STRONG AS DEATH
It is well known that secrets are not to be kept from princes, and that
for royal ears "the bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that
which hath wings shall tell the matter," however scrupulously it may be
hidden from curiosity of lower rank. Sarchedon's interview with Ishtar
had been witnessed by Sethos, who reported it, as in duty bound, to
Ninyas; and although that wilful youth, ignoring, according to custom,
everything running counter to her wishes, never mentioned it to his
mother, the whole affair came to her knowledge very soon after Semiramis
had quitted the apartments of her son. It may be that in Assyrian
palaces, below the surface of forms and ceremonies, stole an
under-current of interest, intrigue, and license, which, eddying upward
on occasion, troubled the courtly waters to the brim, and those who
lived habitually in an atmosphere of luxury and magnificence refused to
deny themselves certain relaxations of the heart or senses, that
relieved the peasant's toil, and sweetened his hard-earned fare.
Sethos was a comely youth with laughing eyes. Kalmim a black-browed
dame, joyous of temperament, and pleasant to look on as a summer's
morning. It was natural that the woman's maturer tact and greater
experience should lead the king's cup-bearer into confidences it had
been wiser to withhold; and whatever Kalmim learned of good or evil,
within or without the city walls, she lost no time in imparting to her
mistress.
Semiramis listened, to all appearance undisturbed. Only the most
practised of tire-women could have marked how the blue veins about her
temples traced themselves more distinctly, how the colour turned a shade
fainter in her cheek.
And yet what rage and self-contempt were tearing at her heart! That she,
whose wishes were daily anticipated almost before they were formed, who,
never since she arrived at woman's estate, and succeeded to her royal
inheritance of matchless beauty, had left a desire ungratified, should
find, here in Babylon, the citadel of her power, the very throne, as it
were, of her dominion, a man who could resist the one and undervalue the
other, preferring, to the Great Queen's favour, and such a destiny as
the mightiest monarch on earth might envy, the smile of a sickly girl,
the simple follies of a homely, humble, unpolluted love!
"Tire me nobly, Kalmim," said she, sitting before a mirror of burnished
silver, that reflected her faultless form from head to foot. "There must
be no crevice in mine armour to-day--not a fold must be ruffled, not a
plait laid awry, since I go hence straightway into the presence of my
lord the king." Thus to her woman, but to her own heart: "He will be on
duty about the gates. He shall see how fair that face is he has dared to
despise, and look on the beauty he undervalues, till he turns faint and
sick and dizzy in its rays. I will crush him to the earth, and when he
sues at my feet for the hope I bade him but yesterday to entertain, I
will turn coldly away, and leave him to perish like a trampled worm. But
he shall not go to this girl for comfort in his despair--no, he shall
die! I have said it; he shall die! O Sarchedon, Sarchedon, I could not
hate you so bitterly, did I not love you so well!"
And all the while not a quiver moved her eyelid, nor caused her jewelled
hand to shake, while it smoothed the soft dark hair on her brow; the
fair bosom itself, white, smooth, and polished, seemed also hard and
motionless as marble. How different, the thought struck her, as she rose
to depart--how different was that stately figure sweeping past the
mirror from the flushed and panting woman, who, with shining eyes and
heated cheeks, and dewy lips apart, had bent over the sleeping form of
Sarchedon, to drop her love-token in the breast of him on whom she had
set her heart! And yet, could it be because she had lost him, she asked
herself, with fierce rage and longing, that he was a hundredfold more
precious now?
There are women whom it is very dangerous to love, as in Eden there
stood a tree that it was death to taste. But the forbidden fruit was
gathered nevertheless; and these beauties seem to allure more than their
share of victims, to win more than their natural meed of triumph.
Perhaps it is their destiny to avenge on mankind the common wrongs of
their sex, and to fall at last by the very weapons they have wielded so
successfully in their march over a host of slain.
The old king's eyes were dim, and his senses failed him perceptibly, as
life waned gradually, yet surely, like an unfed lamp, or a leaking
vessel of wine. The pomp of royalty, the joy of battle, the feast, the
pageant, the bright steel quivering in his grasp, the good horse
bounding between his knees, what were they all now but shadows,
memories, vague, idle dreams of the past? Was this the hand, he was fain
to ask himself, that drew the heaviest bow in the broad land of Shinar,
the arm that could drive a javelin through and through the lion's heart?
Yonder upon the wall was sculptured many a deed of prowess, many a noble
triumph of warfare or the chase. Warriors in long array were marching to
the battle or the siege; archers bent their bows, slingers and spearmen
smote and slew and spared not; horsemen galloped, chariots rolled, and
vultures soared over heaps of corpses. A bank was raised against a city,
the battering-ram laid to its gates, while amidst a shower of arrows and
javelins men were falling headlong from its walls to feed the fishes in
the river below.
Again, linked in a cruel chain, the line of captives paced slowly by,
bearing on their shoulders children, household stuff and goods, equally
the spoil of their conqueror. The men marched sullenly, with downcast
looks; the women beat their breasts and tore their hair. Here, with hook
in his victim's nostrils, or knife to flay his naked flesh, a fierce
warrior tortured some poor suppliant slave. There, proffering for a
tribute the productions of his country--garments, gold, grain, animals
wild and tame--some cringing wretch implored mercy at the feet of his
executioner. But amongst all these scenes of strife, glory, and rapine,
one figure still predominated, tall, fierce, and stately, the high tiara
bound about its brows, bow and spear in hand; but, whether careering in
the war-chariot over prostrate enemies, or sitting on the throne of
state under the royal parasol, there was still poised above its head the
winged mystery within a circle that heralded the sacred person of a
king.
Could this be the same Ninus, he asked himself, whose limbs, so stiff
and aching, now endured his silken robes with less patience than once
they had carried his iron harness, whose head wavered and nodded on the
lean neck that was once a tower of strength, proud, erect, colossal,
like a column of stone?
And that winged figure in the circle. What was it? Did it really hover
over them to protect the race of Nimrod in battle, or was this too a
myth, a fable, a mere imposition of the priests? Should he know when he
went to join his ancestors? and would it be long--how long!--ere he took
his place among the stars?
There was not much to leave, after all! The wild bull had been driven
from the plains, and could be found in no nearer fastness than the
northern mountains now. He had himself exterminated the lion within the
paradise round his palace, and it was weary work to ride in search of
him over the scorching desert. Even the rush of battle was not what it
used to be. Where were the men of the olden time, such as the champion
he slew in Bactria, who stood two palms' breadths higher than the
tallest warrior of either host, leaning on their spears to witness the
single combat between a giant and a king? Or that fierce Ethiopian in
the first Egyptian campaign, whom Pharaoh's chief counsellor had made
captain of his armies for his matchless valour, and whose sturdy assault
caused Ninus to reel and stagger where he stood, ere the swarthy
swordsman went down under the buffets of the Great King, then in the
vigour of his prime? But in his last expedition the armies of Egypt
seemed to give way without a struggle before his spear, and it was
hardly worth while to bid his chariot driver turn his hand into the
press of battle. Even the wine of Eshcol was tasteless now; the wine of
Damascus worse, and the feast had become loathsome to him as the fray.
He was weary of it all, could give it up without a regret, but for the
queen.
Feeling, in spite of his angry protest against his own misgivings, that
the link which bound them together grew slighter every day--that, like a
frayed bowstring, it must snap at last, and leave her free,--the love in
his fierce old heart began to be tinged with a savage and unreasoning
jealousy, such as made him intolerant of every glance she directed at
another, of every moment she was absent from his side. He had summoned
her to his presence with all those forms and observances, the necessary
ceremonial of royalty, which chafed him now more than ever; and in his
impatience he bade the light-footed Sethos hurry to and fro to see if
the queen and her train of attendants were not yet at the gates,
although from where he sat in his throne of state he could command a
noble approach, some furlongs in length, through double lines of
colossal monsters, leading to the wide entrance of his palace.
A jewelled cup, filled to the brim, stood neglected at his hand. Ever
and anon he stormed at Sethos because the wine had lost its flavour, and
the queen tarried so long.
"I could put on and prove ten suits of harness," said the angry old
monarch, "in less time than it takes a woman to tire her head! And yet
one hair of that comely head is surely better worth preserving than the
whole of this worn-out body of mine, that hath scarce strength left to
draw a bow or empty a cup. Saw you not, Sethos, how fair she looked on
the wall above us when we rode in, slender and pliant like a spear
bending beneath a truss of forage? Who was attending her, boy? My memory
halts and fails me now worse than a ham-strung steed."
"Kalmim, my lord," answered the cup-bearer, "with certain of the women,
and Sarchedon."
He was too good a courtier to mention Assarac, dreading the storm a
priest's name was likely to bring down in the king's present mood.
"Sarchedon," repeated Ninus--"one of my own guards. A stout warrior
enough, in the boy's play we call fighting now, and a comely
youth--ruddy and comely as a maid. How came he absent from his duty in
the ranks?"
"He had been sent by my lord from the host with the Great King's signet
to the queen," was the reply. "He has remained in attendance on her ever
since."
The old face turned gray with some hidden pang, and the blood-shot eyes
rolled savage under their shaggy brows.
"By the beard of Nimrod, I will take better order with these golden
guards of mine!" exclaimed the king. "Do they think, because Pharaoh and
his bowmen are no longer flying before my chariot, I have beaten my
sword into a pruning-hook, and have forgotten how to mount a war-chariot
or set a company in array? Where is this deserter now?"
"He is on duty at the great entrance," was the respectful answer. "My
lord the king may see him from where he sits."
Sarchedon, in truth, with a handful of his comrades, was on guard at the
palace gate, conspicuous even amongst those goodly warriors by the
beauty of his person and the splendour of his attire.
Ere the king could summon him to his presence, his attention was
diverted by the approach of his wife, followed by the women of her
household; a fair and fragrant company, that wound through the avenues
of winged bulls and colossal monsters, like a growth of wild flowers
trailing across the surface of a rock.
The king's eyes were not too dim to mark every movement of the woman he
loved. His old heart began to beat faster and the blood stirred in his
veins.
How fair and noble was the bearing of that shapely figure, as it glided
on with the measured step that became her so well! How delicate and
beautiful the pale face! so easily recognised even at a distance from
which its features could not be distinguished, and bringing back to him
as it was unveiled now, on entering her husband's dwelling, that
well-remembered morning in Bactria, when she rode into the camp serene
and radiant, like a star dropped down from heaven.
What was this? He started, and half rose from his throne; for she had
paused amongst the guards, and one of them had fallen on his face at her
feet.
Semiramis, who was above all the forms and ceremonies that trammelled
weaker natures, breaking through them at will in court, camp, or
palace, had resolved to take signal vengeance on Sarchedon whenever she
should see him, careless alike whether they met in the desert, on the
house-top, or here in the formidable presence of the king. She knew how
to stab him too, and determined, at whatever cost to her own feelings,
she would drive her thrust home.
How beautiful he looked, standing there in his golden helmet, with the
scarlet-bordered mantle falling from his shoulders, and the white tunic
reaching to his knee! Not Menon, she thought, when he wooed her by the
silver lake that mirrored the towers of Ascalon, was half so fair; but
Menon loved her dearly, while this man--well, she would make him eat the
hardest morsel, drink the bitterest waters of affliction, and afterward
he should die. What would be left her then? The love of this old dotard,
the hollow pageantry, the empty pleasures, the heavy magnificence of a
court. How she loathed them all! And what good would it do her even to
attain supreme power if she must rule alone, without companionship,
without sympathy, without love?
She had wavered in her purpose a hundred times ere she stepped as many
paces. She was inflexible when she bade Sarchedon come forward from the
line of his comrades, irresolute while he advanced and pitiless once
more as he prostrated himself at her feet.
"You are entitled to ask a request," said she, very coldly and
haughtily, "as having borne hither the signet of my lord the king. It is
my part to intercede with him in your favour, and the old custom in our
land of Shinar bids him grant your desire, even to the half of his
kingdom."
His eyes lightened with pleasure, and her heart turned to stone. Yet
even in that moment she marked that he still wore her amulet round his
neck.
The name of Ishtar was on his lips, but some instinct of the palace--it
may be something in the queen's face--forbade him to pronounce it. He
had wit enough to bow his forehead in the dust, and to answer,
"I do but desire the light of her countenance, and permission to abide
in the service of the Great Queen."
She was not deceived by his submission, though her eyes shone with a
softer lustre while she continued, "Is there no treasure you covet, no
post of honour you desire, no maiden in the whole land of Shinar you
would fain take home with you to your tent?"
"I may not lift mine eyes to Ashtaroth," was his cautious reply. "If I
must needs choose from among the flowers of earth, I would beg of the
Great Queen to give me Ishtar, the daughter of Arbaces."
She was ready with her blow. Looking him full in the face, with the calm
pitiless smile of one who puts some wounded reptile out of pain--
"It is too late," she said, in hard cutting accents. "The damsel has
been promised to my son. Even now the prince is lifting her veil to
salute his bride!"
In his agony he fell forward, grasping the queen's robe wildly in his
hand.
The Great King sprang to his feet, his beard bristling, his very
eyebrows shaking with ungovernable anger. For a space he could not even
find voice to speak. Then he burst out,
"By the blood of Nisroch, it is too much! He has laid hands on the queen
before my very face! Were he flesh of my loins and bone of my body, he
should be consumed to ashes. Ho, guards, away with him! Cover his face
and lead him forth!"
A score of hands grasped the offender, a score of spears were pointed at
his breast. Though it was her own act, nay, _because_ it was her own
act, a strong revulsion of feeling caused the queen's stately form to
shake from head to foot: and in that supreme moment she swore to her own
turbulent heart that, come what might, even to the fall of the Assyrian
empire, Sarchedon should _not_ die!
She passed swiftly to the throne, and lifting the king's sceptre, laid
one end of it against her forehead, while she placed the other in his
hand.
"My lord," she said, "this is the feast of Baal. It is not lawful to
slay an Assyrian born during the worship of the great Assyrian god."
There shone a red light in the king's eyes that meant death, and the
foam stood on his lip. When he looked thus, it was in vain to sue for
pardon. Nevertheless, he passed his wrinkled hand over the fair brow of
the woman kneeling at his feet.
"Be it so," said Ninus. "To-morrow he shall die at sunrise. The king
hath spoken."
Then the guards looked furtively in each other's faces; for all men knew
from such a judgment there was no appeal, in such a sentence no hope of
mercy or reprieve.