Then the guards looked furtively in each other's faces; for all men knew from such a judgment there was no appeal, in such a sentence no hope of mercy or reprieve.
CHAPTER XV
THE QUEEN'S PETITION
Sarchedon was hurried away in the custody of his former comrades, who, pitying the fate their experience taught them was inevitable, had yet discretion to take him from the presence of Ninus ere some hideous cruelty or mutilation should be added to his punishment. They were hardly out of the king's sight, however, when a priest of Baal, arriving in breathless haste, brought an order from Assarac to deliver up their prisoner in the temple of the god. On the festival of that national deity, unusual respect was paid to the sacerdotal character; and as, even amongst the guards of the Great King, Assarac's policy had taught him to cultivate friendship and acquire influence, the high priest's behest was obeyed readily, as if it had emanated from Arbaces or even Ninus himself.
Sarchedon therefore became only so far a prisoner that he was not permitted to pass the guards at any point of egress from the sacred building, but might roam at large through its spacious chambers, speculating on his chances of escape when night should fall, and he could take advantage of such secret communications as his knowledge of its votaries taught him must surely exist between the temple and the town.
Meantime, however, he was a caged bird, yearning wildly for freedom because of her whom he dearly loved. The queen's shaft was shot deftly home, and the poison with which it had been tipped did its work as cruelly as the pitiless archer could have desired. It was madness to think of Ishtar in the arms of Ninyas; to feel that, whilst he was a prisoner here, she might even be struggling for personal freedom, perhaps calling on him to save her in vain.
But men trained to warfare acquire the habit of reviewing calmly all sides of a dilemma, neither undervaluing its difficulties nor despairing to vanquish them; especially they take into consideration the bearing of probabilities and the important doctrine of chance. It was not long before Sarchedon reflected he had himself seen Arbaces under shield and helmet within a brief space of the queen's arrival at her husband's palace; that if the espousals of his daughter were really taking place with a prince, the chief captain would hardly be absent from such a ceremony; and that Semiramis might have thought it not below her dignity to tell him an absolute falsehood for reasons of her own—reasons, he suspected, that ought to be flattering to his self-love and conducive to the safety of his person. It was impossible to mistake her avowed interest, her obvious condescension, her changing moods and the bitterness with which she accosted him in their late interview under the very eyes of the Great King. If Semiramis loved him, he thought, she would surely provide for his escape; and the first use he would make of his freedom should be to seek Ishtar and urge her to fly with him at once. Merodach could bear them both far beyond pursuit into the desert, where they would find a hiding-place from the king's merciless hatred and the queen's more cruel love.
Sarchedon, then, imprisoned in the temple of Baal, was hardly so ill at ease as the wilful imperious woman whose reckless malice had brought him to captivity and shame.
The old king scowled at her with fierce jealousy and rage as her eyes followed the retiring form of the culprit, hurried out of the royal presence with judicious promptitude by his comrades; but from the first moment Ninus ever looked on that winsome face, he had found in it a charm his heart was powerless to resist, and he was half subdued already ere she leaned towards him with tender confiding grace, and crossing her hands over his gaunt arm, rested her brow on them, while she murmured in low soft accents,