FORLORN
She had lost a friend, and where was there another left? Her father
slain, her home despoiled, the man she loved sold into slavery and
carried she knew not where: could human lot be more lonely, more
hopeless? Yet she never lost heart. Plodding on in lowly guise, riding
that humble animal, there was yet dominant in her tender frame a hopeful
courage, such as does not always animate the warrior in his chariot, a
spirit of self-reliance and self-devotion that would have ennobled a
sceptred monarch on his throne.
Reaching the well-remembered spot where she used to watch for the return
of Arbaces, where she had first met Sarchedon riding home with tidings
from the Great King, it was no wonder that she saw the Well of Palms
through a mist of tears.
Nevertheless she dashed them hastily from her eyes, and summoned all her
energies, when she became aware of a troop of horsemen moving rapidly on
her track. To be discovered by these, she knew too well, would entail
the risk of insult, perhaps injury, and the certainty of delay. While
they were yet afar off, she leaped from the ass, and, taking advantage
of her familiarity with the locality, concealed herself behind a broken
wall that skirted the fountain, while the animal jogged leisurely home,
to the relief and comfort of its disconsolate owner.
So near the great city, a solitary wayfarer was an object of little
interest. She soon perceived she had escaped observation by the
movements of the party, who galloped on towards Babylon without
diverging to visit her hiding-place. She determined, however, to remain
concealed yet a while longer, and had no cause to regret her caution,
when a single horseman, detaching himself from the rest, approached the
marble basin of the Well of Palms, as if to water his good white steed,
ere he passed on.
Half a bowshot off, she recognised the animal with a start of fear,
suspense, surprise, sweetened by a thrill of love. She could not be
deceived: it was Merodach! That spotless frame, those glancing limbs,
that gallant bearing, could belong to no other animal in the land of
Shinar; and where Merodach bent to the rein, it seemed cruelly hard
Sarchedon's should not be the hand to guide.
[Illustration: "SHE COULD NOT BE DECEIVED: IT WAS MERODACH!"]
Watching with fond and eager eyes, she turned sick and faint, while she
crouched down, like some poor hunted fawn, into her shelter; for on its
back, soothing the good horse with many a gentle word and tender caress,
sat the form of him whom most she feared and hated in the bounds of
earth. Yes; the beautiful face she seemed yet to behold lulled on her
own breast, in flushed and drunken sleep, was surely there, within a few
paces, gazing dreamily into the distance; while Merodach, scarcely
wetting his dark muzzle in the water, pawed and snorted in restless
impatience to rejoin the companions he had left.
What was Ninyas doing here? Had the prince pursued her from Ascalon? was
he on her track, and searching for her even now? could she escape him,
neither in the city nor the plain? All these thoughts whirled through
her brain, while she lay still as death, scarcely daring to breathe,
peering at her enemy through a crevice of the crumbling wall with pale
face and wild dilated eyes.
The horseman seemed moody and abstracted--strangely lavish of caresses
for his steed, strangely indifferent to the heat of the sun, the ripple
of the fountain, everything but his own engrossing thoughts. Without
dismounting, he sat wrapped in meditation for a space of time that
appeared interminable to the watcher, ere he woke up, as it were, with a
start, and, curbing his beast's impatience, rode away at a walk to enter
the city by a different gate from that which the party he had left were
about to pass through.
Emerging from her shelter, though not until the white horse and his
rider had disappeared in the distance, Ishtar felt sadly perplexed. To
abide by her present hiding-place would be imprudent in the highest
degree, for the Well of Palms was the resort of every traveller who
approached Babylon on its southern side. If she retraced her steps, and
fled once more into the wilderness, she must perish from thirst and
fatigue; for to be afoot in the desert without a camel was to be adrift
on the sea without a boat; and she had even abandoned the honest
plodding beast that brought her thus far after she left her gigantic
protector at sunrise. She almost wished now she had remained in their
tents with the Anakim, intrusting to those tameless denizens of the
waste her own safety and the task of eventually recovering her lover.
She saw no other course left but to trudge wearily on, and pass, if
possible, unnoticed through the gate of Babylon, there to seek high and
low some real friend, who, for her father's sake, would give her bread
to eat, a roof to cover her, and aid in the one object of her life.
Wrapping her veil closely round her, counterfeiting as well as she could
the gait and bearing of a woman advanced in years and of humble grade,
Ishtar toiled slowly forward, carrying indeed a sorely laden heart into
that glittering capital of splendour, luxury, and sin.
The troop that had so disquieted this forlorn and friendless fugitive
trampled bravely on, raising clouds of dust, through which flashed the
magnificence of their arms and apparel, as a beautiful face sparkles
and blushes through its tawny veil. Without waiting for the detached
horseman, they hastened towards the city, galloping, it seemed, from
sheer exuberance of spirits rather than from any actual necessity for
speed. The principal figure in the group, to whom the others turned
obsequiously for guidance, was Assarac; and the eunuch's bearing, as he
managed his steed with the graceful ease of an Assyrian born, was
dignified and commanding in the extreme.
By his side rode Beladon, laughing, talking, gesticulating, proud to
show his countrymen that a priest of Baal could back a horse and bend a
bow with the best of them--that if his sacred character debarred him
from seeking fame in the war-chariot, he was yet a true child of Ashur
for skill and daring in the chase.
His eye gleamed, his cheek glowed; there were stains of blood on his
linen garments; and from his horse's chest dangled the muzzle and fangs
of a full-grown lion, that had fallen since sunrise to his bow.
He was never weary of detailing this achievement, dwelling in boundless
satisfaction on his own success and the formidable size of his prey.
Assarac listened, with his usual imperturbable smile.
"I called on Baal," said Beladon, "and urged my good horse to his speed;
for already the lion was scarce the cast of a javelin from the reeds,
and had he reached his thicket, I must have gone in and finished him on
foot. By the belt of Nimrod, I can tell you it was no comely face he
showed me when I came up with him. His eyes glared like the carbuncles
on the palace-gate, and he bared all these fangs that hang here at my
horse's breast, as who should say, Behold! a score of proven warriors,
and every one an enemy! I drew my bow thus--to my very ear--and as he
rose on his hind-legs, I pierced him straight and true right through his
open mouth, then turned my hand and galloped off across the plain, lest
he should rise up ere life was extinct, and tear my good horse limb from
limb in his death-pang."
"So the spearmen gathered round and slew him," observed Assarac.
"The spearmen gathered round and slew him," repeated the other, "after
they found him disabled by the might of this right arm. When I turned
back and got down to measure his carcass, there was my shaft driven
through the roof of his mouth, cleaving his very skull."
"Was there not an arrow in his body when he fell?" asked the eunuch.
Beladon coloured and looked vexed.
"The king had, indeed, loosed a shaft at the beast when first we roused
him," said he. "Doubtless, the royal hand never misses its mark."
"Had you come between Ninus and his prey in the olden time," observed
the other, "not all the host of heaven could have turned aside his
wrath. He would have impaled you before set of sun."
"He loved the chase dearly," answered Beladon, "as did the Great Queen,
and Ninyas too, till lately. What has come over him now? He leaps to the
saddle at dawn--hasty, eager, excited, as though every beast of chase
between the rivers must be swept away forthwith, slaying and sparing
not--then, after one fierce dash at the wild-bull, one savage thrust at
the lion, leaves his followers, as he left us even now, to ride slowly
home, sad, moody, and alone. Always on the same steed too. It seems as
though he cared for nothing under heaven but the white horse with the
wild eyes."
"'Tis a good beast," answered the other, scrutinising the face of his
follower, "and worthy to bear the person of a king."
"A good beast indeed," said Beladon simply, "and belonged once to as
good a warrior as ever lifted spear or emptied wine-cup. It seems but
yesterday that Sarchedon brought back the Great King's signet, and made
his night's lodging with us in the temple of our god. What has become of
him now? I would we knew!"
"I would we knew!" repeated Assarac in a careless tone, as if he only
echoed the other's sentiments, not as if he would have given wealth
untold, deemed no waste of blood or treasure too lavish, for the
information.
Reining their horses to a walk, the gaudy troop had already passed
through one of her gates, and entered the crowded streets of Babylon.
Thinking their king was amongst the party, his people gathered round in
considerable numbers, and appeared disappointed to miss the beautiful
face and form they so seldom looked on now. It was a common remark
amongst all classes, that the wild, free-living, free-spoken young
prince had become strangely solemn and reserved since his accession to
the throne. There was far less revelry in the palace than in the days of
stern old Ninus. His son seldom rode abroad through the streets or
showed himself to his people. The shadow of the priests of Baal seemed
over the monarch, and it was known that Assarac had great influence in
the royal counsels. As is usual in such cases, the favourite came in for
a larger share of obloquy than his lord.
Nevertheless, there is always enough popularity about a gay cavalcade to
insure its welcome in a pleasure-loving city like Babylon. Assarac could
not but observe that, although there were dark frowns and angry glances
in the outskirts of the crowd, the nearer spectators shouted their
welcome cordially enough, pressing in to kiss the trappings of his
horse, the hem of his garment, with all the transitory enthusiasm of
their impressionable nature.
"Tis an easy people to rule!" whispered Beladon in the ear of his
superior. "Believers in Baal, and a thousand gods besides; mark the
reverence they pay your sacred character. Surely the sons of Ashur love
the linen vestment of the priest."
"Were not their shouts yet louder, their welcome kinder, to the scarlet
and steel of the Great King's horsemen, when he marched in from Egypt?"
returned Assarac. "Trust me, Beladon, they bend lowest when they carry
the heaviest load. They love deepest where most they have to fear."
"And they fear Baal," said the other.
"Only because they know not Nisroch," replied Assarac. "God or man can
be great for this false fickle nation only until there cometh a greater
than he. Do they not offer homage willingly to Abitur of the Mountains?
And why? Because they dread his power, not knowing its nature nor its
extent. Their ruler should indeed be a god in all but benevolence. He
must have no natural sympathies, no human weaknesses, no remorse, no
pity, and, above all, no fear."
"There is but one man in the land of Shinar who is above and without
these softer failings of his kind. May I sit on his right hand
henceforward, as to-day!" was Beladon's insidious reply.
Though half despising the flattery of his follower, Assarac smiled. Yet
it did not escape the other's observation, ever on the alert, that in
the eunuch's smile lurked an expression of weariness and sorrow almost
amounting to pain.
"The king has faithful followers," said he "and wise counsellors--may he
live for ever!"
The crowd hemmed them in very close; his last sentence, though uttered
in a low voice, was caught up and repeated by a thousand tongues.
Through the noise and confusion that prevailed, only Assarac could hear
the whisper of his subordinate,
"Baal is great. What are kings and princes compared to the mighty
Assyrian god? Let Baal rule alone in Babylon and through all the land of
Shinar; while Assarac, the interpreter of his will to the people, twines
the sacred lotus round the royal sceptre, he needs but stretch out his
hand to take."
"As the serpent of Ashtaroth twines round a man's heart!" answered the
other. And Beladon, looking in his face, marvelled to see it drawn and
white, as of one who strives with an agony of mortal pain.