Part 17 (1/2)
”What is this cloud coming up from the desert now?” said the cup-bearer to the priest, as they met under shadow of the sacred building, and observed, by such of its graduated steps as were still exposed to the scorching glare, that not many hours had yet to pa.s.s before night. ”The Great King covers his feet in his summer-chamber; the queen tans her fair face and heats her Southern blood hurrying to and fro, from palace to temple, from hall to gallery, from the prince's apartments to the royal judgment-seat. Kalmim keeps silence, which is in itself a marvel, shaking her head, as if she knew more than she would tell; while in the midst of these signs and wonders, Ninyas sends and bids me ride with him into the desert in this stifling heat, as a man would say to his friend, 'Brother, you are athirst and an hungered. Here is a melon and a water-jar. I pray you eat and drink.' What does it all mean, I say? The desert forsooth! By the light of Ashtaroth, I never wish to travel the desert again, after the toil and thirst and suffocation of that endless campaign!”
”The prince means to hunt the lion, no doubt,” answered Beladon, ”under the eyes of Ishtar, or to speak plain, in the light of the rising moon.”
Sethos pondered.
”A lion at bay is no pleasant companion,” said he, ”by moonlight or daylight either. It is not the smile of a fair woman he puts on, I can tell you, when your horse comes up with him, and he begins to look you in the face.”
”I know which is most dangerous,” replied the priest; ”but I doubt if Ninyas feels a wise man's fear for either one or other. Nevertheless, the hunter at night may be a prey before dawn; and the child that cries to its mother for the moon must be pacified ere it wake the household.”
”You speak in parables,” answered Sethos, yawning, ”and during the heat of the day too! I cannot interpret parables, nor do I believe much in priests. Well, at least I am free of the palace for to-night, and have done with the Great King till to-morrow at dawn.”
”Till to-morrow at dawn,” repeated the other, adding, in a tone of light yet meaning banter: ”When the lion turns to bay, Sethos, what is the hunter to do then?”
”He must drive an arrow through the wild beast's heart,” was the reply, ”unless he likes to sleep in the desert with nothing on but his bones.
There is no compromise with the lion; if you slay not _him_, he will surely slay _you_.”
”He will surely slay _you_,” repeated the other in the same tone. ”It is a wise saying, though spoken by the king's cup-bearer. Nay, be not wroth with me, Sethos. I love you well, partly, I think, because you are not over-wise nor thoughtful, and a man may speak with _you_ freely, not stopping to pick his words as if the plain truth would burn his lips.
Take my advice: ride your best horse to-day, and water him freely before you mount. When Ninyas comes back from hunting, turn into the desert and gallop for your life.”
”Where must I gallop?” asked Sethos, in some natural anxiety and alarm.
”Where?” repeated the priest. ”Anywhere but back to Babylon. Ascalon,”
he added thoughtfully, ”perhaps it would be the safest refuge, after all. If you go by the way of the Dark Valley and the Bitter Waters, you might reach it well enough.”
”And the Great King's draught at sunrise?” said the cup-bearer, reverting to the first duty of his daily life.
”The Great King's draught is provided for,” was the answer. ”See, a.s.sarac ascends the steps of the temple. I must prate here no longer. Do as I warned you. Farewell, I am loath to part, for I think we shall never meet again.”
Little rea.s.sured 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 pa.s.sed 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 embarra.s.sed 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 G.o.ds with a joyous freedom that sat gracefully enough on one so young, so renowned, and, above all, so fair.
In an open s.p.a.ce not a furlong from the gate by which they were about to leave the city, the mult.i.tude 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 brandis.h.i.+ng 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 G.o.d.
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.