He was too good a courtier to mention Assarac, dreading the storm a priest's name was likely to bring down in the king's present mood.
"Sarchedon," repeated Ninus—"one of my own guards. A stout warrior enough, in the boy's play we call fighting now, and a comely youth—ruddy and comely as a maid. How came he absent from his duty in the ranks?"
"He had been sent by my lord from the host with the Great King's signet to the queen," was the reply. "He has remained in attendance on her ever since."
The old face turned gray with some hidden pang, and the blood-shot eyes rolled savage under their shaggy brows.
"By the beard of Nimrod, I will take better order with these golden guards of mine!" exclaimed the king. "Do they think, because Pharaoh and his bowmen are no longer flying before my chariot, I have beaten my sword into a pruning-hook, and have forgotten how to mount a war-chariot or set a company in array? Where is this deserter now?"
"He is on duty at the great entrance," was the respectful answer. "My lord the king may see him from where he sits."
Sarchedon, in truth, with a handful of his comrades, was on guard at the palace gate, conspicuous even amongst those goodly warriors by the beauty of his person and the splendour of his attire.
Ere the king could summon him to his presence, his attention was diverted by the approach of his wife, followed by the women of her household; a fair and fragrant company, that wound through the avenues of winged bulls and colossal monsters, like a growth of wild flowers trailing across the surface of a rock.
The king's eyes were not too dim to mark every movement of the woman he loved. His old heart began to beat faster and the blood stirred in his veins.
How fair and noble was the bearing of that shapely figure, as it glided on with the measured step that became her so well! How delicate and beautiful the pale face! so easily recognised even at a distance from which its features could not be distinguished, and bringing back to him as it was unveiled now, on entering her husband's dwelling, that well-remembered morning in Bactria, when she rode into the camp serene and radiant, like a star dropped down from heaven.