Sarchedon Part 55

"She had everything Baal and Ashtaroth could bestow," observed Kalmim, looking lovingly in her companion's face. "And see what has been the end. To hover, like an evil spirit, saddened and restless, about the place that is still bright with her glory, and then to vanish, none can tell where, like a cloud that comes up from the desert with promise of rain, and while man and beast are yet athirst to welcome it, lo, it has pa.s.sed over, and is gone."

"We shall see her no more," answered Sethos. "Nor shall we see one like unto her again. Since Ashur came down from the stars to lead them, his children have known but one great Queen. Of a surety, it is enough!

Another Ashtaroth would set the heavens in a blaze; another Semiramis would be too much for the vexed earth to sustain."

She glanced at him sharply, but his features wore their usual expression of placid and somewhat languid content.

"She was not happy," said Kalmim, as if puzzled to account for the anomaly. "And yet she had wisdom, fame, courage, riches, unlimited empire, and, O Sethos, beauty surpa.s.sing even the daughters of the stars!"

"The last is the gift you grudge her most," observed the cup-bearer, with a quiet smile, as of one who directs his shaft, though without malice, straight towards its mark.

But instead of flushed denial or indignant retort, he was surprised to note on Kalmim's face an expression of real apprehension. She turned quite pale, while she replied,

"It is a fatal possession for the owner, when spoilers can be found who scruple not to share in it by the strong hand. O Sethos," she added, with a shudder, pointing to the temple of Baal, "there is but one man I fear in the whole of Babylon, and he stands, night and morning, before the altar of his G.o.d, the second in power through all the land of s.h.i.+nar, after my lord the king."

Sethos laughed outright, whereat, in Kalmim's eyes, displeasure took the place of fear.

"Listen," said he, "and remember that I am not given to vain words, but that I speak only so much as I surely know. Do you dread the handful of bleached bones, the few dangling strips of blackened flesh, that were once that famous eunuch who made himself chief counsellor of princes, mightiest leader of armies in all a.s.syria, and great interpreter of the G.o.d he wors.h.i.+pped, to rule, as it seemed, rather than to obey? I tell you, Kalmim, that a.s.sarac, withering yonder on his stake, is as much to be feared as comely Beladon, now high-priest of Baal. I tell you that I had rather change places with the one who has known and proved the worst than with the other, who has yet to learn the mercies of Ninyas for such as thwart his projects or stand in the way of his convenience."

"What mean you?" she asked. "Are you in the secrets of my lord the king?"

"He has shown favour to his servant," answered the other, with mock gravity, "since the days of his youth, when I filled his cup to the brim at the bidding of Ninus, now driving a golden chariot amongst the stars.

He has not forgotten that I waited dutifully at his footstool, while he wore sackcloth in his prison-house, as he had been clad in purple on a throne. Above all, he remembers that, but for me, he would have sinned a hideous sin against the Great Queen; therefore is my place at his right hand in his secret chamber; therefore can I tell you, Kalmim, that Beladon and his priests are doomed, and that the jackals you hear now howling beneath the wall shall scarcely wait another moon ere they tear them limb from limb. Beladon is thine enemy and mine. What am I that I should set myself against the counsels of my lord the king?"

She drew a deep sigh of relief. The tirewoman was happy now, and had reached the haven of her rest; yet, even in her fulness of content, there crept a dreary sadness about her heart, while she thought on the vanished glories of the mistress she had served and loved, marvelling, even while she mourned, at the strange departure and sad mysterious fate of the Great Queen.

CHAPTER LX

LOST IN THE DARK

As in the heart of man, seared, desolate, and lonely though it be, there remains a tender spot, bearing remembrance of the tears that freshened it long ago; so in the wildest tract of desert is hidden some green and pleasant place where, even should the leaf be faded or the well-spring dry, lingers a certain sense of peace, freshness, and repose, a faint but precious echo from the drip and murmur of the drowsy waters, and the breeze whispering through the palms.

In such a refuge, many a league from the stir and turmoil of crowded Babylon, had Sarchedon unstrung his bow, and laid his spear aside.

Notwithstanding the promises of a.s.sarac, and the promptings of a martial spirit, he had yielded to the persuasions of her he loved, satisfied, after all his perils and adventures, to have gained the one treasure he coveted, and to keep it in his own possession for evermore.

Under the protection of his adopted brethren--for the Anakim, overlooking comparative deficiency of stature in consideration of courage and prowess, had received him into their tribe--and secured on all sides by the unbroken expanse of desert that surrounded him, he felt he had nothing to dread from the vengeance of Ninyas, nor even from pursuit by the Great Queen. These might rule unquestioned over many a fair and fertile province of their mighty empire, bearing absolute sway wherever forest waved or river flowed, wherever brick was laid on brick for human habitation, or smiling surface, tilled by human hands, grew fat with corn, and wine, and oil; but was not their boundless waste the heritage of the sons of Anak? and scouring it at all seasons, as in all directions, how were they to be eluded by a.s.sailants who would penetrate into their dominion? what tactics or what stratagems could foil those watchful eyes, keen as the vulture's poised in their burning sky, those matchless horses, swift and untiring as the wind that swept their desert sands?

"We are indeed safe, my beloved," said Sarchedon, after recapitulating the many difficulties with which an enemy who sought them would have to contend. "Safer here than we should be in the fortress of Ascalon, guarded by wall and rampart, bristling with bow and spear; for while the chariots of our foes were labouring far beyond the horizon, one of our long limbed brethren would come galloping lightly in to give us warning, and even if they ever reached our nest, it would be cold many hours before they found it. I should be loth to leave it too," he added, surveying with extreme content the pleasant refuge in which they had taken up their rest; "for in all the paradises of Babylon was never so green and lovely a spot as this!"

Contrasted with the arid waste that stretched around them to the sky, it seemed, indeed, a fair and peaceful retreat. Like the mirage of the desert, it was adorned by a knot of waving palms, a glittering lake, a breadth of verdant pasture, a thicket of tufted gra.s.s, bending reeds, and aromatic shrubs. Like the mirage too, it was difficult to find, but unlike the mirage, it was dotted with a goats' hair tent, at the door of which, smiling and unveiled, she sat for whose sake Sarchedon had abandoned friends, fame, ambition, country: his treasure, his pearl of price, the fairest woman in all the earth--but one.

"I dread only Ninyas," said Ishtar. "For I know the young king's wilful spirit, and the proud heart that cannot endure to be crossed or thwarted in its desire. Only Ninyas for myself," she added, with a wistful smile, "and--and the Great Queen for you."

"The Great Queen!" he repeated, laughing lightly. "Ere now I must surely have had more than one successor, and doubtless I am forgotten, as though I had never been; indeed I hope--I hope it may be so."

While he reiterated his wish, she looked sharply and inquiringly in his face, withdrawing her eyes, however, in some confusion, when his glance met her own. He perceived it not, and Ishtar scarce knew whether she was vexed or gratified to mark how the jealous anxieties of love had thus been quenched in the frank confidence of possession, but on reflection set his blindness down to the engrossing nature of his occupation, for he was busy shaping one of those short thick clubs used by desert hors.e.m.e.n in chase of the ostrich, to be hurled at the bird's long legs, while they rode her down.

"I shall be back at sunset," said he, putting the finis.h.i.+ng touch to his wooden weapon, and loosing the tether of his horse ere he sprang to the saddle, "then shall Ishtar have at her tent-door such a tuft of plumes as were never seen even before the pavilion of the Great King."

She was scanning the far horizon with anxious eyes. "I pray you go not forth, beloved," she murmured. "There is a dull blurred line yonder, where sand and sky meet. Already the whirlwind is stirring in his sleep.

Surely, he will wake up in his fury before night."

Her lord laughed and shook his bridle, waving a light farewell as he rode away; while Ishtar turned wistfully into the tent and wondered if he never regretted enterprise, fame, ambition, all he had foregone for her sake; if he never let his thoughts wander back to the matchless beauty and fatal smile of the Great Queen.

So the woman pondered, half in sadness, asking untoward questions of her own anxious heart, and the man sped merrily over the plain, rejoicing in the freedom of the saddle, leaving care to plod hopelessly in his tracks, as he galloped on.

But though her eye brightened and his soul rejoiced, because of the boundless waste and the free desert air, there was death in his right hand. The poor ungainly ostrich lay bleeding at his feet, her legs broken by his skill, her wings despoiled of their precious tufts, to make a gift for the woman he loved.

The sun was yet high when he turned bridle towards his home, and peering about him in search of those scarce perceptible inequalities on its surface, which form the landmarks of the wilderness, he found cause to remember Ishtar's warning, while for a moment his heart stood still, with a sense of coming danger, such as braces the brave man for mortal conflict, and bids the coward tremble with mortal fear.

Where the palms that nodded above his tent should have broke the level sky-line, there was no horizon now. Only s.h.i.+fting misty shadows, dull, dim, and tawny, a fusion of earth and heaven. He could bear to look on the sun too, glowing yonder like a ball of burnished copper, and he knew what that rim of violet foretold--a cruel portent--beautiful exceedingly.

There was a falling glitter in the air, as if it were raining gold, and his horse snorted violently, betraying symptoms of restlessness and alarm. O for Merodach now! Merodach, whose bones were bleaching far away, where the dead lay in heaps under the wall of Ardesh.

He pressed into a gallop, nevertheless; for a dun cloud-like column, growing in height and volume as it approached, was moving steadily towards him, in many whirls and gyrations, yet, fast as he rode, gaining on him with every stride. The sky had darkened, and the fine particles of sand with which the air was filled blistered his skin, choking his nostrils and penetrating into his very lungs.

Then the mighty rush of the whirlwind roared in his ears, turning his linen head-dress over his face, driving man and horse before it in an opaque, impenetrable cloud of sand.

He had once dreamed of such a death. Could this be his fate, and had it indeed overtaken him at last?

He thought of Ishtar at the tent-door, looking for one who never came; he thought of the other woman who had loved him--his temptation, his evil spirit, his enemy, beautiful and wicked, Semiramis the Great Queen.

Driving on, as a s.h.i.+p at sea drives before the tempest, he was aware of certain phantom shapes, some few spear-lengths off, that loomed gigantic in the fatal cloud. Were they real or but creatures of his brain, already maddened by a sense of suffocation? Perhaps demons of the simoon, triumphant, derisive, rejoicing in his destruction. No; they were surely earthly forms--two or three hors.e.m.e.n plunging up to their girths, and a dromedary in the midst. Were they waving to him for help, or only struggling and gesticulating in blind perplexity, in the agony of a fierce despair? The whirlwind drove him nearer, nearer yet. He could distinguish the reddened eye of the dromedary, and its distended nostril craving for a breath of air, while choked with sand.

There came another mighty rush and roar to stun him as with a blow. Half conscious, he was aware of a face that moved before him through the gloom like a vision of the night--a dreamy face, calm, fearless, beautiful, smiling its sad farewell. Even at such extremity his heart leaped up with keen guilty throbs, for in that pa.s.sing vision it recognised the face of the Great Queen.

Deeper and thicker grew the darkness; louder and fiercer roared the storm. A gleam of white seemed to flit before his eyes ere they were blinded by the driving sand. His horse struggled, fell, and rose again, trembling with exhaustion and fear; but the air had cleared now, and he could see, half a bowshot before him, a fair dove winging her flight calmly on towards the light of day. Looking back to where his peril had been shared by those shadowy wayfarers, he only noticed a few slight undulations on the surface of the desert--a rolling wave or two of sand to mark the terrible track of the simoon, and hide his buried secrets, whatever they might be.

Following the dove, as it flitted before him, Sarchedon rode slowly on, pondering many things in his heart, but never taking his eyes off the bird that was guiding him home. At sunset, lighting down beneath the palms he loved, it circled twice round his head, and disappeared within the darkness of his tent.

Entering in, he was encircled by the arms of Ishtar, who laid her cheek against his breast, and wept for very joy because of his safe return.

"Where is the dove," he asked, "that flew before me through the tent-door even now?"

"There is no dove here but me," said Ishtar tenderly. "O, Sarchedon, for you I would ever be the Bird of Love!"

He looked fondly down in those trustful pleading eyes. "The Bird of Love," he answered, "and better, dearer still--the Bird of Peace!"

The Gresham Press, UNWIN BROTHERS, WOKING AND LONDON.