They had spent the morning since sunrise in the chase, and had been so successful as to regain the palace in Ardesh by noon. After a rough but plentiful repast, the king and his bowbearer were sitting over the embers of a brazier, each with an untasted cup of wine beside him, conversing as above. Scores of warriors and retainers, shaggy, tall, athletic, clothed in furs and skins, crowded round a huge wood fire in the outer court under the open sky; for although the sun was fierce and powerful, a storm of sleet had lately swept across the heavens, and these hardy champions laughed while they wrung their beards to dash the frozen drops away. There was a shade of despondency on the young king's brow, and he shook his comely head, while he reflected on the remote position of his kingdom, and suggested the impossibility of an Assyrian invasion.
Sarchedon started to his feet and listened.
"It is the tramp of a horse at speed," said he. "For good or for evil, there comes a messenger bringing tidings in hot haste to my lord the king."
Even while he spoke, a stir in the outer court denoted some unusual excitement, while the fire was deserted for the gate, where a crowd had already gathered round a travel-worn horseman, dismounting from his reeking beast, panting and jaded with fatigue.
Sarchedon's face fell, and there was at least as much of self-reproach as of gratitude in his tone while he exclaimed:
"Cursed be my day, and oh! that I had never been born! Something tells me I have brought evil to the hand that fed and the roof that sheltered me. I know too surely that the enemy is at the gate, that the sons of Ashur are bending their bows against the safety of my lord the king."
Aryas smiled, and his eyes glittered like a hawk's.
"Bring in the messenger," said he in calm sonorous accents; adding in a lower tone to his bowbearer, "When, in return for fair words, costly gifts, and a dishonourable demand, I sent two arrows to the land of Shinar, the one a headless shaft, the other barbed and pointed, it was a token that Armenia, though desirous of peace, would never shrink from war. Had a dog sought my protection, he should have been safe behind a nation of horsemen. Shall I deliver up my friend at the whim of a proud lascivious woman, though she be twenty times a queen?"
"Alas," replied the other, "my lord knows not the might of Semiramis. She is immovable by pity, she is insensible to fear. All the hosts of heaven could not turn her purpose, nor thwart her desire. I will be the bearer of an embassy speaking words of peace from my lord the king. I will go back to put my neck under her foot, and abide my doom."
"Let her come and take you!" was the gallant answer. "By the sword we worship, she shall find the task a hard one!—ay, if for every bodkin she looses from her head-gear she can set in array a hundred thousand men!"