"And empty as his belly," laughed a third. "He liketh well to have store of good things in both."
"But Semiramis forbade pillage," interposed his neighbour, grinning. "They took an auxiliary with a shield full of barley that he snatched from an old man's threshing-floor, and she impaled him on the spot."
"Fool! that was in our own land of Shinar, before we crossed the frontier," said the first speaker. "The Great Queen never forbade pillage in an enemy's country till we marched into this wilderness, where there is nothing to take. Besides, the rogue slew the old man in his own vineyard, and he was only an auxiliary after all."
"And an ungainly wretch to boot, I will wager my share of supper presently out of that scanty pot," added a handsome young spearman, arranging his curly beard in the breastplate he had polished up to the brightness of a mirror for that purpose. "A comely youth of proper stature, be he captain or camel-driver, need never fear but he will find favour in the sight of the Great Queen."
His fellows laughed loud and long.
"Hear him!" shouted one, clapping the speaker on the back, "the favourite of Ashtaroth!"
"The dainty lotus-flower of the host!" exclaimed another; while a third, turning on him with mock gravity, bade him,
"Go to for a fool, who must be answered according to his folly."
"Dost thou verily believe," said he, "that because of thy bull's head and shoulders, thy foolish leer like a sheep in a sacrifice, and the perpetual grin of a southern ape eating a sour pomegranate, thou wilt get preferment at her hands, who knows a man when she sees one, and treats him like the arrows in her quiver? Lo! the bow is bent, the mark is struck or missed, another is fitted to the string; but the same shaft never comes into her royal service again. Though thy turn of duty takes thee daily to the great pavilion, I doubt if the queen hath ever seen thee yet."
"She shall hear of me, nevertheless," said the other, with a glance at the beleaguered town.