"Tush, brother!" interrupted his comrade, a comely archer, not unconscious of his sleek dark locks, marked brows, and other personal advantages; "a man can die but once. Better be stuffed and swathed decently in a large cool resting-place, with plenty of room and shade, than limp about in the heat a hideous object, crippled and disfigured for life."
"A man can die but once," repeated Sarchedon stoutly, repressing the shudder that, in this dark downward passage, chilled him to the bone. "I had hoped, however, to fall honourably from my war-chariot in the fore-front of battle, rather than hang by the heels like a trapped jackal, to rot and blacken, till my bones are stripped by the birds of prey."
"What matter?" observed the first speaker, accepting with resignation the misfortunes of another. "Men come to the same resting-place, travel the road how they will. Even the Great Sphinxes and the three royal tombs must crumble down at last. It is only Pharaoh who lives for ever."
Thus speaking, he thrust a bunch of onions and a lump of barley-bread into Sarchedon's hands, unbinding them at the same moment while dexterously pushing him through a door, which he shut and bolted on the outside, leaving his own homely meal with the prisoner, whom he thus consigned to solitude and gloom.
The Assyrian listened to the retiring footsteps of his escort as a man hanging over an abyss marks the last strands parting of a rope that links him to life and light of day. When they faded into silence, he seemed to taste already the bitterness of death. Unlike the Egyptian, however, that fatalism which sinks without effort to despair was no part of the Assyrian's character, and he soon roused himself to examine the strength and quality of his prison-house.
It was a cell of liberal dimensions, sunk deep into the earth, bricked throughout and with vaulted roof, admitting a feeble glimmer from one narrow loophole, which communicated with the passage he had left. The more minutely he studied it, the more convinced was he that his dungeon afforded no chance of escape.
He felt the walls on each side, not leaving a single brick untouched; he searched the flooring carefully for some inequality that might give hope of a subterranean passage or concealed egress; but in vain. The work seemed even and level, smooth as granite, and no more to be tampered with than the pitiless rock itself.
Wearied at length with his exertions, his ride through the night, and the events of the morning, he made up his mind to die, and in the meantime munched his barley-bread and onions ere he laid him down to sleep.
It seemed that he had scarcely rested an hour before the door of his cell was opened, to be shut again ere he could spring to his feet. Food and wine, however, of the best quality had been left for his refreshment, and to these he did justice, notwithstanding the exigencies of his situation and the prospect of a painful death.
So the time dragged wearily on, the faint streak of light that stole into his dungeon affording the prisoner no means of calculating the days as they passed by. His meals, though served regularly, were brought by a shrouded figure that vanished, phantom-like, before he could accost it. No sound from upper earth penetrated these gloomy regions. It seemed to Sarchedon that he was forgotten of men, and, as he somewhat bitterly reflected, deserted by the gods.