"True as our traditions," answered Assarac, with something like a sneer; "true as our worship, true as our reason and intellect, true as the lessons we have learned to read in the stars themselves. What can be truer? except labour, sorrow, pain, and the insufficiency of man!"
"Every one to his own duty," replied the young warrior. "Slingers and bowmen in advance, spears and chariots in the centre, horsemen on the wings. It is your business to guess where the shaft falls; mine is but to fit the arrow and draw the bow. I am glad of it. I never could see much in the stars but a scatter of lamps to help a night march, when no brighter light was to be had. The moon has been a better friend to me ere now than all the host of heaven. Tell me, Assarac, can you not read on her fair open face when I shall be made captain of the guard to the Great King?"
"What you ask in jest," said the other, smiling, "I will hereafter answer in sober earnest. I go hence to the summit of that high tower, and all night long must I read on those scrolls of fire above us a future which they alone can tell—the destiny of nations, the fate of a line of kings, nay, the fortunes of a young warrior whom the queen delighteth to honour, and who may well deserve to sleep to-night while others take their turn to watch."
Thus speaking, he spread his mantle over a heap of silken cushions, disposed at the foot of the stairs leading to the tower of Belus so as to form a tempting couch, in the cool night air, for one who had ridden so far through the heat of an Assyrian day.
He had not ascended three steps towards the tower, ere Sarchedon, overcome with fatigue, excitement, and Damascus wine, laid his head amongst the cushions and fell into a deep sound sleep.
CHAPTER V
THE STARS IN THEIR COURSES
Casting his eye on the fire of fragrant wood that burned in its brazen tripod at the summit of the tower, passing his fingers, as it seemed, mechanically through its flame, and with the same unconscious gesture touching his right eyebrow, Assarac leaned his massive figure against the parapet, plunged in a train of deep engrossing thought.
The tapering structure he had ascended was built, as his traditions taught him to believe, for purposes of astral worship and observation. It afforded, therefore, a standing-point from which, on all sides, an uninterrupted view of the heavens could be obtained down to the horizon; yet the eyes of Assarac were fixed steadfastly on the great city sleeping at his feet, and it was of earthly interests, earthly destinies, that he pondered, rather than those spheres of light, hanging unmarked above him in the golden-studded sky.