A BANQUET OF WINE
On the first night of his return from conquest, it was customary for an
Assyrian king, his captains, and chief officers of state to be received
by his consort with a banquet, offered to their special entertainment.
The stars were already out, the moon was rising from the desert, when a
thousand torches, flaring on the summer night, lit up the central court
of the royal residence with a fierce red glow, vivid as the light of
day. It brought out in strange grotesque relief the gigantic sculptures
on the wall, till winged bull, man-faced lion, and eagle-headed deity
seemed but fleeting flickering shadows, that moved, threatened, and
retired as the night breeze rose and fell. It played in variegated hues
on the columns of porphyry and jaspar that supported the upper story,
blackening the remote recesses of its lofty chambers, while marble
pillar, shaft of alabaster, carving, cornice, and capital blushed in
crimson flame. It shed a ruddier lustre on wine, fruit, and flowers, the
rich profusion of a royal table, glittering from massive chalice and
ancient flagon, blazing in jewelled cup and vase of burnished gold. The
brilliant gems, the costly robes, the stately figures of those noble
guests, were enhanced tenfold by its power; while the king's wan face
showed paler, fiercer, ghastlier than ever, in that strong searching
glare.
The procession had been long, the triumph protracted and wearisome;
sacrifices offered, not ungrudgingly, to the gods, had delayed him with
observances he loathed, ceremonials he despised; and Ninus had been in
the saddle since daybreak. It was not strange then that Arbaces, his
chief captain, sitting over against him, should have felt his heart sink
while he looked on the ashy war-worn face, from which he had so often
gathered counsel and resource, picturing to himself that he saw a dead
monarch presiding, stark and grim, at his own funeral feast.
The king sat for a while with his head sunk on his breast, to all
appearance thoroughly out-wearied and overcome; but after Sethos had
filled his cup more than once, a feeble light came into his eyes, while
he glared around with a haughty air of inquiry, that seemed rather to
threaten the absent than welcome those who were present at his festival.
He looked sternly satisfied, however, with the number and importance of
his guests--men who formed the props of his throne and the very bulwarks
of his empire. There was Arbaces, captain of the host, firm in position
as in character, a sage counsellor, a skilful leader, and a stout man of
war in close fight, hand to hand; there was Sargon, his shield-bearer,
who slew before the gates of Memphis, in single combat, seven Egyptian
champions, one by one, and vowed in the hearing of both armies, that as
he had sacrificed these to the Seven Stars, so would he take life after
life from the host of Pharaoh till the Consulting Gods, the Judges of
the World, and each of the Assyrian deities, had been propitiated with a
victim. Scowling and silent, Sargon sat apart at the banquet; and a keen
eye, scanning him warily and by stealth, noted the seal of murder set
upon his brow.
There was Assarac too, the scheming priest, unwarlike indeed in form and
nature, yet owning a more daring spirit, a more enduring courage, than
the fiercest archer who ever drew bow from a war-chariot--Assarac,
present in virtue of his office to pour out drink-offerings, to peer
into the divining cup if required, above all, to watch with jealous
supervision the temper and opinions of those who surrounded the king.
Though aware that Ninus disliked, suspected, and would have put him to
death without scruple, his eye never quailed, nor did his speech falter;
and when he raised his goblet, filled to its brim, the eunuch's hand was
firm and steady as a rock.
These last-named persons, with the older leaders and captains of ten
thousand, were placed near the king; but scores of younger warriors,
rising in fame, comely in person, and splendid in apparel, thronged the
lower and more noisy extremity of the board. Over these, amongst whom
Sarchedon was not the least remarkable, presided Ninyas, distinguished
no less for his beautiful face and magnificent attire than for his deep
draughts, reckless hilarity, and boisterous freedom of discourse.
"Once more in Babylon," said he, "after months of toil and heat, and
worst of all, that torturing thirst! After those weary marches by day,
those endless watches by night, welcome to the land of palm and
pomegranate, peace and plenty, women and wine! What say you, Sarchedon?
Well, I trow that, being of his guard, your duty bids you echo the Great
King. The old lion cannot hear you where you sit; you may speak the
truth freely as if you were reading the Seven Stars. Confess, now. None
but a fool would go forth in warfare who could stay to revel and sleep
at home."
Sarchedon, though familiar with camps, was also no stranger to the
usages of a palace.
"My lord did not seem of so peaceful a mind," he answered, "while he
drove his war-chariot through the archers who lined her vineyards when
we invested the city of Pasht, or it had cost us a weary siege ere we
broke in pieces the idols of the Cat!"
"Well said, Sarchedon!" was the vain-glorious reply. "Why did we not
push on, as I advised? By the gods of my fathers, I swear to you, that
if Ninyas had been your leader but for one week, rather than the Great
King, he would have left the Ethiopians to lose themselves amongst the
marches in our rear, fought a pitched battle on the plain by the sweet
river, and you and I would have been drinking wine of Eshcol in the
palace of Pharaoh at this moment."
It may be that Sarchedon had his own opinion of the strategy which
should have conduced to so triumphant a result. He answered gravely
enough:
"My lord confessed even now that he was far better in the palaces of
Babylon. Is he not satisfied with the spoil, the captives, and the
cheers of the people? They lifted up their voices when he passed to-day
as it had been great Nimrod himself."
"The lazy drones!" laughed his well-pleased listener. "When I come to
rule, they shall have something more to do than shout, I promise them.
Reach me that flagon, I pray you--nay, hold! I am like my scoffing old
sire, in one respect at least--I pour all drink-offerings down my own
throat! No; what pleased me best to-day was neither spoil nor glory nor
the voices of fools. It was the face of a maiden sweeter than the
honeysuckle and fairer than the rose. Did you not mark her Sarchedon? or
were you so busy in attendance on the queen, my mother, that you had
eyes for none beside?"
Stifling the hideous misgivings that rose like a flood in his heart,
Sarchedon answered with forced calmness:
"My lord must have passed to-day under the glances of a thousand
damsels, and every one his handmaid. The comeliest of all were standing
behind Kalmim, in attendance on the Great Queen."
"You are blind! by the beak of Nisroch, you must be blind!" exclaimed
the excitable young prince. "Take Kalmim herself--for when she has tired
her head and painted her eyes she is the best of them, since the queen
loves not too much beauty so near her own--but take Kalmim, I say, and
tell me whether she shows not like a camel beside a courser when you
compare her with the daughter of Arbaces. O! never bend your brows and
look so scared towards the chief captain. He cannot hear us up there;
and, by the belt of Ashur, the king's voice raised in anger is enough to
deafen a man in both ears! What can have chafed the old lion to make him
roar so fiercely, even over his food?"
In truth, the deep harsh tones of Ninus, loud and overbearing, were
heard above the ring of flagons, the clatter of tongues, all the din
that accompanies a feast--even above the vibration of the lyre, the roll
of the drum, the soft sweet music floating on the night air from an
unseen gallery, far off amongst the pillared corridors that surrounded
the open court.
Like the lion to which his graceless son compared him, Ninus was lashing
himself into rage. His theme was the rapacity of priests, and, to use
his own words, the extortions of the gods.
"Ten thousand of you!" roared the old warrior, turning fiercely on
Assarac, of whom he had asked a question relating to certain details of
the day's pageant. "Ten thousand demons! and for Baal alone. By the
beard of Nimrod, he should be better served than any of us his
descendants, who must needs feed the hungry swarming brood. And you
would have me believe that there are gods as many as stars in heaven?
Hear him, Arbaces! You and I have set armies in array ere this, so
strong that our trumpets in the centre carried no sound to the horsemen
on the wings; but if we are to have a thousand gods, and every god ten
thousand priests, it will pass your skill and mine to devise how such a
multitude may be ranged in order of battle. And one company of my bowmen
would put them all to flight ere you could ride a furlong! Ten thousand
priests of Baal! Ten thousand vultures tearing at a dead carcass! I trow
there will be little left for the desert-falcon that struck the prey.
You read the stars, forsooth, and can foretell the future easily as I
can forget the past! Go to! Will you compute me the share of spoil I am
likely to assign to-morrow for your entertainment and the altars of your
gods?"
Without compromising one jot of his own dignity, the wily eunuch's
answer was yet temperate and respectful to the Great King.
"My lord is himself the child of Ashur and of Baal--the father gives
freely to the son, requiring only honour and reverence in return."
"Fill my cup!" thundered the king to Sethos, who ministered hastily to
his wants. "I have not found it so," he continued, harping still on the
theme that thus chafed him. "The honour and reverence I pay them
willingly, though they keep me standing long enough in their temples,
and, perhaps because they sit so far off, it seems hard to make them
hear. But if honour and reverence are to signify, sheep and oxen, wine,
jewels, raiment of needlework and heaps of treasure, they have had their
share from Ninus--henceforth I will follow the example of those poor
slaves we found in Egypt, the captives of our captives, who worship but
one God, and offer him neither silver nor gold!"
"Therefore are they but servants to the servants of my lord the king,"
replied Assarac, unabashed by the frowns of Ninus and the open derision
of certain veterans, who took their creed from their leader, as they
took their orders--without comment or inquiry.
"Prate not to me!" was the angry answer; "I have scores of them down
yonder bound in the outer court amongst my Egyptian captives. I cannot
tell, Arbaces, what hinders me now, this moment, from sending you with a
handful of spearmen to clear his temple of its white-robed locusts, and
drive in these strangers, Egyptians and all, to worship Baal in their
stead."
The chief captain, who to certain scruples of religion added those of
custom, policy, and propriety, would have ventured on expostulation; but
Assarac interposed.
"The gods, thy fathers, who look upon us to-night!" said he, in a stern
loud voice, that awed even Ninyas and the younger revellers into
attention while he pointed gravely upward where the stars were shining
down in their eternal splendour on all the royal magnificence and
glittering profusion of that feast in the open court.
At the same moment, sweeping round the outer walls of the palace,
vibrating through its long corridors and lofty painted chambers, there
rose a cry, so wild, so pitiful, so unearthly, that it arrested the
goblet in each man's hand, froze the jest on his lip, and curdling the
blood in his veins, caused him to sit mute and petrified, as if turned
to stone.
The Great King started, and bade Arbaces summon up his guard; but
Assarac's voice was heard once more, solemn and majestic in its notes of
warning and reproach.
"The gods, thy fathers!" he repeated, looking Ninus sternly in the face,
"who have spared the blasphemer, but visited his sin on the innocent
cause thereof. Hear those Egyptian prisoners mourning for a comrade this
moment passed away, wearied and out-worn by a toilsome march to the
house of his captivity, stricken and thrust through by the iron that has
entered into his soul!"
It was indeed such a wail of bereavement and despair as was to rise
hereafter through all its length and breadth in the land of the South,
because of the terrible punishment that visited her people, "from
Pharaoh that sat on the throne to the captive that was in the
dungeon"--on that awful night, the climax of successive judgments, when
"there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where there
was not one dead."
As these long-drawn notes of woe swelled, sank, and swelled again, the
king's first emotions of horror were succeeded by a fresh outbreak of
wrath. It might have gone hard with the sorrowing herd of captives, and
perhaps not one had been left to mourn for another, but that the old
lion's fury, redoubled by its momentary check, was at this juncture
wholly diverted and appeased. A burst of music, so loud, so full, so
jubilant, that it drowned all other noises in its grand triumphant
swell, announced the entrance of Semiramis; and like the Queen of Heaven
rising from the dark back-ground of night, this Queen of Assyria,
blazing in jewels, and robed in the light of her incomparable beauty,
stood forth a shining vision from the black shadows of the gateway, to
move with stately step and slow through long lines of admiring
revellers, ere she made her royal obeisance before the throne of gold,
where sat the Great King. While she traversed the lower end of the
court, Assyria's chosen warriors, the goodliest men of all the East,
rose from the board and bent them low in courtly reverence, like a bed
of garden-flowers doing homage to the south wind as it passes by. With a
mother's love and a queen's dignity, she laid her hand on the shoulder
of her son Ninyas, while he bowed himself before her; but it was a
feeling stronger than the one, and but little in accordance with the
other, that bade her pause by the side of Sarchedon and whisper tenderly
in his ear.
He started, colouring to his temples--two or three young warriors
glanced enviously at their favoured comrade; but it was dangerous to
observe too narrowly the motions of royalty, and each man fixed his eyes
in deep humility on the hem of her garment as Semiramis moved proudly
on.
Ninus stirred uneasily where he sat. He would fain have risen to meet
his queen, and taken her in his gaunt embrace to the fierce old heart
that knew no other want; but such an innovation was not to be thought of
even by the conqueror of the East, and he could only reach towards her
the golden sceptre that lay on a cushion at his feet.
While she pressed it to her fair white brow, there came a light in the
old king's haggard face that told of the loving spark too often kindled
but to be quenched in sorrow, the blind trust born to be betrayed, the
fond unreasoning pride in another that goeth before a fall.
This final ceremony broke up the banquet. With loud peals of music, the
king and queen, waited on by their personal attendants, betook them to
their respective dwellings, between which ran the Euphrates, though
under the broad river a tunnelled passage afforded free communication
from one to the other. Arbaces and Sargon followed closely behind their
lord, as Kalmim and her group of women accompanied the queen. Ninyas,
pushing round a mighty flagon, called Sethos to his side, and swore he
would not stir till midnight; an intention loudly applauded by many of
the younger revellers, who gathered joyously round their prince. In the
change of places that ensued, Sarchedon made his escape from the
banquet, hastening through the outer gates to cool his brow in the night
air, while he communed with his own perplexed aspiring heart.
The queen's soft breath seemed still upon his neck, her whisper
thrilling in his ear. What could she mean? "Follow the shaft! Fly on,
fly upward!" Was it possible? Could the stars have written for him such
a destiny as these words seemed to imply, or was he deceiving himself
like a fool? And how was this upward flight to be accomplished? A
thousand wild impossible longings and fancies filled his brain, but
shining calmly through them all, like the moon amidst clouds and
storm-wrack veiling a troubled sea, rose the gentle image of the girl he
really loved. Could he give her up? Must it so soon come to an end,
this dream, so short, so sweet, so cruel in its hour of waking? At any
risk he was resolved to see her once again; that very night, that very
hour, before the gods had time to cast his lot for him without recall.
He hurried, like a ghost, through the shadows of the silent courts
towards the palace of Arbaces.
But Ninyas, while he filled cup and emptied flagon, by no means lost
sight of those interests and pleasures which, in his royal opinion,
constituted the chief advantages of his station as a prince. Sarchedon
had not moved ten paces from his seat to leave the revellers, ere the
king's son whispered to the king's cup-bearer, "Follow him, Sethos. A
wise hunter never loses sight of his hound till he pulls down the deer."