THE CAPTIVE IN THE DUNGEON
A certain rough sympathy for his impending fate seemed elicited from his
guards, as they forced Sarchedon through the palace, down a dark
passage, bricked and vaulted, that led to some remote place of security,
unvisited by the light of day.
"You should have held your peace, man," said one, easing a little the
belt that bound the prisoner's arms. "To bandy words with Pharaoh is to
throw scalding broth in the air, and stand under where it falls. Had you
feigned to be stricken dumb with fear, now, not daring to raise your
eyes in the face of my lord the king, you might have escaped with the
loss of your nose and tenscore stripes on the soles of your feet. But
that long tongue of yours has made it a hanging matter, believe me, no
less, if not impalement, which is worse."
"Tush, brother!" interrupted his comrade, a comely archer, not
unconscious of his sleek dark locks, marked brows, and other personal
advantages; "a man can die but once. Better be stuffed and swathed
decently in a large cool resting-place, with plenty of room and shade,
than limp about in the heat a hideous object, crippled and disfigured
for life."
"A man can die but once," repeated Sarchedon stoutly, repressing the
shudder that, in this dark downward passage, chilled him to the bone. "I
had hoped, however, to fall honourably from my war-chariot in the
fore-front of battle, rather than hang by the heels like a trapped
jackal, to rot and blacken, till my bones are stripped by the birds of
prey."
"What matter?" observed the first speaker, accepting with resignation
the misfortunes of another. "Men come to the same resting-place, travel
the road how they will. Even the Great Sphinxes and the three royal
tombs must crumble down at last. It is only Pharaoh who lives for ever."
Thus speaking, he thrust a bunch of onions and a lump of barley-bread
into Sarchedon's hands, unbinding them at the same moment while
dexterously pushing him through a door, which he shut and bolted on the
outside, leaving his own homely meal with the prisoner, whom he thus
consigned to solitude and gloom.
The Assyrian listened to the retiring footsteps of his escort as a man
hanging over an abyss marks the last strands parting of a rope that
links him to life and light of day. When they faded into silence, he
seemed to taste already the bitterness of death. Unlike the Egyptian,
however, that fatalism which sinks without effort to despair was no part
of the Assyrian's character, and he soon roused himself to examine the
strength and quality of his prison-house.
It was a cell of liberal dimensions, sunk deep into the earth, bricked
throughout and with vaulted roof, admitting a feeble glimmer from one
narrow loophole, which communicated with the passage he had left. The
more minutely he studied it, the more convinced was he that his dungeon
afforded no chance of escape.
He felt the walls on each side, not leaving a single brick untouched; he
searched the flooring carefully for some inequality that might give hope
of a subterranean passage or concealed egress; but in vain. The work
seemed even and level, smooth as granite, and no more to be tampered
with than the pitiless rock itself.
Wearied at length with his exertions, his ride through the night, and
the events of the morning, he made up his mind to die, and in the
meantime munched his barley-bread and onions ere he laid him down to
sleep.
It seemed that he had scarcely rested an hour before the door of his
cell was opened, to be shut again ere he could spring to his feet. Food
and wine, however, of the best quality had been left for his
refreshment, and to these he did justice, notwithstanding the
exigencies of his situation and the prospect of a painful death.
So the time dragged wearily on, the faint streak of light that stole
into his dungeon affording the prisoner no means of calculating the days
as they passed by. His meals, though served regularly, were brought by a
shrouded figure that vanished, phantom-like, before he could accost it.
No sound from upper earth penetrated these gloomy regions. It seemed to
Sarchedon that he was forgotten of men, and, as he somewhat bitterly
reflected, deserted by the gods.
Could Baal not see him here, sunk surely but a fathom deep below the
surface--Baal, in whose service he had so often drawn bow and brandished
spear? Nor Ashtaroth, lovely Queen of Light, to whom, young, comely,
gallant, he had tendered an adoration not unmixed with something of
poetry and romance? Nor any of the Great Thirteen, wheeling aloft in
their golden cars? Nor one amongst the countless host of heaven? Was
this the reward they vouchsafed their worshipper? and would that other
God, of whom Sadoc spoke, have left him thus to die? He summoned all his
manhood, and it failed him; he drew on his courage, and found it but a
dogged form of despair. He felt the want of something to lean on,
something to trust in, something to help him from without, like a blind
man seeking a friendly grasp to guide his steps. He wished he had
questioned the Israelite more minutely as to that mysterious creed of
his, which taught men they could never be alone nor friendless; that
present with them always, but nearest at their greatest need, was a
power unseen, unheard, tender, compassionate, yet irresistible and
superior to Fate.
Alas, it was too late now! He turned to the wall, with something of
hopeless apathy, and fell to thinking of Ishtar, fingering the while
that amulet round his neck which had clung to him through all his
troubles, and in which he put some vague superstitious trust.
He felt persuaded it was mysteriously interwoven with his destiny; and
if this charm too had played him false, like all else, it must be time
to die, since he was indeed ruined and undone.
Thus pondering, he started fiercely to his feet; for in an instant the
whole cell seemed ablaze with light, not on fire, but glowing in a mild
yellow lustre, which faded back to gloom ere his dazzled eyes could
distinguish more than the outline of a shrouded figure standing in the
midst. Some wild hope shot through his heart that it might be the
phantom of his love come to bid him farewell; but a moment later he
remembered his sentence, and prepared to confront a messenger from
Pharaoh, sent doubtless for the purpose of leading him forth to die.
"I am ready," said the prisoner sternly. "I might strangle you where you
stand, before you could summon help; but what would that avail me? You
are but doing your duty. Lead on. 'Tis almost worth a life to see
daylight once more."
"Life is dear," was the answer, "to the reptile in the mud, no less than
to the eagle in the sky. It should be doubly dear to a man of war, who
is the bulwark of a host and the favourite of a prince."
Sarchedon started, and looked piercingly at the speaker, whose voice,
calm, low, and grave, seemed not entirely strange to his ear; but the
cell had again become so dark, he could make out no more than a cloaked
form and closely muffled face.
"What mean you?" said he. "Did Pharaoh send you here to jest with me
before I die?"
"I am indeed sent by Pharaoh," was the answer; "Pharaoh, who, through my
lore, can read events passing at Nineveh, at Babylon, at Thebes and
Memphis, clearly as here in the City of the Cat. Have you never heard,
my son, of the magic of the Egyptians?"
"I have _heard_ of it," replied the out-spoken warrior. "But my
experience of your people is at bowshot distance, and more than once at
point of spear. They are skilful marksmen, I tell you fairly, and sturdy
men of war enough with push of steel. They needed but little magic to
help them when it came to downright blows. Yet we drove them before us,
we sons of Ashur, as the lion drives the wild ass across the plain."
"The wild ass may yet spurn the lion with her hoof," answered the other.
"But what are sword and spear and human might to those forces we can
summon from the world of spirits at our will? Would you not tremble, my
son, to behold Typhon or Abitur of the mountains standing here on the
floor between you and me?"
"Seeing is believing," was the reply of the stout-hearted Assyrian.
"I will not test your courage so far," said his visitor; "the more that
I know it true as the steel you ought to wear on your thigh even now.
Nor would I dare to summon such powerful aid as those I have named
except at utmost need, or by the desire of Pharaoh himself.
Nevertheless, I will show you here on the spot such manifestations of my
power as will put to shame all the lore acquired from your lofty towers
or your wide Northern plains. Which of your star-readers will bid this
dry rod blossom like the almond-tree, or cause a fresh lotus to spring
up in flower from the arid soil of that cemented brickwork beneath our
feet?"
While he spoke, the same glow as before, though somewhat milder in
lustre, shone through the cell, revealing to the astonished prisoner a
slender figure draped up to the keen black eyes, that never seemed to
leave his own. The magician, if such he were, looked imposing neither in
gravity of age nor majesty of stature; yet Sarchedon felt a strange
consciousness that he was in the presence of one superior to himself.
He watched with eager curiosity every motion of his visitor.
The latter brought out from beneath his robe a lamp of transparent
glass, traced with mystic characters in waving lines of gold, and which
shed the radiance that had so startled the Assyrian. Over the lamp he
brandished a rod some two cubits long, apparently of polished ebony; and
immediately a cloud of aromatic vapour filled the cell, hiding him for a
space from the prisoner's sight. When it cleared away, he reached to
Sarchedon the branch of an almond-tree, equal in length to the rod he
had carried in his hand, green, full of sap, and fragrant in a rich
growth of blossoms bursting into flower.
"The warrior can take life," said he gravely, "and the king can level
fenced cities with the plain. Is not he greater than king and warrior
who can call into existence that which these have only power to
destroy?"
Sarchedon gazed on him in mute astonishment and awe. That the magician
should have thus appeared in a dungeon of which the walls denoted no
possibility for secret entrance was of itself surprising enough; but to
inhale its fragrance, and behold in luxuriant blossom that which his own
eyes had told him was but now a dry rod of ebony, could only be
accounted for by supernatural influences; and he became a firm believer
in magic forthwith. He made a last stand, however, for his incredulity,
exclaiming almost unconsciously,
"You must have brought it beneath your cloak."
There was something of the kindly patience with which one instructs a
child in the other's tone, while he replied,
"Seeing is indeed believing, as you even now averred. See, then, my son,
and believe!"
With that, he cast his mantle from his shoulders, and stood forth erect,
letting its folds wind about his feet, and showing in the pure white
robe that enveloped his person like a pillar of alabaster on a black
pedestal. His features were still shrouded; but his eyes gleamed with a
mocking fire.
Once more, while he passed his hand over the lamp, a cloud obscured the
dungeon as before, but for a somewhat longer space. When it cleared
away, he lifted his dark cloak from the floor, and there at the
prisoner's very feet, springing, as it seemed, from the hard brickwork,
bloomed a fresh lotus, the flower that every son of Ashur deemed
specially sacred to his country and his gods.
Sarchedon was a brave man in battle; braver, indeed, than the average of
his countrymen, whose courage, perhaps, was their noblest quality. Had a
score of Pharaoh's archers been bending bows all round him, he would
have died like a lion in their midst, without a sign of weakness or
fear; but it was no part of his creed to set at defiance the powers of
another world, and he fell prostrate before his visitor in abject
humility, covering his face with his hands.