It was a topic on which Sarchedon could be eloquent, even in a dungeon.
"Beautiful!" he repeated. "In Assyria all our women are beautiful; but by the side of the Great Queen the fairest of them show like pearls against a diamond. You have seen morning rising, serene and radiant out of the east—the brow of Semiramis is purer, calmer, fresher than the dawn. When she turns her eyes on you, it is like the golden lustre of noon day; and her smile is brighter and more glorious than sunset in the desert—sweeter, softer, lovelier than the evening breeze amongst the palms. To look on her face unveiled is to be the Great Queen's slave for ever more."
"You have looked on it more than once it seems, and to some purpose," was the answer.
"I have seen her in silk and steel," replied Sarchedon, "robe and diadem, helmet and war-harness. Deck her how you will, she rivals Ashtaroth, Queen of Heaven, herself. There is not her equal on earth. 'Tis thought, indeed, that she is more than mortal, and will never taste of death."
"Like Pharaoh," said the other, laughing outright. "Nevertheless, if she have many guards stout and devoted as yourself, there can be small risk for that fair body of hers from outward foe. Yet I have heard she mounts a war-chariot and bends a bow with the bravest warriors in your host."
"I was in Bactria," answered Sarchedon, "when the Great Queen surprised ten thousand spearmen of the enemy with the royal guard alone, and a handful of horsemen she had begged of Ninus to bring in corn from the plains the night before. She drove her war-chariot through the thickest of the press, ere we could close in on it, and when we came up with her, she had but one arrow left in the quiver, while around her lay a circle of slain. Her cheek seemed a little flushed, but the smile was on her lip, and her eyes shone softer, lovelier, kinder than ever. The Great King swore that of all the captains in his host, she was the wariest and boldest, but he forbade her sternly such ventures of battle for the future. 'How shall I tarry, when my lord is in front?' was her answer, gentle and low as I am speaking to you now. He would have taken her in his arms then and there, before the assembled host. Perhaps he did; but she had scarcely spoken, when the trumpets rang out an alarm that the Bactrians were upon us, and I was down with an arrow through my ribs, almost ere you could have bent a bow. But for Sargon, the royal shield-bearer, who dragged me from under a broken chariot and a dead horse, I had never lifted spear again. The next time I saw the queen she was riding single-handed against a lion, that had slain two of her dogs, and put her people to flight."
"Single-handed!" exclaimed the Egyptian, "and against a lion! But you made in to help without delay?"
"You know not our laws of the land of Shinar," replied Sarchedon. "He who draws bow at the royal quarry loses his right hand; he who takes a prey before the prince forfeits his life. I had been safer lying naked under the beast's very jaws than riding in unbidden between the lion and the Great Queen. Yet would I have ventured too, for the sake of her matchless face, but that while I stood watching, she brought her horse within a spear length of the mighty brute, and drove an arrow right through his heart from shoulder to shoulder. I turned rein then; for I knew Semiramis would like well to stand alone over the dead carcase, and jeer at her attendants as they came up."
"Brave, wise, politic," observed the Egyptian, "and yet no doubt a very woman to the core. What think you now? Would she rule prudently over the land of Shinar, if the Great King were gathered to his fathers amongst the stars?"
"No woman may reign over the sons of Ashur," was the answer. "We only owe allegiance to a king. It is our privilege and our law."