This reflection was unheard by Ishtar, being indeed but the echo of the chief's own thoughts, and spoken aside, as it were, into the ear of his mare.
There seemed a vague hope, then, of seeing Sarchedon once again. The girl seized her protector's hand, and, stooping but a little, pressed it against her forehead.
"You will take me under safe conduct to the gates of Babylon?" said she.
He pondered, looking very grave.
"Will you not abide with us in our tents?" he asked. "Will you be cooped up in the walls of a city, when you might roam over the desert free as the wild ass on the plain? Take thought, damsel, once more, as a man fits a new bowstring when his arrow has missed its aim."
"Had I a quiverful," she replied, "I can see but one mark for them all!"
"You are my guest," said he stoutly; "and go where you will, it is my duty to speed you safely on your way. You shall ride this my own mare, the most precious of my possessions, and Lotus-flower, swift, easy, gentle, will bear you like flowing water. But I must leave you, damsel, under cover of night, in the vineyards that fringe the great city. If, for every horseman who leaps to the saddle when I shake my spear, I could muster a score, then should you enter Babylon through a breach of fifty cubits in the wall. But a wolf or a jackal would meet with more mercy than a child of Anak from the Assyrians when they set upon him, a hundred to one! I have spoken."
Their journey was begun accordingly. Ishtar, mounted on the chief's favourite mare, led by its owner, and guarded by a score of the stalwart sons of Anak, journeyed in security and comfort through the wilderness, until they reached its confines, and entered a territory over which Ninus, and more especially Semiramis, had thrown the protection of their severe and pitiless laws. Here they lay hidden by day, advancing swiftly and silently under cover of night; and Ishtar could not withhold her admiration from the extraordinary skill and sagacity shown by these professional spoilers in concealing their encampment on their march. On such expeditions as the present, they were careful to ride their mares; for these animals, docile and gentle, either loose or picketed, never disclosed their presence by those paroxysms of neighing and screaming to which their less tractable brothers were exceedingly prone.
At length, soon after dawn, Ishtar found herself alone with the chief at an easy distance from the great city. Taking the ass of a poor peasant, who dared not even protest against the spoliation, he had dismounted his guest from the high-bred mare, and placed her on the humbler animal's back. The troop had been left many a league in the desert. Their leader, at the utmost personal risk, was within a short ride of Babylon. It was time to depart, and thus he bade his charge farewell:
"May thy corn never fail nor thy well run dry! May thy vines yield a hundredfold, and men-children play round thy feet! Thou camest into my tent like the breeze from the mountain. Though the breeze passeth on, the tent is glad because of the coolness it hath left. The desert is boundless, and we scour it far and wide. Behold! Where rides a son of Anak, there hast thou a brother. I have spoken."