GONE TO THE STARS
Bowed in the dust, his heart torn with anguish, as his mantle was rent
from hem to hem, Arbaces grovelled on his chamber floor, blind to the
shades of coming night, deaf to the sounds of sacred riot and religious
festivity that rang through all the city round. He was like a man in a
trance; and yet, though such noises were powerless to rouse his
faculties, they woke at once to a distant echo, that his practised ear
knew for the tramp of an armed party, to a faint familiar music his
fighting instincts warned him was the clink of steel.
With one spring he leaped to his feet, snatched spear and shield from
the wall, drew his sword-belt tighter round his loins; and so, with
prospect of danger and necessity for action, felt he was a man again.
Brave and wary, he ran on to a terrace of his palace which overlooked
the court. His heart sank to perceive that it was already filled with
spearmen, amongst whom two or three white-robed priests of Baal were
conspicuous. Something told him then that his enemies were upon him.
Remembering his fidelity to his old warrior lord, and the hostility he
had never shrunk from provoking in that monarch's service, he knew, even
while he recognised the spearmen as belonging to the queen's army, that
some powerful conspiracy was in the ascendant, and he must die. At the
same instant came across him the warning that Ishtar had read in his
divining cup, under the semblance of blood.
They were in the court; they were crowding to the staircase. The only
chance of saving his daughter was to make such a desperate stand before
the women's apartments as should give her time to escape by the terrace
on the roof to an adjoining dwelling, and thence fly to take refuge.
Where? Not in the temple of Baal; not in the palace of Semiramis. No,
the last hope of safety must lie under the roof of the Great King.
Most of the retainers were absent, partaking in the festivities of the
night. Half a score or so gathered round him on the stairs, and of these
he must dispatch one to warn Ishtar that they were assailed.
Even in that anxious moment he remembered how, long ago, he had held a
pass in Bactria, though sore out-numbered, and the Great King said it
was well and bravely done.
They called on him to surrender. They must search his palace, said
their leader--one who had formerly been under his own command, whom he
recognised as a bold, remorseless, and desperate man.
"You have no authority," replied Arbaces, eager but to gain time, minute
by minute. "I am chief captain of all his hosts, under my lord the
king."
The other was prompt and resolute enough.
"May the king live for ever!" said he mechanically; adding, in short
sharp tones, "Open out, spearmen! Advance, archers, and bend your bows!"
The front rank of spears stepped aside, unmasking a line of bowmen, with
every weapon drawn to the arrow's head.
To pause was instant death. Arbaces raised his buckler, leaped down the
staircase, and dashed into their midst.
At first, archers and spearmen gave way before the assault of that
practised warrior; but what was one in the midst of scores who had sworn
to put him to death? With a gash from temple to chin, with a spear-head
in his body, a javelin through his thigh, he fell where he had been
lying when they roused him, under the very feet of his own image,
sculptured on the wall to celebrate his fame.
An arm was raised to strike, the angry steel quivered above his head;
nevertheless that threatening spearman had followed Arbaces to victory
more than once, and he would have forborne to slay his old leader, had
he dared. But a hoarse voice rose, fierce and savage, above the din.
"Strike," it said, "and spare not! Baal hath spoken, and the stars
cannot lie!"
The pitiless words came from a priest whose white robes hovered on the
skirts of the encounter. They were followed by a downward thrust, a gush
of blood, and a hollow groan. Turning on his face to die, Arbaces gasped
a few broken syllables. The spearman who slew him, less remorseful now,
like a wild-beast that has tasted blood, heard them many a night
afterwards in his dreams, though they only murmured, "The king hath
spoken. O king, live for ever!"
Panting, pale, beside herself with fear, Ishtar had taken refuge, as her
father bade, on the roof of the palace, with the intention of escaping
thence into the street. At the very spot where she had met Sarchedon,
watched a cloaked figure, and her heart leapt for one wild moment with
the thought that the man she loved had dropped from the skies to save
her at her need. Ere she could perceive he was not unattended, almost
before she was conscious of her illusion, she found her arms pinioned, a
shawl cast over her head, and herself borne forcibly away on stalwart
shoulders, while a sweet soft voice whispering terms of passionate
endearment in her ears, left no doubt as to the object and results of
the outrage to which she was exposed.
Blindfold, gagged, half-stifled, she scarcely felt she was carried
rapidly down several steps into the street ere she became unconscious.
With the fresh air outside the walls, her senses returned, and she knew
by its sidelong pace and the rate at which it travelled that she was
riding a powerful dromedary, docile as an ox, swift as a courser, and to
all appearance no more sensible of fatigue than a boat.
Then a horror of despair came over her; for she felt that those two she
loved best in the world must be lost to her for ever. Had Arbaces been
alive he would have rescued her. In such a captivity as seemed imminent,
how was she ever to set eyes on Sarchedon again? The shawl was still
round her head; but its folds had been loosened, so that she might
breathe more freely; and she could perceive the soft surface of the
desert sand passing beneath her, as she glided on smooth and noiseless
like a ghost. Utterly broken down, she bowed her head on her knees in an
agony of despair; and still that whisper stole into her ear at
intervals, with its hateful protestations of a love she loathed and an
admiration she despised.
So she journeyed into the desert, while her father lay dead in the court
of his palace, and her lover sought her wildly, hurrying to and fro in a
paroxysm of grief and fear.
Once, in an early stage of her fearful journey, she was conscious that
the dromedary had been urged to its utmost speed. She fancied, too, that
she could distinguish shouts, and other sounds of strife. Muffled and
confused, it was fortunate for her that she did not know their cause.
With the first shades of evening, Sarchedon had taken advantage of the
darkness to escape. He had no difficulty in finding an egress from the
temple of Baal; nor did he meet with any interruption from the priests,
who, busied in their several offices, bore without exception an air of
considerable excitement and preoccupation. One figure indeed he passed,
wrapped in a mantle that completely shrouded face and form, of which
there was something feminine in the graceful outlines, though the height
was as the height of a man. It never moved, nor seemed aware of his
presence, when he glided by, remaining in an attitude of profound
meditation, conscious only of its own engrossing train of thought. Could
he have seen the beautiful face, so fixed and rigid, behind that veil,
could he have read the purpose burning under that gentle brow, he would
have fled from the Great Queen in horror and loathing, faster even than
he hurried towards Ishtar in anxiety and hope. No sooner was he clear of
the temple than his spirits rose, his energy returned, and his project
of escaping from Babylon with her he loved while there was yet time grew
to a fierce over-mastering desire, like that of a man who is suffocating
for the air which is his life.
Hastening to his home, he made ready Merodach for a journey, and bridled
the good horse with his own hands; then took his way through the city,
now ablaze with innumerable torches and ringing with sounds of festival,
towards the palace of Arbaces.
But the streets swarmed with revellers, and his progress was necessarily
slow. When he arrived at the well-known dwelling, it was too late.
The dead body of the chief captain lay stark and grim where it had
fallen. The servants had fled, the place was empty, and Ishtar nowhere
to be found.
In such a catastrophe the first impulse of a brave man seems to be one
of resistance and defiance, as though his combative instincts were
aroused, and he could face his fate more calmly because he feels the
worst has come at last. Cool and collected, Sarchedon soon satisfied
himself that the woman he loved had been carried away by force from her
father's dwelling; and a few cautious questions in the streets enabled
him to discover the gate by which she had left the town.
Little by little he learned the maddening truth, and traced her through
the gardens and vineyards that surrounded the city walls into the
desert. Once on the sand, with a rising moon to help him, he could track
the footmarks of her dromedary surely as the bloodhound tracks a wounded
deer. He had not travelled many furlongs ere he came up with a small
band of wayfarers, plodding on their patient asses into the wilderness,
and recognised the Israelite whom Assarac had released, and to whom,
during his captivity in the camp of the Assyrians, Sarchedon had himself
done more than one slight service.
He reined in his horse, and learnt that a party such as he was in search
of had passed them not long before. There were scarce half a score; they
were armed; they travelled fast; their horses were of the noblest breed,
and the dromedary in their midst seemed to have the wings of the desert
wind. Had he not better tarry with his informants where they meant to
encamp till morning? He would never overtake those whom he pursued.
For the first time that night he smiled while he patted Merodach's neck,
and put the good horse into a gallop once more.
Stretching on with that long untiring stride, he was aware of a solitary
horseman wandering aimlessly towards him, and riding at a foot's pace.
For all ages it has been a true saying, that he whom one meets in the
desert must be friend or foe. Sarchedon bore down on the other, and
halting in front of him, discovered, to his great surprise, that it was
Sethos.
The cup-bearer, who accompanied Ninyas on his fictitious lion-hunt
outside the walls, had taken the earliest opportunity of leaving his
young prince, when the latter rode back at sundown to the city.
Impressed by the vague warning of Beladon, he had followed as far as he
could the advice it accompanied, and turned his horse's head towards the
desert, as directed by his friend.
But it was not in the nature of Sethos to persevere for any length of
time in a course requiring sustained energy or self-denial. The fatigue
of the long ride before him soon suggested itself painfully to his mind.
Babylon with all her charms allured him irresistibly, now that he had
really turned his back on her temptations; Kalmim's dark eyes seemed to
plead with his own inclinations against an abandonment of courtly life,
an exchange of luxury and pleasure for hardship and privation.
It was not long before he guided his willing horse back towards the
city, and so, pacing leisurely through the cool night air, came against
his friend, galloping in fiery haste on his errand of life and death.
"Have you seen them?" exclaimed Sarchedon, pale, fierce, and breathless.
"Shall I catch them? How long have they gone past?"
"Seen what?" asked Sethos in turn, marvelling at the other's disturbed
looks and wild imploring eyes.
In a hoarse whisper, in the low quick accents of a desperate man,
Sarchedon briefly described the party of which he was in pursuit.
"If it was daylight, they would be in sight even, now," replied the
other; and was entering into a long description of the dromedary's
extraordinary speed and powers, which he had not failed to observe,
although the little band had passed him at a pace which forbade his
identifying those who composed it, when Sarchedon, giving his
bridle-reins a shake, went away again in more furious haste than before,
neither wishing him farewell, nor thanking him for tidings that seemed
so welcome and yet so sad.
"A woman," thought Sethos, nodding sagely, and thinking he would be back
with Kalmim by to-morrow's dawn--"a woman must needs be the cause of all
this turmoil. Surely there is wormwood with the honey, and a two-edged
sword in the scabbard of velvet and gold."
But when did such pithy saws ever preserve a man from foolish deeds? Or
where is the armour of proof to fence his heart from a pair of soft
eyes, the mantle of wisdom that is not shrivelled to shreds in the
breath of a burning sigh? Sethos rode steadily back to Babylon, and
Sarchedon galloped on into the desert, like a falcon stooping for its
prey.
Piercing as were his eager eyes, sharpened of love and hate and fear, he
was aware, by the swelling of Merodach's proud neck and the horse's
voluntary increase of speed, that they were nearing the object of
pursuit long ere his sight could distinguish certain dusky shadows
flying like vapours before him, but looming larger as his gallant
war-horse gained on them with every stride.
"Merodach," he muttered, "king of horses, you are worthy of your name!"
Then, in husky frantic tones he shrieked out: "Stand, cowards, stand!"
They were within ear-shot, and the dromedary was forced to its utmost
speed; but a horseman wheeled round, and halted not a bowshot from his
approaching enemy, supported by a follower, who bore his shield.
"It is a spirit," said the latter; "it is Abitur of the Mountains!"
"Fool, keep your arm down and cover me," replied the other, while,
bending his bow behind the buckler, he took a long steady aim.
Swift and straight as Sarchedon dashed in, the arrow flew swifter,
straighter yet. It pierced through steel and silk and gold embroidered
baldrick; the very feathers that winged it were draggled red in blood.
Faint, sick, and dizzy, the strickened man lowered himself on his
horse's neck, while stars and moon and desert sand spun round him like a
wheel. Had not Merodach's instincts taught him to obey its movements,
balancing himself as it were under the swaying body, his rider must have
fallen headlong to the earth.
So while the successful archer and his shield-bearer followed their
party well pleased, Sarchedon, helpless, senseless, yet cleaving still
to the saddle, was carried back at a gallop towards Babylon, over the
same ground that he had traversed so gallantly when he bore the signet
of Ninus to his queen.
Once more the good horse snorted at an object in his path--snorted and
swerved aside, casting his rider heavily to the sand, where lay a
framework of gaunt white ribs, with a strip or two of putrid flesh,
black and festering on the bones.
For a moment the shock brought him to life. While his horse scoured away
riderless, Sarchedon was aware, as if in a trance, that he had fallen
across a splintered arrow bearing the same mark as that which was
drinking his own life-blood: a royal tiara, and the symbol of Semiramis
the queen.
Ere he closed his eyes again, he saw a sheet of flame quiver in the sky.
It flared above the city where his gods had come down in chariots of
fire to take back with them the person of the Great King.
Ashtaroth, Queen of Heaven