Part 52 (1/2)
REQUITED
”I have cast stones in the air to fall on mine own head! I have knelt at the stream, and, lo, the waters were bitter and defiled! O Kalmim, there is neither faith, nor honour, nor grat.i.tude in Ninyas, the son of Ninus. May the king live for ever!”
She laughed outright. It was a rare jest to behold Sethos in a vein of serious reflection; above all, to hear him revile the prince to whom, through good and evil, he had been a devoted servant, notwithstanding the vices, caprices, and heartless ingrat.i.tude of his lord.
”You are but a child,” she answered lightly, ”and for all your downy lip and shapely limbs, not yet fit to run alone. Trust a strained bow, a frayed string, a blown horse, or a baffled woman--all these will quit them better in the hour of need than a king on the throne, whom you have served when he was a captive in the dungeon.”
They were standing together on a terrace of the royal palace in Babylon, looking over many a league of gardens, vineyards, lofty palms, thin silvery streams--vast tracts of desert sand beyond--all s.h.i.+ning and glowing in the bright morning sun, while their own comely faces and splendid attire were rich and deep in colour as the surrounding hues of earth and sky.
A great change had indeed taken place at home, since the queen's expedition to Armenia left the city without a ruler, while its lawful prince languished a weary prisoner, losing health, energy, and all the dignity of manhood, under supervision of the priests of Baal. The return of a.s.sarac, bearing, as he affirmed, full powers and authority on the part of Semiramis, sickening even to death in the far north, had extricated Ninyas from captivity, and placed him on the throne to which he was ent.i.tled by the laws of s.h.i.+nar, the eunuch, in a secret interview, extorting a solemn oath of vengeance on the mother who had deprived him of his liberty and his empire. Broken in health and courage by close imprisonment, acting on a frame already yielding to the effects of unbridled indulgence, the young king was but a tool in the hands of a.s.sarac, who soon conceived the idea of making him also a mere stepping-stone to the attainment of supreme power at which he aimed.
Though scrupulous in practising the usual forms and observances towards his lord, the eunuch scarcely affected to ignore his own real superiority, affirming only that his words and deeds were prompted by the immediate inspiration of his G.o.d.
”And Baal bids him store up goodly treasures for himself, you may be sure,” observed Kalmim, discussing with her old admirer the character of their new and arbitrary ruler; ”so that at any time he may win over the spearmen with spoil, as he secured the priests by promises, and the prophets of the grove by threats. Gold and steel, Sethos--these are the only real forces on earth, and I sometimes think there is no power that can dominate them in heaven.”
”Good faith,” answered Sethos, ”is precious as the one and true as the other. I have never wavered, Kalmim, in my loyalty to Ninyas, nor my love for _you_.”
”And what have they profited you?” she retorted lightly. ”You stood by the prince in good and evil, eating with him the bitter morsel and sharing the cup of affliction. One fine morning, Baal forsooth sends a fat man in white to pull the king of nations out of a prison-house and put him in a palace with a royal mantle on his shoulders, and a golden sceptre in his hand. Then comes the cup-bearer, who has proved his readiness to go to the gates of death with his lord, and asks to be made leader of the host and to stand on the king's right hand, in the day of his glory as in the night of his bondage. What said Ninyas to the poor youth, in answer to so modest a request?”
”He laughed in my face,” replied the other, with considerable irritation. ”And if there is justice in heaven it will be repaid him fourfold. May the king live for ever!”
”So much for loyalty to a prince,” she continued. ”Now for truth to a woman. Have you _really_ kept faith with me, Sethos, all this time? It is many a long day since you and I first met by a strange chance in the queen's paradise, and you told me--I forget what you told me, but it was something very foolish, no doubt.”
”You know I have,” said Sethos bitterly, almost fiercely, turning his head away while he spoke.
It was a short answer, but to a woman's ear worth a whole series of protestations. In perception of such matters, Kalmim was no whit behind her s.e.x.
If he had but looked at her, he would have seen her blush, and surely in no encounter whatsoever should a man take his eye off his enemy.
Sethos, alas, was completely at the adversary's mercy, and she trampled him accordingly.
”Well, and what has this service, also, profited you for your pains?”
she asked in taunting accents, wholly unable to forbear the pleasure of tormenting him. ”You have stood by _me_ at my need faithfully, n.o.bly, grudging nothing, keeping nothing back. When the time comes, you will ask _me_ too to make you my captain and leader, to seat you on my right hand till I die, and, Sethos, I too--I shall laugh in your face!”
”Be it so,” he answered in a grave quiet voice, so unlike his usual tones that she glanced anxiously towards him. He seemed sad and troubled, yet looked like a man whose loyalty was still unshaken and unimpeachable.
”And you are tired of it at last?” she asked, in the same mocking accents.
”It is too late to change now,” was his answer, with a wan and weary smile.
”Ninyas refused you?” she continued, looking straight into his eyes.
He bowed his head in silence.
”But _I_ have only laughed at you,” she murmured, drawing her veil hastily over her face. ”And, Sethos, have you pa.s.sed your life in Babylon and not found out that liking grows with laughter as blossoms come with rain? _I_ am not a king, I am only a woman; and I cannot deny a faithful servant who asks the reward he has toiled through storm and suns.h.i.+ne to attain.”
He would have pa.s.sed his arm round her waist, but with a dexterous twirl, the result, perhaps, of considerable practice, she placed herself out of reach.
”No,” she said with imposing force and gesture, ”my friend, and more than friend, this is not a time for follies such as these. Some day, when the heavy hand of Baal has been taken off this unhappy city, when men's flocks and herds and wives and children have ceased to be at the command of those who are but hewers of wood and drawers of water in the temple, I may peradventure suffer you to--to--well, to touch the tip of my finger with your lips. But now, the first duty of every son of Ashur is to cast off this hateful yoke that bows his nation to the dust. O that the old lion had but lived to see the white robes lording it in his well-beloved city! He would have cleared them out with fire and sword, ay, though all the host of heaven had come down from the stars to take their part.