For answer Menon pointed to the ground outside the walls, now sown with missiles which the Bactriana had cast from catapults.
"See, my lord, what the generous foemen give in payment for our gibes. To gather such a store of stones would fill the space of two weary moons; yet Oxyartes flingeth them out to me in seven days. Therefore we hold them as a passing loan, till, presently, we shall hurl them back again."
For a moment King Ninus spoke no word, yet his frown departed and his features lit with a ghostly smile; then he mounted his chariot and drove toward the west.
A shout went up from Menon's merry warriors, and when night was come they gathered great piles of borrowed stones, with the which, in time, they would storm the walls of Zariaspa.
CHAPTER VIII
THE RAISIN IN A SKIN OF VINEGAR
Through the hot brown streets of Nineveh a merchant of Phoenicia hawked his wares. His frame, once huge and splendid in its strength, was bent with seeming age, and a grey beard fell to the belt of his trailing robe. Before him, by a leathern strap about his neck, hung a wooden tray whereon his trinkets were displayed, baubles of polished metal, beads of coral and of carven wood, rings, amulets, and fragrant scents. Here, too, were bracelets, chains of many links, scarfs of web-like fabrics and of gaudy hue, colored with the secret dyes from the Sea of the Setting Sun.
From street to street the merchant pushed his way, while ever and anon he raised his voice in a strange shrill cry which drew attention to himself and to his wares; and thus he bartered among the foolish wives of Nineveh. Yet at last he wandered past the market-place to the richer quarters of the city, and came to the central mound whereon sat the palace of the King. To the westward terraced slopes ran down to the level of the streets and to smooth, wide avenues which stretched to the river gate; yet here, where the merchant walked, the walls of the mound rose twenty cubits, masking the royal gardens which drowsed in the noon-day heat.
Again and yet again from the old man's throat came his strange, harsh call, resembling the cry of a startled crane in flight; then, presently, he paused at the joyous barking of a dog and a woman's voice in sharp admonishment: "Peace, Habal, peace!"
The merchant hurried onward, yet at the entrance of a narrow lane he turned, cried out once more and disappeared, while within the gardens Semiramis hid a smile and sought to soothe the whining of a shepherd's dog.