"It is the Great Queen!" she sobbed. "For my sake, Sethos—for my sake, will you not be on our side?"
CHAPTER LVII
BETRAYED
Pacing to and fro in the familiar cedar gallery, vexed, troubled, and impatient, Assarac shot glances of anger and defiance at the four-winged image of Nisroch, as though reproaching the god in whom he did not believe for withholding aid he would have considered it childish folly to implore. Though he had dispatched a messenger in eager haste to seek out the tents of the Anakim, and renew the offer of promotion he made to Sarchedon, so preoccupied was he, that Beladon had already prostrated himself more than once, ere his superior seemed conscious of his presence. The younger priest wondered to see the resolute and subtle eunuch so changed, so worn, so saddened. He marked the restless step, the sullen gesture, the moody unquiet eye, remembering, not without pity, a caged wild beast that had been trapped and brought into Babylon, long ago by certain hunters of the mountain, as a gift to the Great Queen.
Though a faithful servant enough, while a keener intellect and firmer spirit held him in subjection, he bethought him somewhat remorsefully it was time to leave his master now.
Assarac's eyes wandered over the other's figure with the unconscious stare of a sleep-walker ere they lighted into recognition, then he started and exclaimed, "How now, Beladon? Returned so soon? What tidings of Semiramis—I mean of Sarchedon, and the children of Anak with whom he dwells?"
"Let not my lord be wroth," was the answer. "Though his servant fled through the waste like an ostrich, yet was he wiser than that foolish bird, which plies her long legs and helpless wings to meet the storm of thunder and lightning she dreads. I have heard the thunder of the queen's chariots; I have seen the lightning of her spears. Instead of scouring the desert to seek the Anakim, lo, I turned bridle, and hastened back that I might warn my lord of her approach."
Though something seemed to tell him the information was tantamount to a death-warrant, his heart leaped up with a wild unreasoning joy.
"The queen!" he exclaimed, while the blood flew to his wan heavy cheek. "Is she then so near?"