Part 27 (1/2)
Sarchedon did not answer. His heart was beating fast, and all the blood in his body seemed surging to his brain; for amongst the spectators looking down from the housetops on the entrance of their countrymen, he had caught sight of a veiled figure, that had in it something of her air and gestures who was never absent from his mind--the object of his search, the desire of his life, the woman he had loved and lost.
It was but a momentary glimpse. The figure disappeared almost as soon as seen. Nevertheless, for Sarchedon there was henceforth but one aim, one interest, in the whole city of Ascalon.
His progress through the streets reminded Sethos, though on a less splendid scale, of the Great King's return after his successful Egyptian campaign, with its greetings, its enthusiasm, its shouts of welcome, and casting down of flowers on the warriors' heads, though the numbers were scanty, compared to the population of imperial Babylon, the height from which the garlands dropped but mean and humble, measured by the pinnacles and terraces that crowned the City of Palaces, throned on her mighty stream.
Long before it could arrive beneath her walls, the watchman at the gate of Ascalon had espied this scanty troop of his countrymen advancing through the desert, pursued by an enemy from that south on which it was his duty to keep a sleepless eye. Ere Sarchedon became satisfied that he was making for a tangible stronghold, and not an illusion of the sandy wilderness, the city had been alarmed, and its a.s.syrian garrison, tried warriors all, were at their posts. Scores of bowmen therefore lined the streets through which the little party pa.s.sed. Many a broad hand tendered its grasp of welcome and good-fellows.h.i.+p to the comrade who had baffled yet one more danger, foiled the hated Egyptian with bow and spear yet once again. Agron, the Captain of the Gate, a young warrior in whose company Sethos had often emptied the wine-cup, spending days and nights of revelry amongst the material joys of his beloved Babylon, himself accompanied them to the stronghold of the city, now brightened by a certain appearance of luxurious indulgence, added to its usual aspect of defence and grim security.
”Here,” said Agron, ”you shall be brought into the royal presence, with the rising of to-morrow's sun. You shall be sped on your way to Babylon under such a guard as may laugh Pharaoh and all his chariots to scorn, if indeed they dare thus pursue their venture into the land of s.h.i.+nar.
Fear not, my friends; you shall ride out of Ascalon almost as swiftly as you rode in, and I wish it had been the will of Nisroch that I might be permitted to accompany you.”
”Are you then so weary of the City of Towers?” asked Sethos, smiling gaily on a group of women who were pelting him with flowers from an upper story. ”It seems to me that here, as elsewhere, Ashtaroth s.h.i.+nes down in light through the eyes of these southern damsels, and that Agron may bask in her beams no less pleasantly than at home.”
”Ashtaroth!” repeated the other scornfully, ”and the City of Towers! Say rather Shamash and the City of Fire! Where shall you find a palm's breadth of shade in the whole town at noon, or a green thing within a day's march of the walls? There was a fountain here over against us when we arrived; but the sun licked it up ere we saw him rise three times, dry and clean as a dog's red tongue licks a platter. For duty, it is watch and ward day by day, with your headpiece scorching the very hair off your brow, and alarms throughout the night, every time a camel tinkles its bell within or a jackal howls for hunger without. As to pleasure, if you care not to fly your hawks over a plain so barren that the very wormwood refuses to show a twig, or to follow a lion as sulky as yourself for lack of food, who burrows into a cave when you come up with him, you must be content to tie knots in your bowstring, and so keep count of the days of your captivity, as they pa.s.s by and bring no change.”
”But you hold a high post,” said Sarchedon absently, for his thoughts were still with the veiled figure that vanished so quickly from his sight. ”You have a n.o.ble command, and great honour amongst men.”
”And receive gifts from travellers entering in,” added Sethos. ”Caravans out of Egypt, merchants from the coast, spoilers of the desert, who must needs replenish quiver and sharpen steel, none can pa.s.s through without doing homage to the keeper of the gate, and his hand is never empty whose beard brushes the dust. Tell me, Agron, are there not bales of silk piled in thy dwelling, myrrh, spices, inlaid arms, and talents of gold, ay, and a captive maid or two, fresh and rosy as the dawn on those eastern mountains from which she comes?”
Agron laughed loud.
”How long would she abide with me at the gate, think you, after the prince had heard of her white skin and ruddy cheeks? No, my friends, wayfarers are driven from our walls as if they brought a pestilence in their very garments. For recompense, I have stern command and scornful look; for food, camel's flesh and dried locusts; for handmaiden, an Ethiopian wench, black and rough as a goat's-hair tent; and for drink--well, for drink--you are a king's cup-bearer, Sethos--I can give you, as you will presently confess, a skin of wine equal to the richest you ever pressed at dawn for thirsty old Ninus. May he live for ever!
Hush, man! we are now within the royal gate, and none speaks here above his breath who values the safety of his tongue.”
Thus cautioning his companions, Agron guided them through a ma.s.sive portal, into the central fortress of Ascalon, constructed to hold a foe at bay even in the last extremity, were the outer walls destroyed, and the town itself razed to the ground.
As a bulwark against Egyptian aggression, and a check to the excesses of those wild tribes that, from the earliest period of history, seem to have made the desert their home, Ascalon had been fortified with all the appliances of defence which the experience of Ninus could suggest; and perhaps, as the birthplace of the queen whom he loved so dearly, had acquired in his eyes a fict.i.tious value that caused him to regard it with jealous and constant supervision. Its central fastness was therefore in proportion to the strength of the whole place, nor did it fail to impress both Sethos and Sarchedon with feelings of awe and wonder, quite incomprehensible to the light-hearted captain of the gate.
For Agron, this lowering fortress seemed but a dreary prison, only preferable to the tomb, because of the hope that he might at last resume life and light amidst the luxuries of Babylon the Great. Ascalon, as the queen remembered it, was a glittering city, beautiful in architecture, pleasant with verdant bowers, and ripening dates, and voice of rus.h.i.+ng waters. As Agron found it, shorn of beauty to enhance its strength, it was a grim solemn citadel, denuded of palm and paradise to make room for frowning rampart and threatening tower, drained of its bubbling streams that they might fill its moats and ditches, retaining nothing of its ancient loveliness but the blue sea and the silver lake, that continued to mirror its rugged features in age truly and faithfully as the smiling freshness of its youth.
Making signs to them of silence and discretion, the captain of the gate led his comrades through a succession of ma.s.sive portals and vaulted pa.s.sages, to a chamber lined with cedar wood, taken, as it were, out of the wall itself, and lit but sparingly by an aperture communicating with the roof.
”The prince will not see you,” said he, ”because he sits at the banquet of wine, and he holds by our ancient custom of Ashur, which forbids the clas.h.i.+ng of cups and counsel; but you are fasting men as yet, and you may see _him!_”
Thus speaking, he drew aside a heavy curtain that had hitherto darkened their hiding-place, and disclosed a sufficiently sumptuous banqueting-hall, in which feasted some twenty or thirty guests, of whom at least half a score were women, unveiled, with flushed cheeks, disordered raiment, and garlands of flowers clinging to their loosened hair.
Keen as the desert hawk's, Sarchedon's eye took in the gay a.s.semblage at a glance. There was less of disappointment than relief in the deep breath he drew to miss the woman he loved amongst these restless, lavish, and alluring forms.
Ninyas sat in their midst, gorgeously attired as was his wont, with a jewelled drinking-cup in hand, pledging his male guests at the lower end of the board with loud hilarity, or whispering softly in the ear of one of those fairer companions by whom he had surrounded himself. The good humour of princes is contagious. To the royal challenge, men raised their goblets full and set them down empty; to the royal jest, women replied with peals of laughter and protestations of disapproval; while the royal whisper was answered by blush, and smile, and smothered sigh, more flattering than the wildest outbreak of mirth.
”I told you so,” said Sethos in his friend's ear. ”He was anxious about our emba.s.sy and could not remain in Babylon, but removed here to be nearer the land of Egypt.”
”His mind seems easy enough now,” answered Sarchedon; while Ninyas, taking a lotus-flower from his own garland, and steeping it in wine, twined it through the flowing locks of a free and laughing damsel, leaning across a comrade, till her head almost reclined on the prince's shoulder.
As she suffered him to fasten the flower in her hair, it was evident to those watching above that she made some vehement though mirthful declaration, accompanied by many gestures of affected reluctance and denial; presently, on a remark of the prince, her retort called forth an over-powering burst of laughter, and Ninyas, taking the collar of gold from his neck, wound it as a bracelet round her arm.
In the meantime goblets had been emptied freely, eyes began to s.h.i.+ne, voices to rise, and the confusion of tongues became every moment more and more unintelligible. The captain of the gate, though a stout warrior, possessed, like his two comrades, a leavening of that discretion which, even if laid aside in camp, cannot be dispensed with at court. He judged it time to retire.
”Those are full men down yonder,” said he, with a meaning smile, ”and ye up here are fasting from all but desert air, and mayhap a mouthful or two of desert sand. Had you taken your places at the banquet amongst the others, with your feet washed, your locks combed, and garlands on your heads, there would have seemed no shame in all this revelry, because you too would have been merry with wine. That which is but decent mirth to one who rises from a feast, looks like rank folly to another who is about to sit down. Let us go hence, and you shall comfort your hearts with bread ere I show you the place of your repose. To-morrow Ninyas will speak with you face to face, in the light of the rising sun.”