Sarchedon: A Legend of the Great Queen

by G. J. Whyte-Melville

Little reassured by so ominous a leave-taking, Sethos hastened to make ready for the expedition to which he had been summoned by the prince. Though greatly perplexed and at a loss how to act, he decided so far to follow his friend's counsel as to select a true-bred steed of the plains on which to accompany Ninyas, permitting the good horse to drink its fill ere the bridle was put in its mouth. He slung also a little bag, containing a handful or two of dates, to his saddle-cloth, and might have completed farther preparations but that he was sent for to attend on his future monarch without delay.

Ninyas was already mounted and impatient to be off. His beautiful young face glowed with excitement, and a fever of longing shone in his eager eyes. Somewhat to the cup-bearer's dismay, he found that he alone was to accompany the prince, though the latter muttered a few indistinct sentences about attendants on foot and horseback, who had been directed to meet them outside the walls; but it struck Sethos, himself no inexperienced hunter, that for one who intended to make war on the king of beasts in his native fastnesses, it would have been well to carry a few more arrows in the quiver, a somewhat stiffer and heavier javelin in the hand.

With his unusual comeliness and graceful bearing, the person of Ninyas was as well known in the streets of Babylon as that of the mother to whom he bore so marvellous a likeness. Recognised and greeted with enthusiastic acclamations as he passed on, his progress through the city was one continued ovation. And Sethos wondered more and more to observe that his young lord selected the most public thoroughfares for their ride, although the absence of his usual guards, the waiving of all state or ceremony, seemed to infer that he wished to depart unnoticed and unknown.

More thoughtful than he had ever been in his life, the cup-bearer followed close on the prince's heels, anxious, silent, and sadly embarrassed by the warning he had lately received. Ninyas, on the contrary, laughed and jested with the crowd, breaking through the habitual reserve that existed between his father's subjects and the royal descendant of the gods with a joyous freedom that sat gracefully enough on one so young, so renowned, and, above all, so fair.

In an open space not a furlong from the gate by which they were about to leave the city, the multitude seemed at its thickest. The prince's horse could scarcely move in a foot's pace, although those against whom it pressed prostrated themselves to the ground, kissing the body or trappings of the animal, and even the feet of its rider. Much excitement had been caused here by a huge altar of turf raised to Baal, gay in a profusion of flowers, girt with the usual trench, and surrounded by a numerous circle of priests, leaping, shouting, waving their arms in paroxysms of an excitement too unbridled to be wholly feigned. As Ninyas came to a halt almost in their midst, one of these, springing frantically in the air, caught hold of the prince's bridle, and brandishing a broad curved knife, laid his own breast open with a wild flourish that cut, however, little more than skin-deep.

It was a startling figure, standing there so tall and lean, naked to the waist, and bleeding freely from its tawny sinewy chest. The thick black hair and beard were matted together in foul disorder, the piercing eyes rolled and glittered with the light of madness, while a long-drawn howl of mingled agony and triumph denoted that the votary was under the inspiration of his god.

Sethos trembled, the horse of Ninyas pawed and snorted while his rider smiled in scorn; but the crowd, swaying to and fro, caught the excitement of the moment, and a whisper running from lip to lip like wildfire rose to a shout of "Prophesy, prophesy! He foams, he writhes! Baal has come down on him! Prophesy, prophesy!"

Another gash, a hideous laugh, a long-drawn dismal wail, and that unearthly figure, towering above the rest, hovering as it were with arms extended towards the prince, took up its parable in raving incoherent utterances, while the gleaming teeth and restless features worked in frightful jerks, like the contortions of a man in a fit.

"I am Nerig! I am Zachiah! I am Abitur of the Mountains! I have fought with Merodach, and lain with Ashtaroth, and spoken with Baal face to face! Mine eyes are opened, and I, even I, behold the things of earth and heaven. I am no man, not I, to be born of woman, scorched with fire, slain with steel. I am three devils in one—Nerig, Zachiah, and Abitur of the Mountains—three devils, and yet I cannot lie, for it is not I who speak, but Baal! Baal has come down on me, and cast out the devils, and hereafter will I write them a bill of divorce, that they know me no more; and the voice of Baal cries, 'O king, live for ever!' and the finger of Baal points to this goodly youth, and bids him reach his hand to take the sceptre, draw his girdle to wear the sword; and the fire of Baal falls on my heart and consumes me, constraining me to cry without ceasing, 'To-morrow, and to-morrow, and yet to-morrow!' It is spoke below; it is writ above! O king, live for ever!"

Then the foam flew from his mouth, and he fell on his face, stark and senseless, under the very feet of the prince's horse. Swerving aside in terror, the animal's hoof struck sharp on his defenceless head, and he lay there to all appearance a dead man.