The colour rose to Sarchedon's brow as he passed his hand over his lips, scarcely yet darkened with a beard, while he answered haughtily,
"Nimrod was lord of earth by right of bow and spear. No man living, backed by all the gods of all the stars in heaven, would have dared to dispute his word, nor so much as look him in his lion-like face!"
"And yet did this old man, lord only in his own family—chief of a tribe scarce numbering a thousand bowmen—beard the lion-king in the city he had founded, in the palace where he reigned, in the very temple of his worship. The patriarch reasoned with him on the multitude of his gods; and Nimrod answered proudly, he could make as many as he would, but that while they emanated from himself they had supreme dominion on earth and over all in heaven, save only the Seven Stars and the Twenty-four Judges of the World. Then the patriarch took the king's molten images out of the temple, kindled a great furnace in the centre of the city, and in the presence of all Nineveh, cast them into the midst."
Sarchedon started to his feet.
"And the king did not hew him in pieces with his own hand where he stood!" exclaimed he. "It is impossible! It is contrary to all reason and experience!"
"The king could scarce believe his eyes," continued Assarac, smothering a smile, "when he saw his sacred images crumbling down and stealing away in streams of molten gold. It is even said that he uttered a great cry of lamentation and sat on the ground a whole night, with his garments rent, fasting, and in sore distress. This I scarcely think was the fashion of the mighty hunter: what I do believe is, that he sent a company of bowmen after the offender with orders to bring him back into his presence, alive or dead. They pursued the patriarch through the Valley of Siddim, till they came to the bitter waters; and here"—Assarac put his goblet with something of embarrassment to his lips—"here the stars in their courses must have fought against Assyria; for our warriors turned and fled in some confusion, so that the daring son of Terah escaped. Then it is said that he prayed to his God for vengeance against our lion-king, entreating that he who had been conqueror of the mightiest men and slayer of the fiercest beasts on earth, should be punished by the smallest and humblest of that animal creation it had been his chief pleasure to persecute and destroy. His God answered his prayer, though he raised no temples, made no golden images of man, beast, bird, nor monster, and sacrificed but a lamb or a kid in burnt-offering on the altar of unhewn stones in the plain.
"A tiny gnat was sent to plague great Nimrod, as the sand-fly of the wilderness maddens the lion in his lair. Under helm or diadem—in purple robe or steel harness—at board and bed—in saddle, bath, or war chariot, the lord of all the earth was goaded into a ceaseless encounter where there was no adversary, and exhausted by perpetual flight where none pursued.
"Then he sent for cunning artificers, who made for him a chamber of glass, impervious even to the air of heaven, so that the king entered it well pleased; for he said, 'Now shall I have ease from my tormentor, to eat bread and drink wine, and be refreshed with sleep.'
"But while he spoke the gnat was in his ear, and soon it ascended, and began to feed on his brain. Then the king's agony was greater than he could bear, and he cried aloud to his servants, bidding them beat on his head with a hammer, to ease the pain. So he endured for four hundred years; and then he—then he went home to his father Ashur; and when the Seven Stars shine out in the Northern sky, he looks down, well pleased, from his throne of light, on the city that his children have built, and the statue of gold they have raised to his name."
"And this is true?" exclaimed Sarchedon, whose love of the marvellous could not but be gratified by the priest's narrative.