"And the prize, my lord?" asked Menon, shivering at a dread to which he dared not give a name.
"Shammuramat!" cried Ninus, bringing down his doubled fist, till the table rocked and the flagon overturned, the dark wine gurgling out upon the earth like the blood of a stricken warrior. "To the conqueror shall go this prize—by Asshur I swear it!—though he be her wedded spouse or the spawn of a Hittite serf. Now go! and set thy hope on the citadel of Zariaspa."
For an instant Menon lingered still, his gaze fixed fast upon the eyes of Ninus, his hot blood surging madly through his veins, his sword hand playing nervously about his blade; then he laughed and turned upon his heel without salute, albeit his laughter was like unto the cry of a strangled wolf.
"Wait!" called the King, and as Menon paused, he pointed a warning finger at his under-chief. "No parting word may be spoken with thy wife, save in my presence and in my audience hall this night. And more; should thy lips tell aught which Ninus gave in secret to thine ear, then marvel not if my men-at-arms cast lots amongst them for a concubine!"
So Menon went out from the gardens of the King, and, with a head that drooped upon his breast, rode slowly to the camp beyond the city wall.
CHAPTER XV
AN ARMY ON THE MARCH
Sad at heart Semiramis stood on the palace roof at dawn and watched the army, like a mighty serpent, wriggling away toward the east.
Her parting with Menon had been strange indeed, for while his lips spoke bravely of the days to come, in his eyes lurked shadows of a troubled soul. Some secret preyed upon him which he dare not share with her, and the eagle glance of Ninus rested on him ceaselessly, even while the husband's kiss was pressed upon her lips; and Menon stumbled as he left the hall. What danger to her lord lay hidden behind the master's smile, and why should he hold her here, a prisoner, at Nineveh? Menon, too, had bade her stay behind, though since her coming, in the one sweet night when she rested at his side, he had sworn to part from her no more till Ishtar snapped the thread. What now? Was his change of heart a mandate of the King, whereby her lord should suffer in secret for his disobedience, when open forgiveness was but a close-masked lie? By Gibil, if he dared—!
Semiramis leaned across the parapet, shaking her hard-clenched fist toward the lines of marching men which had swallowed up the purple litter of the wounded King. Hour by hour she watched the armies move, like restless waves on the breast of a shoreless sea, the sunlight flashing on their polished gear. Line on line of footmen swung in measured stride, archers, slingers, pikemen, and those who fought with axes and with staves; vast clouds of riders skirting the Khusur river's edge where the way was cleared for the monster catapults now knocked apart and bound upon carts with wooden wheels. As far as the eye could reach great lines of lowing oxen drew these machines of war, their drivers goading them with whips and the points of swords, while as a rear-guard came a rumbling host of chariots clanging through the city's eastern gate.