THE EAGLET NURSED BY DOVES
In troublous times the government of Syria was not a game at which a
child might play; and, albeit Menon dwelt with his wife at Azapah, he
needs must circle round about through many a restless tribe. From
Nineveh came an endless call for grain wherewith to feed the multitudes
of labourers, for oxen, asses, and the water buffalo, whose strength was
now employed in the drawing of heavy loads. Train on train of lowing,
braying beasts were driven from out the land; and so soon as their tails
had ceased to switch in Syria, a cry went up for more. Thus the Syrians
whispered amongst themselves, as others muttered far away at Nineveh;
and soon the whisper swelled, till each man spoke his thoughts aloud,
and thought was bitter against the Governor.
So Menon journeyed forth and back again, chiding, soothing, punishing.
His hand was heavy when the rod was lifted of necessity; and when it
fell, the back of the smitten wore a mark. Throughout he was honest,
just, and unafraid in all things save one alone--Semiramis. He dare not
suffer her to share the perils of the road, nor did he desire that
tidings should leak abroad concerning his wedded state; for of all swift
messengers, both of earth and air, not one keeps pace with the babble of
an idle tongue--and the ears of the King were sharp.
True, Menon might have wedded both Sozana and Semiramis, together with a
score of other wives, yet the mate of a daughter of the King must
cherish one wife alone. And still again, that man who would divide his
love betwixt some other and Semiramis had best go down at once amid the
raging fires of Gibil to seek his peace of soul. So Menon, as he rode,
was wont to ponder upon these things, and was troubled because of fear.
Semiramis fretted in the absence of her lord, till her heart was rife
with a clamorous unrest. She loved him as a tigress loves its mate, and
knew no peace till he came to her side again.
Huzim, too, was left behind for a watch-dog in the Governor's house, a
servant who vied with Habal as a sentinel against alarm. If the Indian
loved his master, to the mistress he gave idolatry, and naught was there
which he would not do to bring her happiness. In the chase which she
loved he taught her arts of the jungle-hunt, when the tracker's hand is
brother to his eye, and the eye must sweat because of its constant
roving to and fro. He taught her to use her bow, not in the manner of
Syrian archers who sight along the shaft, but to shoot from the hip,
with vision fixed upon the mark alone, thus giving a quickness following
hard upon the heels of thought. Above all other arms he schooled her in
the use of a heavy-headed spear on which to receive the body of a
pouncing beast; and for his patience Huzim found good cause to thank his
gods.
On a certain morning they trailed across the hills, the Indian and
Semiramis, while Habal snuffled joyously for any breed of mischief that
he chanced to find. Long they hunted, but without a kill, till at
mid-day, of a sudden, the dog set up a furious barking in a deep ravine.
Semiramis, who chanced to be in the valley's neck while Huzim hunted far
above, came first to the point whence the angry uproar told of game. At
first there was naught to see, save Habal dancing in his rage, his lips
rolled back, his thick hair bristling; yet, presently, through a tangled
screen of thorn and vine, she spied a lion crouched upon the body of a
goat, the blood of his victim dripping from his jaws. A mighty beast
was he, ill pleased at being thus disturbed; and now, at the sight of
Semiramis, he roared his wrath and leaped upon his enemies.
As the lion sprang, the heart of Huzim was like to stop its beat in
fear. With a cry of anguish from above he plunged down the steep
declivity, heedless of stones and thorns that tore his flesh as he
rended a pathway through the interwoven shrubberies. He saw his
mistress crouch, and brace the butt of her hunting spear behind her on
the earth. He saw a tawny body hurtling through the air, to land on the
waiting spear point which, by reason of the brute's own weight, sank
deep into his neck; then the monster shot in a curve above the woman's
head and, snarling, fell among the rocks. With all her strength the
huntress clung to her weapon's haft, striving to hold her prey upon his
back, while the cautious Habal, with that over-plus of noise which
sometimes covers a lack of pluck, snapped viciously at the brush of the
lion's tail.
Panting, breathless with his toil, the Indian raced toward the spot,
notching an arrow as he came, yet Semiramis would have none of him.
"Hold, Huzim!" she cried. "On thy life dare loose a shaft! The kill is
mine!"
So Huzim stayed his hand, though it irked him sore to watch while his
mistress gripped her spear and was tossed like a rag upon the wind; but
at length the lion ceased to struggle, sighing, as he stretched his
splendid limbs in death.
Then Huzim--that trail-tried hunter, of many a fight more terrible than
this--did a thing which was full of strangeness in a man. Trembling, he
cast himself upon the earth, to clasp the feet of Semiramis, to kiss
them, and to weep as a child might weep; but his mistress laughed, and
patted Huzim's head, even as it was her wont to fondle Habal for a deed
of love.
Homeward they journeyed across the hills, Semiramis proud of the pelt
which Huzim bore, while Habal pranced before them, with the air of one
who had done this deed alone, and cared not a pinch of wind if the whole
world knew and marveled because of a most uncommon dog.
So the hunts went on, for Menon now was much abroad in quelling troubles
which arose on every hand; though often in his leisure hours he joined
the sport, and this Semiramis loved best of all.
Then the Kurds arose in fierce revolt, and the Governor needs leave his
wife for a longer space, though many a bitter tear she shed, in that he
would not suffer her to go. She was mad for a taste of war, mad as when
with kisses she had urged him on the temple steps at Ascalon; yet Menon
closed his ears alike to prayer and subtle argument. And thus it came
to pass that she dried her eyes and watched him depart alone.
Now the Kurds were a wild and valiant race of hillsmen dwelling among
the rocks, bold men who ceased to long for battle only when vultures
picked their carcasses; so Menon and his army journeyed forth and
laboured unto that end. He tracked them through wastes of sand, through
gorges where torrents rushed, and monster stones came thundering down
the pass; yet after a space he lured them to the centre of a plain and
sought to give them one more taste of Assyria's scourge. He screened a
strong reserve behind a hill, and then, in seeming disarray, marched
down upon the enemy, while the Kurds looked on and were overjoyed
because of the greater number of their warriors.
The Kurds awaited not the enemy's attack, but, shrieking in their
barbarous tongue, poured down the slope to catch him in a dip between
the hills.
In sooth the case of Assyria seemed evil, yet at a low command the
disorder vanished utterly. As if by magic warriors sprang into the
close-ranked form of a crescent moon, its curving front a line of
bristling spears, its long horns tipped by horse, while in the rear and
on either flank a cloud of bowmen waited for their prey.
In the hush before the storm a rider came spurring down the hill, to
fling himself from his winded steed and to fall at Menon's feet.
"Huzim!" breathed the Governor, in a nameless dread. "What now?"
"Forgive, my lord," the Indian begged upon his knees, "and slay me if
thou wilt. The lady Shammuramat--hath gone!"
"_Gone?_" cried Menon, whitening to the lips. "In the name of
Belit--where?"
"Nay, lord, I know not," Huzim, in his grief, protested wildly. "In the
hours of night she slipped away unseen. At morning, Habal, Scimitar and
she were gone. I tracked them hither, lord, and now--"
His speech was drowned in a rush of howling Kurds, their first line
breaking as a wave is shattered on a rock, their second crumpled,
bleeding, tossed back in heaps of slain, while the third for an instant
glared across the spears, then died as their brothers died. Yet more
came on, and more again, an endless stream of madmen, delirious in rage,
each caring naught for life so be it that he dragged a foeman down.
They hacked at lance heads with their clumsy swords and wormed their way
through the legs of the heaving front, till the crescent swayed and was
like to burst in rout. And still they came, like waves from out the
sea, to strike and fall, roll backward, rise and strike again.
The Governor had held the temper of his enemies in contempt too light,
and now repented of his rashness in giving them a vantage ground. He
looked for his horsemen screened behind the hill, but Kedah, their
captain, was not the man to charge without an order from his chief; so
Menon's soul was troubled for his army's fate.
"The reserve!" he roared into a courier's ear. "Ride on the wings of
hell! Nay, look! By the grace of all the gods, they come!"
Of a truth it was so. A cloud of horsemen swept along the ridge in the
form of a solid wedge, its sharp point aiming full at the foemen's
flank. To the front, three lengths ahead, a steed of Barbary ran low
against the earth, on its back a wild-eyed imp of war, unhelmeted, her
red hair whipping out behind. In her hand she waved a hunting spear, and
urged her men in a high, shrill scream that rang above the battle's
din--and the men came on as evil spirits drive. Downward they plunged,
to strike the Kurds with the shock of a thunder-bolt, to bore a ragged
pathway through the seething ruck; then turned and bored back again.
And now the hearts of the Kurds grew faint, and a scrambling rout began;
yet ere they could flee, the horsemen battered through their flank once
more, circled, and took them in their rear. The crescent steadied,
formed its line again, and spread to cut the Kurds' retreat; but Menon,
shouting words that were hoarse and strange, flung wisdom to the seven
winds, and charged.
Destruction dire might have come upon the enemy, but so long as he saw
that flaming head that rocked on a surf of reeling, blood-mad warriors,
he knew no thought save one--to reach Semiramis and be her shield. With
Huzim close behind he won his way through a tangle of plunging steeds
and men, but paused at last, to battle vainly at a human wall which he
might not pierce.
As it chanced, the Kurds were caught between two closing jaws which
pinched them as in a vice; yet full a third swarmed out at right and
left, to scurry away among the distant crags where none but snakes might
follow after.
The battle was done at last. A silence fell where the crash and roar of
carnage had resounded through the hills. The Assyrian footmen were
drawn in triple lines, and Menon recalled his horsemen who galloped far
and wide, impaling stragglers on their points. At last they came,
Semiramis in the lead, while behind her rode a soul-sick horseman, his
chin sunk low upon his breast. Kedah was he called, the captain in
whose command the reserve had been entrusted, and he who had charged
without his chieftain's word. In silence he dismounted; from his saddle
he produced a rope which he looped about his neck, then gave the end
into Menon's hand.
The Governor frowned darkly and his rage was deep; not that the officer
had charged without command, but because this underling had dared to
bring Semiramis into a raging, blood-bespattered pool of death.
"Speak, Kedah--the truth! Be brief!"
"My lord," replied the man, who thought himself about to die, "my lips
speak truth, as Belit watcheth me. I sat behind yon hill and waited for
the word to ride. I heard the tumult when the battle joined, and though
I yearned to come upon the dogs, I held my will in leash." The offender
paused, glanced backward at Semiramis, smiled, and spoke again: "Of a
sudden, my lord, this goddess dropped upon us from the clouds, for I
swear I saw her not till her grip was on mine arm and she cursed me in
mine ear. 'Fool!' she cried, 'why dawdle here when the great lord Menon
sweateth in the toils. At them, ye swine, or by the living gods I
charge alone!'"
Kedah paused, to shrug and spread his hands, palms upward.
"My lord, I came. I know not why I came--but came."
Another silence fell. The angered Governor looked from Kedah to
Semiramis. She sat her steed in the glory of a beauty dear to him; her
cheeks were flushed, her eyes aflame with battle-fires, her red locks
tumbling on a breast revealed, for her robe was rent and torn. Still
Menon's lips moved not; then Kedah raised his head, his fingers toying
nervously at his noose.
"My lord, I do perceive no tree in sight, yet, haply, further on--"
He stopped, for Semiramis loosed a ringing laugh and vaulted from the
back of Scimitar, to approach the chief without a sense of fear or
shame.
"My lord," said she, and pointed with her hunting spear, "if, in truth,
this sturdy warrior must hang, then first shalt thou hang Shammuramat."
She snatched the noose from Kedah's neck and laid it about her own.
"And harken, O Prince of Justice," she cried aloud, "in his throat this
fellow lieth! Aye, even to spare me thy reproof! It was I who
disobeyed, not he, for I told him I came at thine own command."
Now the lady had spoken no such thing, and, truly, it was as Kedah said;
yet the sweet lie joyed the hearts of the horsemen mightily, and a smile
ran rippling down the line. Presently Semiramis spoke again, humbly,
sadly, with her hands clasped tight, in the manner of a slave condemned
to die:
"My lord, I do perceive no tree in sight, yet, haply, further on--"
Then a roar of laughter burst from every rank, and even as it broke, so
yearned these men to break from their ordered lines, to hoist a
war-queen up and bear her on their harnessed backs, to shout her praise
aloud.
So Menon ceased to frown, for how could he hold his anger at a conqueror
of enemies and friends? Had she not saved his army and his very life
itself? What now! So he took her to his heart, though his heart was
sad. In a little space the tidings would leak abroad concerning this
warrior queen who was his wife, and because of love his soul grew dark
within him and was afraid.
On the homeward march Semiramis sought by many an art and wile to chase
away his gloom, but ever he would sigh and shake his head.
"Ah, love," he murmured, "now have we cut a link from out our chain of
happiness, for when my master learneth of this thing--"
"_Poof!_" she laughed. "'Twas worth a link or two of love; and even
though King Ninus naileth me against his wall, still will I have
thundered down that slope and tasted once of the wine of war. Smile,
Menon mine!"
And Menon smiled--in that she bade him smile.