THE WISDOM OF THE EGYPTIANS
The magician raised him kindly, tempered to a pale mild light the lamp
he had set down, and wrapping his cloak around him as before, fixed his
eyes on the prisoner with that calm scrutinising gaze which had
dominated the fiery spirit of the warrior from the first.
"Have no fear," said he. "I came not hither through the solid earth that
I might destroy you, or I had created but now the greedy monster of the
river, the deadly serpent of the brake, rather than a fruitful branch
from our Egyptian orchards and the sacred flower of your own Assyrian
plains. Is it enough? or shall I show you here in this deep dark cell
greater and more terrible examples of my power?"
"No more, my lord!" answered the Assyrian, who felt his courage, though
beginning to reassert itself, unequal to farther trials of a like
nature. "No more, I entreat you; for although I fear not mortal enemies,
I have no wish to meet the sons of Seth in all the terrors they bring
with them from the South; nor has Baal befriended me so stoutly, that I
would trust to his assistance in an encounter with Abitur face to face."
"Blaspheme not Baal!" was the sarcastic reply. "Think you that he can
see down into the earth from his seat up yonder amongst the stars, or
that he would deign to aid you if he could? Has he not votaries by tens
of thousands in great Babylon, who offer him daily their goods, their
blood, their lives? Has he ever descended to his temple for one of them,
or made the least sign that he could taste the savour of their
sacrifices, could hear their prayers, take note of their outcries and
their wounds? Will Ashtaroth give you light in your dungeon, Nebo come
to release you from captivity, Dagon bring you to eat and drink, or
Shamash himself show pity while you are writhing under his very eyes on
the stake? These are your gods, O Assyrian! And you can venture to
compare them with ours--with Thmei, of eternal truth and justice; with
Osiris, benefactor and regenerator of earth and heaven: with wise
Anubis, and subtle Thoth, and Isis, fertile, lavish, glorious in her ten
thousand names!"
"There are gods enough in both countries," answered Sarchedon; "and I
have heard the Great King swear by them all, that it was strange out of
so large a host he had never set eyes on a straggler yet. But I have not
heard of Assyrian priest, I tell you frankly, who can claim such
dominion over the powers of nature as you showed me even now."
"And you think a man had better force Abitur to do his bidding than
implore succour from Baal in vain?" said the other, with a sneer.
"Why not?" was the reply. "I carried a spear already in his royal guard
when Semiramis persuaded the Great King to rear an altar for the worship
of Abitur in the mountains beyond old Nineveh. It crossed him sore; for
he never endured such ceremonies with patience, complaining that he
could feed a score of companies with fewer bullocks than were slain to
satisfy one single god. But the queen's eyes have power in them to draw
men whither she will, and Ninus would do her bidding readily as the
humblest archer in the host. So we marched up into the mountains at
midnight, every man with bow and spear, axe and mattock. Plane, cedar,
and broad-leafed oak fell by scores under so many willing arms, while
the stoutest spearmen raised a lofty altar, and dug deep trenches, to
carry off the blood, bringing in bullocks and sheep for slaughter, that
we had driven up with no small trouble from the plains. Ere long we
built up such a fire that the watchmen on the walls of Nineveh
proclaimed the mountain was ablaze; and when the burnt offerings were
made ready, there rose such a smoke that the gods could have seen but
little of what we, their servants, were about beneath it. Perhaps it was
too thick even for him to penetrate, whom we went there to honour. I
know the Great King's wrath was kindled; for he caught up spear and
shield, bidding the demon come out if he dared, and speak with him face
to face."
"Did Abitur make no sign?" asked the other, with the same covert mockery
in his tone.
"There were shrieks heard in the mountain more than once before dawn,"
answered Sarchedon; "but they seemed too shrill and faint for the voice
of man or demon. Some of the queen's women, who went up with her,
affirmed they were cries of lamentation from those daughters of earth
scorched in the olden time by the embraces of the stars, wailing that
they could not die till they had touched their spirit-lovers once again.
And the queen inclined to think so too."
"But you--what did _you_ think?" inquired the Egyptian, not repressing a
smile.
"I was of the guard," replied the Assyrian simply; "and I thought with
the Great King that the women in the mountain were fairer and fresher
than in the plain; also that our spearmen were ever somewhat hasty and
eager with those who would be wooed, before they were won. But we
marched down again to Nineveh at sunrise, and for my part, I saw no more
of Abitur than I had seen of Baal."
The other pondered, as if he scarcely listened. Presently he looked up,
and asked,
"This queen of yours--is she, then, so beautiful?"
It was a topic on which Sarchedon could be eloquent, even in a dungeon.
"Beautiful!" he repeated. "In Assyria all our women are beautiful; but
by the side of the Great Queen the fairest of them show like pearls
against a diamond. You have seen morning rising, serene and radiant out
of the east--the brow of Semiramis is purer, calmer, fresher than the
dawn. When she turns her eyes on you, it is like the golden lustre of
noon day; and her smile is brighter and more glorious than sunset in the
desert--sweeter, softer, lovelier than the evening breeze amongst the
palms. To look on her face unveiled is to be the Great Queen's slave for
ever more."
"You have looked on it more than once it seems, and to some purpose,"
was the answer.
"I have seen her in silk and steel," replied Sarchedon, "robe and
diadem, helmet and war-harness. Deck her how you will, she rivals
Ashtaroth, Queen of Heaven, herself. There is not her equal on earth.
'Tis thought, indeed, that she is more than mortal, and will never taste
of death."
"Like Pharaoh," said the other, laughing outright. "Nevertheless, if she
have many guards stout and devoted as yourself, there can be small risk
for that fair body of hers from outward foe. Yet I have heard she mounts
a war-chariot and bends a bow with the bravest warriors in your host."
"I was in Bactria," answered Sarchedon, "when the Great Queen surprised
ten thousand spearmen of the enemy with the royal guard alone, and a
handful of horsemen she had begged of Ninus to bring in corn from the
plains the night before. She drove her war-chariot through the thickest
of the press, ere we could close in on it, and when we came up with her,
she had but one arrow left in the quiver, while around her lay a circle
of slain. Her cheek seemed a little flushed, but the smile was on her
lip, and her eyes shone softer, lovelier, kinder than ever. The Great
King swore that of all the captains in his host, she was the wariest and
boldest, but he forbade her sternly such ventures of battle for the
future. 'How shall I tarry, when my lord is in front?' was her answer,
gentle and low as I am speaking to you now. He would have taken her in
his arms then and there, before the assembled host. Perhaps he did; but
she had scarcely spoken, when the trumpets rang out an alarm that the
Bactrians were upon us, and I was down with an arrow through my ribs,
almost ere you could have bent a bow. But for Sargon, the royal
shield-bearer, who dragged me from under a broken chariot and a dead
horse, I had never lifted spear again. The next time I saw the queen she
was riding single-handed against a lion, that had slain two of her dogs,
and put her people to flight."
"Single-handed!" exclaimed the Egyptian, "and against a lion! But you
made in to help without delay?"
"You know not our laws of the land of Shinar," replied Sarchedon. "He
who draws bow at the royal quarry loses his right hand; he who takes a
prey before the prince forfeits his life. I had been safer lying naked
under the beast's very jaws than riding in unbidden between the lion and
the Great Queen. Yet would I have ventured too, for the sake of her
matchless face, but that while I stood watching, she brought her horse
within a spear length of the mighty brute, and drove an arrow right
through his heart from shoulder to shoulder. I turned rein then; for I
knew Semiramis would like well to stand alone over the dead carcase, and
jeer at her attendants as they came up."
"Brave, wise, politic," observed the Egyptian, "and yet no doubt a very
woman to the core. What think you now? Would she rule prudently over the
land of Shinar, if the Great King were gathered to his fathers amongst
the stars?"
"No woman may reign over the sons of Ashur," was the answer. "We only
owe allegiance to a king. It is our privilege and our law."
"But hath she no favourites, this bold and beautiful archer?" pursued
the other, turning his lamp so as to mark every line and shade of the
prisoner's countenance. "None that share her sports and influence her
counsels? The Great King waxes old; does the queen look kindly on _none_
of all the fair and noble warriors about the palace or in the host?"
Not a quiver of his eyelid would have escaped the Egyptian's notice, but
Sarchedon's brow was open and unconcerned, as his tone was loyal, while
he replied,
"I am a prisoner, alone here in a dungeon; you are--what are you? A
priest, an enchanter, a magician, backed, for all I can tell, by a
company of Pharaoh's archers and a host of spirits from the Southern
mountains. But were you and I standing two naked men in the
market-place, that question had been answered with a buffet; were we in
harness on the plain, it were well worth push of spear and clash of
steel."
The Egyptian laughed once more--heartily this time, and without
disguise.
"I am your friend," said he, "and you will not believe it. A powerful
friend, too, as I have shown you, and one who, while able to crush you
as a man crushes a locust beneath his hand, would yet lend you all the
resources of his art for your solace here and your deliverance from
captivity hereafter."
"You cannot set me free!" exclaimed Sarchedon, a delightful hope
breaking in to cheer him like the dawn of day.
"I can foretell the future," answered the magician, "clearly, certainly,
as you can relate the past. Behold this lamp: see, I darken it to a
faint pale gleam. Look on it, and tell me what it shows."
In vain Sarchedon strained his eyes.
"A line of waving gold within the crystal," said he; "no more."
"Such is the blindness of him whose sight has not been sharpened by
learning," replied the magician. "You are as the rower labouring at the
oar, who can but see the ripple he leaves behind, and the banks on the
river-side that he has passed. I am the steersman who scans the coming
rapids, the rocks in mid-stream, the calm and comely reach of smooth
water that sleeps beyond. I look into the crystal, and I behold a youth
stretching his arms in freedom, rubbing, with unfettered hands, his eyes
dazzled by the light of day. I follow him into the presence of Pharaoh.
I behold him on the king's right hand, clad in a dress of honour,
drinking costly wine of the South from a cup of gold. He mounts a goodly
steed, he talks joyfully with one of dress and bearing like his own, a
troop of the sons of Ashur close round him, he rides away into the
desert, and I see him no more. That youth bears a strange resemblance to
him who stands before me now, with clasped hands and wondering eyes, a
captive in the strongest dungeon ever built at the command of Pharaoh by
a nation of slaves."
Sarchedon again prostrated himself at his visitor's feet.
"If you tell me true," he exclaimed, "I am the faithful servant of my
lord for ever more."
"You will remember me when you are in Babylon," returned the other. "You
will recall the wisdom and power of the Egyptians. You will tell your
countrymen the wonders that I, the least and lowest amongst their wise
and great, have shown you without an effort, and you will not forget
that I have been your friend, even in your extreme need. Farewell! He
who sent me summons me back to his presence, and we shall not meet
again!"
Even while he spoke, a thick cloud of aromatic vapour filled the dungeon
as before; when it cleared away the visitor was gone, and Sarchedon,
looking blankly about him, began to think he had been the sport of his
own fancy, beguiled by the illusions of a dream.