Part 42 (1/2)
”Nay, Sethos,” said she; ”I would peril much for your sake, because--because--you never asked of me anything for yourself, and what you bestow on man or woman is given freely and without an afterthought.
But Ninyas is one, and you are another. If I am to risk life and limb, it must be for the cup-bearer, not for the king. I am not like an armour of defence, to be put on or laid aside at will. Steel headpiece and linked habergeon ward off death from this man as from that; but, trust me, there is some difference between a harness of proof and a woman's heart.”
He looked kindly in her face, and a thought seemed to strike him.
”Even here, in our imprisonment,” said he, ”there sometimes reaches us an echo, faint and feeble, of rumours that stir the outer world. Is it true the Great Queen has summoned an innumerable host to march forthwith on this expedition to the North?”
”It _is_ true,” said Kalmim; ”and she leaves me here at home--_me_, without whom awhile ago she could not lay a plait nor plant a bodkin.
But that you are here in captivity, Sethos, and I shall be near you, it would have angered me bitterly, and I had reproached her roundly to her face. But let her beware! A smouldering flame is not a fire extinguished; and none was ever yet the better for offending Kalmim, with or without a cause.”
”In the queen's absence, there must be a governor of the city,” he whispered. ”Will the obedience of the people be given to such a one when their ruler is many a day's march away? O Kalmim, if Ninyas be ever righted, ever sit on the throne of Ashur in the palace of his fathers, I, even I, shall stand in a dress of honour at his right hand; and who but Kalmim will then really sway the sceptre, far and wide, over the whole land of s.h.i.+nar?”
Her eyes flashed, her cheek glowed. No woman is so empty, so frivolous, but that she willingly entertains a project of ambition; and the last watch of night had pa.s.sed away, dawn was already glimmering on the horizon of the desert, while Sethos and his visitor were yet taking earnest counsel together how they might restore the dynasty to its rightful heir, and sap, till it crumbled into ruins, the glory and power of her who was now supreme mistress of the eastern world.
CHAPTER XLIV
THE VEILED QUEEN
In all her reflected splendour as the wife of the great conqueror--in her richest l.u.s.tre of youthful beauty--in her n.o.blest state of royal magnificence while she administered for an absent husband the affairs of his boundless empire--never did Semiramis appear so glorious, so beautiful, or so queenly, as when she pa.s.sed in review, on the frontiers of the land of s.h.i.+nar, the innumerable forces she had collected, less, indeed, to gratify the cravings of ambition than of a softer yet more engrossing sentiment, which in her woman's heart predominated over desire of conquest and love of war.
Even with her untold resources, unscrupulous strength of will, and unquestioned power, it was no light task for the Great Queen to muster such a host as might invade the strange and distant regions for which it was destined, if not with certainty of victory, at least, without prospect of defeat. To the haughty a.s.syrian, polished and luxurious, though fierce and warlike, that rude inhospitable country, from which he was fenced by his northern mountains, seemed awful as the land beyond the grave. For him, the word ”Armenia” meant a place of horror, mystery, and romance. With Egypt he was familiar as with the sandy desert that parted him from his ancient enemy. Of Ethiopia, notwithstanding its scorching suns and endless wastes, he had formed his own ideas, sufficiently extravagant, attributing to its burning clime many demons, monsters, and other prodigies, yet wholly satisfied that all the powers of the south, in or out of nature, were as nothing before the face of Baal and the might of Ashur. The warlike Philistine tribes, even the redoubtable children of Anak, he had fought against, with varying success, gradually absorbing them in his own dominion or pus.h.i.+ng them farther into the wilderness. It was his custom to conquer wherever he found room to drive his chariots and wheel his hors.e.m.e.n; but he had never yet penetrated beyond the Zagros range to the snowy peaks, the s.h.a.ggy woods, the dreary wilds of the North. That he should meet with peril and adventure such as the veterans of Ninus had not even dreamed, he was fully persuaded; that he should overcome all obstacles, he had been no son of Ashur had he not implicitly believed; but that he was engaged in a formidable undertaking, and would encounter a powerful foe, seemed obvious from the enormous levies collected, and the gigantic preparations made to carry out the war.
The whole expedition was commanded to a.s.semble within a few days' march of the frontier, there to receive final orders, and pa.s.s in review under the eyes of the Great Queen.
Wearing a dazzling harness of steel inlaid with gold, and a burnished helmet, on which blazed a ruby of such size and splendour that its rays seemed to play round her head like a plume of fire, Semiramis, standing in a war-chariot, revealed to her a.s.sembled host a beauty brighter than the metal, richer and more l.u.s.trous than the gem. Close by her wheel, so that she could mount him at a moment's notice, was led Merodach, caparisoned with crimson and gold. Not a warrior in the host who looked on him but swore that white horse with his eyes of fire was well worthy to carry so precious a burden. She seemed to prize him dearly, laying her hand on his smooth and swelling neck in frequent caresses, which the horse acknowledged with arching crest, brightened eye, and quivering ear, looking about him, nevertheless, as if not wholly satisfied, and neighing loudly on occasion when a burst of martial music, or the tramp of an armed column, seemed to wake in him certain memories of the heart, so faithful and so touching in that creation man is pleased to call the brute. Though Semiramis had broke him to her hand, and tamed him to her will, she could not teach the horse to forget his rider. Perhaps she loved him none the less that ear and eye seemed always on the watch for his absent lord.
Hanging diagonally against the panel of her chariot, within ready reach of her royal hand, swung a quiver of sandal-wood, containing but the two arrows which the Comely King had sent in answer to her haughty demand.
She had sworn by Ashtaroth never to draw bow till she came face to face with Aryas, and then to return him his own warlike tokens in deadly quittance, accompanied each with five hundred thousand men.
Flas.h.i.+ng back the light from its polished surface like a mirror of steel, the queen's s.h.i.+eld, all chased and embossed with gold, was suspended at the back of her chariot. As the coveted office remained unfilled, every mighty man of war in the host had in turn believed he would be selected to bear it before her in battle; but Semiramis, having long since made her choice, kept her own counsel, determining to face the weapons of her enemies unfenced until she had set _him_ free to protect her person, who was never out of her thoughts; who had obtained, perhaps from his very indifference, so strange an ascendency over her wild and wilful heart.
a.s.sarac, the eunuch, well pleased to accompany the expedition, coveted more than others this honourable post. When captain after captain had been pa.s.sed over, a sweet intoxicating hope bade the priest's brain swim, and so changed his character that in a transport of enthusiasm he could forget alike the exigencies of policy and the dictates of common sense.
Descending from his chariot, he approached the position Semiramis had taken up, while the flower of her armies pa.s.sed by in countless thousands, and, making his obeisance, proffered a request that he might be permitted to guard her safely with his life, in terms of the humblest devotion ever offered by a subject to a queen.
She laughed in his face--a kind frank hearty laugh, that stung him to the quick.
”What are you thinking of,” said she, ”my trusty sage and counsellor?
Surely that weight of steel on your brow has disordered the workings of your keen and subtle brain. Know you not, that when Semiramis mounts her war-chariot, she drives in the fore-front of the battle? I tell you, man, I have had shafts and javelins flying round me as thick as locusts on a field of barley in the blade! I have seen the stoutest captains of Ashur cower beneath that deadly hail! What would a priest of Baal do in such a storm?”
He was deeply hurt, and showed it. Had not he, the priest, the eunuch, confronted dangers in her interests at home to which the reddest battlefield that ever ran with blood was but a game of play? He felt within him a spirit of fierce and reckless daring far above the animal courage of the spearman, but he only answered sadly,
”I could at least die at the feet of my queen, making of my body a pedestal for her to crush and trample, if it raised her but an inch!”
With a cruelty, the more pitiless that it seemed so utterly unconscious, she turned on him her soft alluring glance, her sweet bewildering smile.
Perhaps, because of his very nature, she was more lavish of such endearments to _him_ than to others; perhaps, in sheer wantonness of beauty, she cared not what they were, nor how many, whom she scorched to death with the fire she thus flung carelessly about; but the avowed regard, the frank kindness with which she treated her devoted servant, were at once the provocatives and the punishment of his presumption.