"Indeed!" he answered in a cold, measured voice. "Have I then brought tidings of one so very dear to you?"
"None can ever be so dear," she exclaimed with a light laugh, musical and pleasant as the whisper of the rippling fountain—"none will ever love me so well—none shall I ever love half so dearly in return! Arbaces is my father, and every day since he mounted his chariot at the head of the Great King's captains have I watched here with my maidens, to catch the first gleam of his armour when he returns, to learn good tidings of him by the first messenger who rides hither from the camp. Not one has yet arrived but yourself, my lord. I say again, may all the host of heaven befriend you, for to me you are welcome as the dawn!"
It was unaccountable that his heart should have bounded so lightly at her speech, that his tone should have been so much softer while he replied:
"I am bearing tidings from a king to his queen,—from the conqueror of nations to his people in the greatest city of the earth. I have to relate how we slew and spared not, crushing and trampling down the enemy as an ox treads out the ripened corn; breaking their chariots of iron; taking their fenced cities by assault; capturing and bringing away men, women, and children by thousands and tens of thousands. All that I have to tell is of honour, glory, and victory. Yet I speak truth when I swear to you, maiden, by the light of morning, that whatever recompense it may please the Great Queen to bestow on the lowest of her servants, to have met you here to-day at the Well of Palms, and to have gladdened you with assurance of my lord your father's welfare, is to me the richest and brightest reward of all."
"You have noble triumphs to report," she answered hurriedly, and drawing her veil closer, as if he could see the blood rushing to her cheek behind its folds. "Great victories, but not without fierce warfare—many a broken shield and shivered spear, and deadly arrow quivering in its mark! And you, my lord—have you escaped scathless? Has this good horse borne you always unhurt and triumphant in the press of chariots?—Yes, I know it, in the hottest fore-front of the battle? O, it is dreadful to think of!—the wounded, the dying, the fallen steed, the pitiless conqueror—those we love, it may be, gasping out their lives on the trampled plain, and then to watch on the walls of the city, or here by the Well of Palms, for the horseman that never comes! Pardon me, my lord: I speak too freely. Let me give you to drink once more from the fountain; then will I gather my maidens about me, and depart in peace."
He took her hand in his own, nor did she withdraw it.
"You are not alone?" he asked. "The daughter of Arbaces does not travel unattended so much as a bowshot from the city walls?"
"My damsels are in those tents," she answered, "my camels are kneeling in the shade. I have no need of guards nor horsemen. Over many a league without the ramparts of Babylon her father's fame is a tower of defence for the daughter of Arbaces."
"The daughter of Arbaces!" he repeated. "Maiden, so long as I eat bread and drink water I will remember her by that name."
"And by her own," she added hurriedly. "The servant of my lord is called Ishtar. It was my mother's name, and Arbaces loved her well."