She was ready with her blow. Looking him full in the face, with the calm pitiless smile of one who puts some wounded reptile out of pain—
"It is too late," she said, in hard cutting accents. "The damsel has been promised to my son. Even now the prince is lifting her veil to salute his bride!"
In his agony he fell forward, grasping the queen's robe wildly in his hand.
The Great King sprang to his feet, his beard bristling, his very eyebrows shaking with ungovernable anger. For a space he could not even find voice to speak. Then he burst out,
"By the blood of Nisroch, it is too much! He has laid hands on the queen before my very face! Were he flesh of my loins and bone of my body, he should be consumed to ashes. Ho, guards, away with him! Cover his face and lead him forth!"
A score of hands grasped the offender, a score of spears were pointed at his breast. Though it was her own act, nay, because it was her own act, a strong revulsion of feeling caused the queen's stately form to shake from head to foot: and in that supreme moment she swore to her own turbulent heart that, come what might, even to the fall of the Assyrian empire, Sarchedon should not die!
She passed swiftly to the throne, and lifting the king's sceptre, laid one end of it against her forehead, while she placed the other in his hand.
"My lord," she said, "this is the feast of Baal. It is not lawful to slay an Assyrian born during the worship of the great Assyrian god."
There shone a red light in the king's eyes that meant death, and the foam stood on his lip. When he looked thus, it was in vain to sue for pardon. Nevertheless, he passed his wrinkled hand over the fair brow of the woman kneeling at his feet.
"Be it so," said Ninus. "To-morrow he shall die at sunrise. The king hath spoken."