"As far as one woman can be a friend to another," laughed Kalmim. "And that is about as far as I could fathom the great river with my bodkin. Trust me, dear, you are too comely to possess friends, either men or women. Nevertheless, you sat on my knees when you were a curly-headed child, and I—well, when I was better and happier than I am now. I would serve you if I could. By the light of Shamash, I would, though I might hate myself and you the next minute! Take me, therefore, while the good mood is on. What can I do to please my white-faced Ishtar?"
"You have influence and power," was the reply. "He—my father used—I have heard it said that you are deep in her counsels, and high in favour with the Great Queen."
An angry flush rose to Kalmim's brow, and her laugh was not pleasant to hear, while she answered,
"The Great Queen is a woman like the rest of us. I wish I had never seen her haughty face. For days together it was Kalmim here, Kalmim there; who so quick-witted as Kalmim? whom could she trust like Kalmim? Kalmim was never to be out of her sight. I must have had a score of hands, and as many wings as Nisroch, to do half her bidding. Then, in the twinkling of an eye, lo, in the threading of a needle, all is changed, and because the Great King went to the stars or wherever he did go, I am to be cast aside like a frayed robe or a soiled napkin, and must see her face no more. She might have been a little fonder of him while he was here, I think, instead of making all this mourning now he's gone. You would suppose that in the whole land of Shinar no wife was ever left a widow before. Queen though she be, she must take her chance with the others, I trow."
"And are you no longer in the royal service?" asked Ishtar, sadly disappointed.
"In the royal service I must ever be," answered Kalmim, "since I was born a bondwoman in old Nineveh, whence come the fairest of us, after all, say what they will of this great wicked town! I can no more help my bonds than my beauty, and I do not know, my pretty Ishtar, that I am more anxious to get rid of the one than the other. But it vexes me sore, and angers me too, when I think that the queen, because she sits in sackcloth and scatters ashes on her head, should refuse to admit her faithful slave and servant, who never failed her yet, even to the outer court of the palace. If I were free, like you, my dear, I swear by Baal I would take my leave of great Babylon for good and all!"
"Free!" repeated the girl bitterly, reflecting how little availed her freedom, her birth, even her beauty to attain the one object of her life, in the pursuit of which she was fain to implore the assistance of this bondwoman. "If I were free, as you say, I would leap on yonder camel, with a lump of dates and a barley-cake in my hand, turn his head for the northern mountains, and never wish to see the city walls again."
"I guessed it!" exclaimed Kalmim, clapping her hands. "The daughter of the stars has gone the way of us poor children of earth, as if she too were made of common clay. He has taken your heart with him, whoever he is. I see it all, and follow him you must, at any labour and at any cost. I can feel for you, dear: I know what it is. Now, there was Sethos, the Great King's cup-bearer, as goodly a youth as ever longed for a beard. And, lo, he vanishes one summer's morning with a score of horsemen, rides away into the desert, and I shall never see him more."
"Take comfort," rejoined Ishtar, glad to do a kindness even for this flighty dame. "I left him safe and well at Ascalon, and beheld him with my own eyes drinking wine of Eschol the night before I fled."
"At Ascalon!" exclaimed Kalmim. "Where Rekamat was—I heard them say so! The treacherous tiger-cat! The false villain! See what it is to let a man find out you have thought twice about him. He cares no more for you than we do for a garment worn a score of times, or a husband we have known a score of years. And yet he swore and protested. Well, I was born under Ashtaroth, and I have been a fool like many another. Nevertheless, the broken jar will mend no doubt, and the empty gourd can be filled again at the stream."