THE LION'S CUB
It was but according to an established principle of nature and general
law of race, that the descendants of Nimrod should entertain a keen
predilection for the chase. In this particular Ninyas, notwithstanding
habits of luxury and effeminacy at home, formed no exception to the
princes of his line. He was never so happy as when urging a good horse
to speed after the scudding ostrich, loosing a grim leopard from its
leash to spring on the fleet antelope, tracking with fierce and heavy
hounds the footprints of some lordly lion on the desert sand, or
watching with eager eyes his long-winged falcons wheeling and stooping
in the desert sky. Skilled in bodily exercises, sitting his horse with
the graceful ease of constant practice, flushed, panting, joyous, he
rode to and fro, beautiful as a woman and radiant as a god.
After that night of revelry, on which he so lowered the pride of
Rekamat, to be in turn foiled by Ishtar, it was not strange that this
wayward prince should wake from a feverish sleep in the very worst of
humours; but having relieved his irritated feelings by condemning the
captain of the gate to a painful death, and settled himself in the
saddle for a long day's pleasure on the plain, he felt sufficiently
comforted to enter with considerable zest into the amusement of the
hour.
While his horse was fresh, he had succeeded in approaching within
bowshot of some wild asses to wound one of the herd wantonly and
uselessly, with an arrow from his own royal quiver. He had fairly ridden
down and secured an ostrich of unusual plumage, breaking the bird's long
legs by a blow from the club, which he flung while galloping at speed
with marvellous dexterity. His leopard had not failed to strike an
antelope at the first pounce; his hawks never once missed their quarry,
nor delayed returning obedient to the lure; moreover, he had brought an
old male lion to bay, and, riding in on him, wounded the monster so
severely with his spear, that although it had crawled for refuge into
certain inaccessible rocks, it must have died before night; and as none
of his servants had come up to help him, the glory was exclusively his
own.
Accordingly, when he paced back into Ascalon at sundown, weary and
dishevelled, yet happy and triumphant, he felt at peace with mankind;
revenge seemed hateful, anger impossible, and all he thirsted for was a
cup of wine.
Dismounting within the gate of the fortress, it was served as his foot
touched the ground. Then he bethought him of the fugitive from Egypt, to
whom he had not yet granted audience, and desired that this visitor
should be brought into his presence forthwith. Sethos, in his dark and
cheerless apartment, scooped out of the very rock on which the fortress
stood, received such a summons with considerable dismay. The care taken
to secure him, the dreary nature of his lodging, the coarse food brought
by his only visitor, a spearman, belted with bow and quiver, grim,
silent, and armed to the teeth, denoted that his offence, whatever it
might be, was considered of exceeding gravity, and that in all
likelihood his imprisonment would soon be terminated by death.
Bold and joyous as was his nature, the cup-bearer followed his conductor
with a sad brow and a heavy heart. He knew the prince's character well,
and a peal of laughter from his lord, while he bent low at the royal
feet, served by no means to allay his fears.
"So I have kept him in ward from sunrise to sunset," exclaimed Ninyas,
shaking his sides and wiping his eyes, in the exuberance of his mirth,
"little guessing who he was! The Great King's cup-bearer, the curled and
scented ornament of all the Assyrian host, the daintiest flower in the
whole of dainty Babylon; for whom the royal banquet was but a coarse
meal of broken meat; the royal court, blazing with a thousand torches,
but a dim and dismal den. And I ordered him bitter water and bread of
affliction; shut him up in a stone cell without a breath of air or a
gleam of light! By the beard of Ashur, I shall never recover it. O
Sethos, Sethos! had I known this morning it was you, I could not have
sat my horse for laughing all day. And think what a spoil we should have
lost! Five antelopes, man; an ostrich as tall as my spear; scores of all
the birds of heaven; and a lion, though we brought him not in, so tawny
that he seemed almost black, old, and fierce, like Nimrod himself, big
as a wild bull, and with fangs more than a span long. By the quiver of
Merodach, I have not taken such a prey since we hunted that pleasant
time in the northern mountains, before the Egyptian campaign!"
Ninyas seemed in high good-humour. Sethos, raising his eyes to look in
the prince's joyous face, knew that the bitterness of death was past.
"His servant has received many good gifts from my lord," was the
conventional reply. "Shall he not accept evil without complaint? There
can be no injustice between a master and his slave."
"But how come you here?" asked Ninyas, ignoring, from force of habit,
the accustomed formalities of the other. "They tell me you rode in with
half-a-score of bowmen, pursued by the hosts of Egypt--chariots and
horsemen, banner, bow, and spear. I would have loosed a shaft or two
amongst them nevertheless, had they been a hundred to one."
"My lord speaks well," answered Sethos proudly. "His servant slew their
leader with his own hand ere he turned rein, and fled to seek shelter
with my lord!"
"I would I had been at your back!" exclaimed the prince, kindling. "I
grew weary unto death of their country, I own, when we rode there under
the banner of Ashur, and I never wished to set eyes on one of their
tawny faces or their supple backs again. But to have them brought here
at bowshot distance, without any trouble, like a troop of wild asses or
a herd of deer! Ah, Sethos, you were always a favourite of the
gods--Baal, Nisroch, Merodach, and above all, Ashtaroth, Queen of
Light!"
"My lord gives praise to his servant out of his own bounty," answered
the other. "Hath Ninyas ever yet been known to come down from saddle
or war-chariot without taking the first spoil? And as for
Ashtaroth--surely, fairer game than feeds in field or forest falls to
him, even before he lifts his bow."
The prince loved flattery dearly, though he had wit to despise the
flatterer. He smiled well pleased.
"I cannot blame the gods," said he; "they have served me better than
ever I served _them_. Do you remember the old lion we slew in the
mountains ten days' march from Nineveh, when you drove my chariot up to
the axles through the marsh? That was a prey worth the taking of a king.
How he grinned and roared, and fought, with my javelin through his
shoulder, and my arrow in his neck! Had he not torn at the chariot-wheel
with claws and fangs, in blind senseless rage, we had hardly brought his
dark skin home to make a foot-cloth for the Great Queen. Believe me,
man, the beast I slew to-day might have been whelped in the same
litter--as old, as savage, flecked in the jaws with grey, leaner
perhaps, and a thought longer--say a span--from muzzle to tail. I am no
boaster, Sethos; but surely old Nimrod himself can scarce have won
nobler triumphs over the fiercest beasts of chase than mine!"
"My lord hath spoken," answered Sethos. "Is he not unrivalled in war, in
the chase, in love?"
The last word seemed to touch some painful chord, rouse some bitter
memory in his listener. The prince's handsome face reddened, and then
turned pale. When he spoke again, it was the cup-bearer's turn to feel
discomposed; for the voice of Ninyas sounded cold and hard, his manner
had become stern and almost severe.
The lion's cub so far resembled his fierce old father, that his mood
would change on occasion at a moment's notice from joyous good-humour
and hilarity to a paroxysm of wrath, all the more dangerous that it was
so sudden and unexpected.
With Ninus, however, such an access of passion betrayed itself in
uncontrolled violence of language and gesture; while his son, on the
contrary, concealed his feelings under a smooth brow and calm demeanour,
far more implacable than the savage outbreak of his sire. The one would
order an offender to be taken out and strangled on the spot, but forgive
him perhaps before the fatal covering had been drawn round his head. The
other spoke softly, nodded courteously, passed sentence of death in a
whisper, and remitted it for no consideration of justice or mercy
whatsoever.
But the prince loved pleasure even more than cruelty, and was therefore
popular enough with the multitude, who were willing to give his
beautiful face and graceful form credit for every royal virtue;
believing no evil of one who rode abroad so gallantly in such shining
raiment, sat so long at the feast among brave men and beautiful women,
drank so deep, laughed so loud, and looked so fair, garland on head and
wine-cup in hand.
"You have not yet accounted for your presence in Ascalon," said he
coldly.
And Sethos, knowing well that he must trim his sails according as the
wind blew, answered with the gravity of some high official making a
report:
"In order to fulfil the mission of my lord, I was compelled to journey
swiftly, tarrying nowhere by the way. Therefore were our horses
somewhat faint and wearied, or we had laughed to scorn the speed of the
Egyptian, flinging sand like the wild ass in their faces who pursue."
"You should have halted and fought it out," observed Ninyas.
"The embassy of my lord spoke indeed of defiance," replied Sethos; "but
his servant was accompanied by scarce a score of horsemen. The hosts of
Egypt swarmed like locusts in a south wind. Had the city of refuge stood
but one furlong farther off, our bones had lain bleaching in the desert,
or we had been again brought into the terrible presence of Pharaoh ere
now."
"Then you have seen Pharaoh?" interrupted Ninyas. "What is he like?"
The cup-bearer looked surprised.
"I have indeed stood before him," he answered, "and spoken with Pharaoh
face to face. His throne is of beaten gold, studded with jewels; his
garments shine and glisten so that he seems clad in light; but the man
himself is of low stature and puny frame, lean, sallow, undignified. It
is only the line of Ashur who are princes in bearing as in blood."
"The princes of Ashur go out to war with their hosts," responded Ninyas,
accepting the compliment greedily enough. "Pharaoh lay soft in his
palace beyond the river many a night while I was watching with bow and
spear."
"Pharaoh lives for ever," said the other. "So proclaim his captains and
officials from rise to set of sun. Perhaps it is that he cares not to
front death in battle or the chase. Nevertheless, he entertained me with
all the honour due to him who carried the message of my lord the king."
"And what message had my lord the king for one with whom he might have
made his own terms at his very gate?" asked the prince.
Once more the puzzled look crossed his face, while Sethos pondered ere
he replied. The path he trod seemed very dangerous; he must look well to
his balance at every step. Taking courage, he answered frankly, yet with
a certain caution,
"What am I, that I should stand in the light of the king's countenance?
The reed withers in the furnace and is consumed, the bar of iron doth
but bend and obey. On such a matter it was not fitting that the lowest
of his servants should speak with the king face to face. I received my
instructions from him who stood on the king's right hand. Shall I repeat
them to my lord?"
Ninyas watched him keenly.
"Why not?" he asked.
"I was commanded to make all speed through the desert, until I came into
the presence of Pharaoh himself," said the cup-bearer; "to speak out
boldly, as befitted him who represented the glory of Nimrod; to demand
the body of a son of Ashur, lying captive in the land of Egypt; and if
aught but good had befallen him, to warn Pharaoh that Assyria would come
down with her chariots and horsemen to take a life for every hair of
Sarchedon's head."
The prince started as if he was stung.
"Sarchedon!" he exclaimed. "Was it even so? And you brought him back
with you to Ascalon?"
"It seemed but my duty," answered Sethos, "to shelter in a city of
refuge one on whose head the king set so high a price, rather than
suffer him to fall a second time into the hand of the false Egyptian."
Ninyas seemed much disturbed, betraying his vexation, as the other could
not but perceive, in the unnatural composure of his demeanour.
"And these instructions?" said he, after a pause. "They must have been
given by one in authority, standing at the right hand of my lord the
king."
"They were given by Assarac, high-priest of Baal," answered the
cup-bearer. "Surely my lord is but proving his servant with empty words.
What am I, that I should seek to show aught but the truth in the sight
of my lord."
"Assarac, high-priest of Baal!" repeated Ninyas. "And at the right hand
of the Great King! Beware, my friend; beware! There is yet a morsel of
bread and a cruse of water in that dungeon where you passed the day.
When a son of Ashur speaks to his lord with a lie in his mouth, surely
his face is already covered, and his blood lies on his own head."
Hurt, alarmed, and in the utmost perplexity, the tears rising to his
eyes, Sethos could but answer in a broken voice: "The Great King is
gone to the gods! If my lord should slay his servant, he can only speak
of that which he hath seen and knows."
In spite of all his self-control, Ninyas turned deadly pale, rocking and
tottering where he stood, like a man stricken sore in fight. Then he
called for another cup of wine, and turning to Sethos, with a smile said
only:
"Leave me now; I am wearied, and the sun smote fierce to-day on the
desert sand. See that they water not my horse till he is cool; and,
Sethos, let not man nor woman come near me till I clap my hands."
With these words Ninyas retired to his chamber, and was seen no more,
leaving the cup-bearer at his wits' end with astonishment, a state which
was shared more or less by all the household; for was not the banquet
spread, the hall lighted, the wine poured out, yet the prince absent?
Such an event had never yet come to pass in the memory of his servants;
and Rekamat, who hoped to-night she would regain some of the footing she
had lost in his favour, was loud in protestations of astonishment and
vexation.
She was yet more dismayed, however, on the morrow to learn that a troop
of horsemen had passed out of the gate at sunrise, and disappeared in
the desert towards the north; the watchman farther reporting, that in
their centre, on the prince's favourite steed, rode a woman closely
veiled. Rekamat bit her lip in sore vexation, to keep back the tears of
spite and shame that rose brimming to her eyes.