Sarchedon's heart was thrilling and his brain burning. The sweet intoxication of vanity possessed the one, the fiery spark of ambition kindled in the other. He muttered low, that "to be slain and trampled under foot by the Great Queen was a nobler lot than to drive a war-chariot over prostrate nations," and was raising his eyes to learn how the humility of such an avowal would be received, when his face turned pale, and he started like a man who leaps to his feet at the approach of danger.
Not half a bowshot off, looking fixedly towards him, was the gentle troubled face of Ishtar, on the terrace of her father's palace, watching for the chief captain's return.
The queen did not fail to detect his agitation and its cause. Her eyes flashed, her delicate mouth shut close on the instant as if with a clasp, her features set themselves like a mask, a beautiful mask, but of the hardest steel. So looked she when she rode the lion down and pierced him to the heart; so looked she when she urged her chariot through the ranks of an enemy, over heaps of slain; so looked she when she administered justice from the Great King's tribunal, and turned pitiless from a suppliant pleading hard for life. The glance she shot at the daughter of Arbaces was that of an unhooded falcon eyeing the gazelle upon the plains.
And at the same moment glances, pleading, passionate, longing, as of that same gazelle when she nears the desert-spring, were directed towards Ishtar from a gorgeous chariot passing slowly in pompous march of triumph through the Brazen Gate, while veils were waved, steel brandished, and the acclamations of ten thousand voices rose higher and higher; for in that chariot stood their future king, the young Ninyas, a living reflection of his mother, bright, delicate, and beautiful as the queen herself.
She marked her son's admiration of the pale fair girl; she marked Sarchedon's uneasiness; but whatever thoughts were busy in her royal and lovely head, she looked abroad into the desert and held her peace.
CHAPTER IX
THE PRIDE OF LIFE
As the glittering procession defiled in proud array through the gates of that imperial city, Babylon might well be proud of her children. The most warlike nation on earth had assembled to greet the flower of its army returning from conquest; and the warriors of the old king bore themselves like men who are conscious they deserve the meed of triumph accorded to their fellows. Each black-browed spearman, so bold of feature, so open-eyed, so curled and bearded, stalwart of limb and stately of gesture, marched with haughty step and head erect, as though he felt himself the picked and chosen champion of a host. Archers and slingers assumed the staid dignity of veteran captains, while the very horses that drew the war-chariots champed, snorted, and swelled their crests as if they too were conscious of the reputation it behoved them to uphold.
Far as stretched the triumph—so far indeed that its van had already reached the temple of Baal, while its rearguard was yet below the sky-line of the desert—every link in that chain of victory afforded some object of interest, admiration, or pride to the spectators. These were the bows that had been bent to such purpose in their first pitched battle with the ancient enemy, when Egypt was worsted and driven back upon the Nile. Those strong and stately spearmen, so bronzed, so scarred, so splendid in dress and armour, were the very warriors who had withstood the fury of all Pharaoh's chariots and horsemen, nor yielded one cubit of ground, though sore out-numbered and beset, while they covered the Great King's passage of that famous river. Close in their rear, with clang of trumpet, clash of steel, and ring of bridle, came trampling four abreast the famous horsemen of Assyria; and men told each other, with kindling eyes and eager gestures, how the steeds that drank from the Tigris and the Euphrates had charged to the gates of Memphis and been stabled in the temples of the Stork.