Part 55 (1/2)
”She had everything Baal and Ashtaroth could bestow,” observed Kalmim, looking lovingly in her companion's face. ”And see what has been the end. To hover, like an evil spirit, saddened and restless, about the place that is still bright with her glory, and then to vanish, none can tell where, like a cloud that comes up from the desert with promise of rain, and while man and beast are yet athirst to welcome it, lo, it has pa.s.sed over, and is gone.”
”We shall see her no more,” answered Sethos. ”Nor shall we see one like unto her again. Since Ashur came down from the stars to lead them, his children have known but one great Queen. Of a surety, it is enough!
Another Ashtaroth would set the heavens in a blaze; another Semiramis would be too much for the vexed earth to sustain.”
She glanced at him sharply, but his features wore their usual expression of placid and somewhat languid content.
”She was not happy,” said Kalmim, as if puzzled to account for the anomaly. ”And yet she had wisdom, fame, courage, riches, unlimited empire, and, O Sethos, beauty surpa.s.sing even the daughters of the stars!”
”The last is the gift you grudge her most,” observed the cup-bearer, with a quiet smile, as of one who directs his shaft, though without malice, straight towards its mark.
But instead of flushed denial or indignant retort, he was surprised to note on Kalmim's face an expression of real apprehension. She turned quite pale, while she replied,
”It is a fatal possession for the owner, when spoilers can be found who scruple not to share in it by the strong hand. O Sethos,” she added, with a shudder, pointing to the temple of Baal, ”there is but one man I fear in the whole of Babylon, and he stands, night and morning, before the altar of his G.o.d, the second in power through all the land of s.h.i.+nar, after my lord the king.”
Sethos laughed outright, whereat, in Kalmim's eyes, displeasure took the place of fear.
”Listen,” said he, ”and remember that I am not given to vain words, but that I speak only so much as I surely know. Do you dread the handful of bleached bones, the few dangling strips of blackened flesh, that were once that famous eunuch who made himself chief counsellor of princes, mightiest leader of armies in all a.s.syria, and great interpreter of the G.o.d he wors.h.i.+pped, to rule, as it seemed, rather than to obey? I tell you, Kalmim, that a.s.sarac, withering yonder on his stake, is as much to be feared as comely Beladon, now high-priest of Baal. I tell you that I had rather change places with the one who has known and proved the worst than with the other, who has yet to learn the mercies of Ninyas for such as thwart his projects or stand in the way of his convenience.”
”What mean you?” she asked. ”Are you in the secrets of my lord the king?”
”He has shown favour to his servant,” answered the other, with mock gravity, ”since the days of his youth, when I filled his cup to the brim at the bidding of Ninus, now driving a golden chariot amongst the stars.
He has not forgotten that I waited dutifully at his footstool, while he wore sackcloth in his prison-house, as he had been clad in purple on a throne. Above all, he remembers that, but for me, he would have sinned a hideous sin against the Great Queen; therefore is my place at his right hand in his secret chamber; therefore can I tell you, Kalmim, that Beladon and his priests are doomed, and that the jackals you hear now howling beneath the wall shall scarcely wait another moon ere they tear them limb from limb. Beladon is thine enemy and mine. What am I that I should set myself against the counsels of my lord the king?”
She drew a deep sigh of relief. The tirewoman was happy now, and had reached the haven of her rest; yet, even in her fulness of content, there crept a dreary sadness about her heart, while she thought on the vanished glories of the mistress she had served and loved, marvelling, even while she mourned, at the strange departure and sad mysterious fate of the Great Queen.
CHAPTER LX
LOST IN THE DARK
As in the heart of man, seared, desolate, and lonely though it be, there remains a tender spot, bearing remembrance of the tears that freshened it long ago; so in the wildest tract of desert is hidden some green and pleasant place where, even should the leaf be faded or the well-spring dry, lingers a certain sense of peace, freshness, and repose, a faint but precious echo from the drip and murmur of the drowsy waters, and the breeze whispering through the palms.
In such a refuge, many a league from the stir and turmoil of crowded Babylon, had Sarchedon unstrung his bow, and laid his spear aside.
Notwithstanding the promises of a.s.sarac, and the promptings of a martial spirit, he had yielded to the persuasions of her he loved, satisfied, after all his perils and adventures, to have gained the one treasure he coveted, and to keep it in his own possession for evermore.
Under the protection of his adopted brethren--for the Anakim, overlooking comparative deficiency of stature in consideration of courage and prowess, had received him into their tribe--and secured on all sides by the unbroken expanse of desert that surrounded him, he felt he had nothing to dread from the vengeance of Ninyas, nor even from pursuit by the Great Queen. These might rule unquestioned over many a fair and fertile province of their mighty empire, bearing absolute sway wherever forest waved or river flowed, wherever brick was laid on brick for human habitation, or smiling surface, tilled by human hands, grew fat with corn, and wine, and oil; but was not their boundless waste the heritage of the sons of Anak? and scouring it at all seasons, as in all directions, how were they to be eluded by a.s.sailants who would penetrate into their dominion? what tactics or what stratagems could foil those watchful eyes, keen as the vulture's poised in their burning sky, those matchless horses, swift and untiring as the wind that swept their desert sands?
”We are indeed safe, my beloved,” said Sarchedon, after recapitulating the many difficulties with which an enemy who sought them would have to contend. ”Safer here than we should be in the fortress of Ascalon, guarded by wall and rampart, bristling with bow and spear; for while the chariots of our foes were labouring far beyond the horizon, one of our long limbed brethren would come galloping lightly in to give us warning, and even if they ever reached our nest, it would be cold many hours before they found it. I should be loth to leave it too,” he added, surveying with extreme content the pleasant refuge in which they had taken up their rest; ”for in all the paradises of Babylon was never so green and lovely a spot as this!”
Contrasted with the arid waste that stretched around them to the sky, it seemed, indeed, a fair and peaceful retreat. Like the mirage of the desert, it was adorned by a knot of waving palms, a glittering lake, a breadth of verdant pasture, a thicket of tufted gra.s.s, bending reeds, and aromatic shrubs. Like the mirage too, it was difficult to find, but unlike the mirage, it was dotted with a goats' hair tent, at the door of which, smiling and unveiled, she sat for whose sake Sarchedon had abandoned friends, fame, ambition, country: his treasure, his pearl of price, the fairest woman in all the earth--but one.
”I dread only Ninyas,” said Ishtar. ”For I know the young king's wilful spirit, and the proud heart that cannot endure to be crossed or thwarted in its desire. Only Ninyas for myself,” she added, with a wistful smile, ”and--and the Great Queen for you.”
”The Great Queen!” he repeated, laughing lightly. ”Ere now I must surely have had more than one successor, and doubtless I am forgotten, as though I had never been; indeed I hope--I hope it may be so.”