Through the mazes of the wood reëchoed something deep as thunder, though seemingly very far off.
“Ha!” Belshazzar was crying, “the ox is bellowing. They are driving him from his covert.”
“Will they force him this way?” was Darius’s question.
“So Bel grant! But you will need no bow, son of Hystaspes,” for the Persian was putting on a new string. “The auroch’s hide is arrow-proof. Trust to your short sword.”
“I do not love the sword. It is the bow of Iran that has made us Persians a great people. It will not fail!”
“I have warned you. You will slay no auroch and win no lion.”
The prince answered with silence. Riding side by side with Belshazzar, he had not suffered a word or an act of the king to escape him; but he had not noted how their escort in the rear had gradually dwindled, two falling off here and three there.
“This is the spot. Let us rein and wait the auroch,” declared Belshazzar. Darius glanced about, barely in time to see the last of the retinue vanishing behind the trees. He realized, suddenly as a trap locks round its victim, that he was alone with Belshazzar; not one telltale presence to carry report of any strange deed that might befall. He had bidden Boges to keep near him. Gone—diverted by what means, Ahura the Wise alone knew. The prince had many times looked “the Lord of Death” in the face upon the battle-field—what soldier of Cyrus had not? But for all that his breath came quickly, his muscles grew rigid. Here at last was the moment that should prove whether Atossa warned truly, whether the king suspected who it was that had wrestled with him in the garden. Had the letter Ariathes had sent passed through Belshazzar’s spies and guards in safety? The Persian needed none to tell him the details of the plot to take his life. Somehow, in the next few moments he was to be murdered. His rashness as a hunter was known in Susa. What could Cyrus say if the Babylonian wrote, “Your envoy was reckless and an auroch killed him”? But Darius’s thoughts were not of himself only—the weal of Daniel, of Atossa, of Cyrus and all his realms, hung on his own life, perchance. Oh, the headstrong pride and folly that had rushed him into this hazard!
But these thoughts came and went in less time than the telling. Belshazzar was beside him,—Belshazzar, splendid, arrogant,—and Darius knew the king’s heart was harder than hardest marble, while he waited the outcome of his guile. The Persian had his bow in his hand, and his bow was his good friend, part of himself as much as hand or eye. He would not be slain like a snared hare while there were so many keen shafts in his quiver. The silence seemed growing long. Belshazzar, as if intent on waiting the chase, said nothing. Not even a breeze was rustling the tree-tops. The prince sat and waited.