The veiled figure he had seen on entering the gate thrust itself on his senses. It might have been—it must have been—Ishtar! She was in the same town, perhaps under the same roof. And if so, what had been her fate since they parted? How came she in Ascalon, but by a violence and treachery that could only have the basest object, the cruellest results. Each after each, these maddening thoughts seemed to goad and sicken him, like successive stabs, when their current was suddenly arrested by a light step on his chamber-floor, the faint rustle of a garment at his side.
Starting to his feet with an exclamation of defiance, it was smothered ere spoken by a soft hand laid to his lips, while the dear familiar voice murmured in his ear,
"Sarchedon my beloved, it is I—your own Ishtar! Hush, for your life! Be silent, be obedient, and follow me."
Was he dreaming? Was he in his right senses? This, at least, could be no illusion of fancy. The glowing form panted in his arms, the sweet lips were glued to his own. Even in that crisis of danger and suspense she could spare him a moment of rapture, in her clinging close embrace. If these were dreams—he prayed to Ashtaroth—let him never wake again!
But despite of, perhaps because of, her affection, the woman retained all her faculties, her common sense and presence of mind, while the man was lost and bewildered in the tumult of his unexpected happiness. She girded the sword on his thigh with her own hands, buckled Agron's bow and quiver at his back, whispered caution once more, and so led him through gloomy passage and vaulted archway to the outer court.
Here the starlight showed him the loving eyes, the fair, fond face, he had thought never to see again but in his dreams. Looking down on that pure open brow, angry suspicions, hideous misgivings fled from his troubled spirit, as evil dreams and phantoms of the night vanish with dawn of day.
"I am happy now," she murmured, "and I am safe. To-morrow it would have been too late."
But for this timely avowal, he might have urged her with a thousand ill-advised questions, productive only of delay. Now he pressed the hand that guided him gratefully to his lips, and she knew that he thanked her from his inmost heart.
"We have not a moment to lose," she whispered, as they made for one corner of the court, where a continuous chewing of provender, and an indistinct mass topped by two or three swan-like necks and motionless heads, denoted that certain camels were at rest. "By to-morrow's dawn we must be many leagues from Ascalon, and it is now the middle watch of night. The dromedary that brought me here is the fleetest in all the land of Shinar. He laughs at the wild ass, and scorns the desert wind in its wrath. Sarchedon my beloved, if you and I were mounted on him, a single bowshot outside the gate, we should be safe!"
"They have fleet steeds," he answered, thinking of Merodach, and wishing the good horse stood ready saddled for him now.