"A place, my friend," said Sethos, "that I was sore afraid you would never see again. A fallen man in the desert is more commonly picked up by jackals than Israelites; and it is not every horse that would take another rider back, as did Merodach, to the very spot where he laid his master on the sand. By the belt of Nimrod, I always said, for camp or march, charge or chase, I have not found such a steed in the Great King's host as the white horse with the wild eye."
"Brave Merodach!" answered Sarchedon; "I would I were across him now. Bold, gentle, and true, I never saw him frightened, and I never felt him tired."
"He was scared that night, nevertheless," said Sethos. "He came by me like a stone out of a sling, even as I reached the middle gate in the southern wall; but the archers on watch turned him back, and when I caught his bridle, he let me lead him through the crowded streets like a dog. By the brows of Ashtaroth, it was a night not to be forgotten in Babylon, while the great tower of Belus has one brick standing on another."
"Was there a tumult, then?" asked Sarchedon. "Our countrymen need but little to stir them into action at a festival."
"Not so much a tumult," answered the cup-bearer, "as a great awe and horror over all. The streets were thick with people; but men looked in each other's faces, and scarce dared ask what might come next. Some told me that the skies were raining fire and brimstone on the temple of Baal, and that ere dawn of morning the whole city was to be consumed; some that the Bactrians had vanquished our Great King's host, all scattered about in the plain; that their elephants could be seen from the walls, and that even now the fiercest of their mountaineers were advancing to the assault."
Sarchedon laughed.
"Such tidings should have vexed you but little," said he. "Did you not remember how we put them to flight by the Red Lake, from which our warriors drank so freely, believing it was wine? I slew three of their slingers at its very brim with my own hand."
"I remembered nothing," answered Sethos, "but that when they drew the sword they smote and spared not, old men and maidens, mothers and children, the warrior in harness, and the wounded at their feet. If the Bactrians were in truth over the wall, I bethought me whether it were not best to leap on Merodach, and gallop back into the desert from whence I came."
"It was a stout-hearted resolution," laughed Sarchedon, who knew the cup-bearer's courage to be beyond suspicion, but had not forgotten the disinclination to hard work, hard fare, and hard blows his friend was never ashamed of owning. "And what prevented this dignified retreat of the Great King's chief officer before an old woman's fable of an impossible attack?"
"Speak not lightly of women, old or young," returned Sethos. "If these make love, those make pottage; and thus two of man's chief needs are satisfied. I repeat, I had begun to think gravely of flight, when I met one in the crowd who was neither man nor woman precisely, but a priest of Baal. He told me that his god descended at nightfall in a chariot of fire, and had carried the Great King back with him to the stars. This was the light I saw flaring in the sky over the city, while I approached the gate."