Part 54 (1/2)

Then he laughed out loud, a strange harsh laugh that scared the guards who held him, while he thought that here in his mortal anguish, throbbing under the knife or writhing on the stake, he had power to wring and torture that proud heart still.

Before deigning to notice him, she thanked her people for their loyalty with a sad and weary smile.

”Sons of Ashur,” said she, ”let none persuade you I have ever believed you could fail your queen. She has but trusted you once more to-day, and n.o.bly have you once more answered her appeal. I have spoiled for you another city; I have conquered for you another kingdom; I have journeyed far and fast to return to you. My bow is unstrung, my sword is sheathed, and I would fain rest from my labours. But Ashtaroth sleeps not in heaven, nor Semiramis on earth; and be the queen's eyes never so heavy, justice must be done by the greatest, as by the least, through the length and breadth of the land of s.h.i.+nar. There is one here who has imagined evil in his heart against his ruler. a.s.sarac, priest of Baal, what have you to say why you should not forthwith be put to death?”

With these last syllables she turned full upon him her deep inscrutable eyes, and if he had any hope of it before, he neither desired nor expected pardon now. The pitiless gaze chilled him to the marrow, while he felt, that were their positions reversed, he too could be as cold and calm and cruel as his judge.

One glance of sympathy in the crowd would have unmanned him; but he looked for it in vain. On earth he saw a dreary wavering ma.s.s of sullen faces, and in heaven a wide-winged vulture, wheeling, hovering, poising itself in the blue eternal sky.

It was not his G.o.d that sustained him now, nor his sacred character, nor his priestly lore; not even the stubborn pride engrained in the nature of such spirits, destined to affect the fate of dynasties and trouble the security of an empire. No; he took refuge in the bitterness of that despair which has found and proved the worst--when love turns to hate, and faith to scorn--when the sweet springs of hope are poisoned at their source, and the vision of an angel in a halo of light changes to a mocking fiend, or a bare gaunt skeleton crowned with a grinning skull.

He returned a stare of defiance, calm and contemptuous as her own.

”It is for the Great Queen to reward her servants according to their deserts,” said he. ”Let her ask herself if I have merited death at her hands.”

”It is not Semiramis who accuses you,” she retorted coldly. ”By the laws of s.h.i.+nar you are judged, and by them you are condemned. I have spoken.”

There was no hope; none. Yet would she but look kindly on him, he could bear it bravely, he thought, and die in his utter weariness, as a man lies down to sleep. He made one last effort.

”Have I not served her,” he asked, ”through good and evil, in no hope of payment or reward, but for the love and loyalty I bore to the Great Queen? I have lived too long when the face of Semiramis is turned from me in anger. I ask for no pardon, no reprieve. Let her but say that she forgives me before I die!”

”I have nothing to forgive,” she replied, with pitiless unconcern. ”The servant has raised his hand against his ruler; the subject has conspired against his queen. Whose are these white-robed bands cowering and trembling before me, though each man carries a naked knife in his girdle, and another in his hand? Who drew up that sullen and dejected line of warriors, instructing them to bend their bows and point their spears against the leader they have followed to victory? It is not for Semiramis to ask the question, but a.s.syria. It is not for Semiramis to answer it, but Baal, and he cries with a loud voice, 'a.s.sarac the priest!'”

”Who turned on her at the last!” he shouted, in a paroxysm of fury and despair. ”Who bears here in his bosom the secret she would give all her empire to obtain; but who defies and reviles the Great Queen to her face, even in the jaws of death!”

She started, and for a moment seemed uncertain how to act; but recovering herself, p.r.o.nounced firmly the fatal words, ”Cover his face, and lead him forth. I have spoken.”

It was a sentence that could never be annulled. The eunuch felt he was doomed, and glanced instinctively upward, where the vulture pa.s.sed between him and the sun.

So they brought the hideous stake, and impaled him in sight of all men, that the people of Babylon might pa.s.s by to rebuke him with scoffs and curses, for a traitor who had lifted his hand against the Great Queen.

Two days, two nights, he writhed and languished in his agony. On the third morning men had become wearied of him, and he was left alone, save that the vulture floating overhead kept watch on untiring wing, and waited for him still.

At sunrise there came a veiled woman, with a jar of water in her hand.

His dim eye lightened, and the spasm, that should have been a smile, crossed his face, for he recognised in her gait and bearing the presence of his queen.

She raised her veil to look fixedly on those dying features, so changed, so distorted--to mark the quiver of those dry cracked lips, the flutter of life that played over the blackened, withered frame.

”Speak,” said she, in a low hoa.r.s.e whisper, while the water rippled pleasantly in its jar. ”Speak, and I will have mercy; for you shall drink and die.”

He nodded a.s.sent, eyeing with piteous eagerness the deadly draught for which he longed.

”Doth he live?” she asked, and laid the jar almost against his lips.

Another nod, a convulsive choking gasp, and a roll of the half closed eyes.

”And where?” she continued, in fierce impatience, pitiless of his sufferings, careless of all but the secret she was fain to extort, even from the dead.