love. Moreover, he offereth a high reward in the nature of a prize. To the tribe which may aid his needs by the largest store, that tribe will Ninus set above all other tribes in riches and in power, receiving its headmen as his honoured guests at Nineveh." Once more the speaker paused, till the meaning of her words had sunk into wondering ears. "What now," she asked, "is the King a tyrant, or your Governor a beast to slay?"