"Never had man or woman such a chance!" whispered Assarac. "By the body of Ashur, his sceptre has come down from the stars into your very hand. It is but to close your fingers, and you grasp it once for all!"
The rider of the white horse replied by a look of intelligence in the eunuch's face, and a gesture of supreme contempt for the noisy multitude.
Assarac's eyes answered with a gaze of devoted and passionate adoration.
"Opportunity," he murmured, "is the harvest of the gods!" But the sentiment seemed lost on the ear to which it was addressed; for the fiery white horse, obeying hand and heel, began to plunge with such formidable energy as soon cleared a breathing-space, so to speak, in the receding crowd.
And now the roll of chariots was heard without the gate, while a score of trumpets answered each other in swelling notes of war from all quarters of the city. Men knew that for every trumpet rode a thousand of Assyria's terrible horsemen, armed with bow and spear.
It was well, thought Sethos, for his lord and himself, that they were so safely guarded. Stalwart warriors, massed ten deep, kept the people off on every side; but with thunder of wheels and bray of clarions, a certain panic took possession of the crowd, and it closed in so heavily on the plunging Merodach that, active as was the animal, it seemed in danger of being swept off its feet. Had they once gone down, neither horse nor rider would ever have risen again.
Assarac exerted all his strength and all his courage to keep in close attendance. On his face was graven the set expression of one who elects rather to die than fail in his desire; and under that storm of howls, and threats, and bitter execrations, the eunuch bore himself like a man.
An ever-increasing pressure in the crowd had now forced the white horse against the surface of the city wall, which sloped upwards from within at such an angle as permitted a nimble bowman to surmount the incline, and reach a narrow platform, whence under cover of the rampart he could discharge his missiles in safety against an enemy. It was very steep, and afforded a foothold slippery and insecure to the last degree.
Measuring it in one rapid glance, his rider's hand and heel roused Merodach's courage to the utmost for his effort. With a bound like a wild-deer, a shower of sun-baked clay, a hideous moment of poise, struggle, and recovery, the white horse bore his rider to this point of vantage and security, standing there motionless, save for a quick vibration of his ears, a prolonged snort, expressing triumph, defiance, and a sense of danger past.
Throned in their recess, the pair seemed rather to have come down from the gods than gone up from amongst men.