CHAPTER XLVI
A WIND FROM THE SOUTH
Day after day the friendship of these congenial spirits grew closer and more familiar. The Assyrian had related his own eventful history to his new lord, and Aryas seemed never weary of listening to the tale. Bold, enterprising, and imaginative, he loved to hear of the conquest of Ninus, the prowess of the sons of Ashur, the splendour of Babylon, the wealth of Egypt, and the many adventures through which Sarchedon had passed in his long journey from the tents of the Anakim to the mountain fastnesses of his own northern kingdom. He would inquire minutely concerning the evolutions and tactics of the Assyrian armies, the number of their chariots, the strength of their cavalry, the weapons of their men of war, and the proportion in which they made use of sling, bow, and spear; but he could not be brought to take any interest, apart from her warlike skill, in the character of Semiramis, paying little attention to the other's glowing description of her lavish state and luxurious magnificence, least of all caring to hear of her beauty, her attractions, the glory of her apparel, the lustre of her personal charms.
Even when Sarchedon poured his heart out freely on the subject of his beloved Ishtar, the Comely King listened, indeed, with a certain show of kindly interest, as due to the emotion of his friend, but obviously failed to appreciate the importance of the subject, or to comprehend the enthusiasm which could thus set up a pair of soft eyes and a fair face for the aim of a man's whole energies, the reward of his perils and toils. He did not understand how a woman's smile could possess such attraction as the bray of a clarion, the flaunt of a banner, or the managed leap of a horse.
Beautiful exceedingly, formed to be the delight of the other, as he was the admired of his own, sex, love to the Comely King seemed but a foolish riddle, not worth the trouble of solving, an irksome study interfering with the pleasures of the chase, unmanly, untoward, but, above all, tedious and out of place when other affairs were on hand.
"Show me a woman," said he, smiling at his bowbearer's rhapsodies, "with an eye like my falcon and a heart like my dog; so will I too drink myself drunk with this folly as with wine, to get sober again as surely, if not so soon. Till then, give me horse and hound, bow and spear. I tell you, Sarchedon, the whitest arm that was ever thrown round a man's neck could not yield me such a thrill of triumph and rapture as the lion's claw that tore me from loin to shoulder over my buckler while I stabbed him to the heart with my short sword, ere we carried him, you and I, up the mountain-side, and skinned his tawny carcass under the old oak-tree!"
Sarchedon sighed.
"I love the chase well," said he, "and warfare better, and Ishtar best of all."
"Warfare!" repeated Aryas, catching and kindling at the word like a war-horse at ring of steel; "talk to me of that till sundown, if you will! Ah, war is something to live for, something to die for, something on which to wage sceptre and kingdom and all, if only the foe be worthy of the venture. Could I but see the sons of Ashur drawn out fairly before me in battle array, I would fall willingly in their midst, and hold my fame was crowned since I had lived to measure swords with the conquerors of the South. But what do I say? These are dreams and unreal visions. Too many ranges of impassable mountains, too many leagues of scorching desert, lie between the gaudy pinnacles of Babylon and my rude towers here in Ardesh. I have not power to go to him; and I think, with all his courage, all his lust of conquest, the fierce Assyrian dare not come to me!"