THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER
He had sworn by the eternal wings, and there was no escape. The wisest
men in their dealings with women have pledged themselves, ere now, to
give precious metal in exchange for dross, and Beladon made no better
bargain when he matched his wits against the keener intellect and finer
perceptions of the queen's tirewoman.
With grave aspect, and much decreased ardour, he answered somewhat
ruefully:
"I will do your bidding--not only for mine oath's sake, but because of
the love I bear you. Speak, then--your servant is waiting your
commands."
"It is not much I desire," said she carelessly, though had there been
more light he might have seen the blush rising to her brow. "We women
have strange fancies, you know; I would fain revisit my old haunts, and
walk once more by night through the palace of the Great King!"
"Impossible!" he exclaimed, turning pale. "You know not what you
ask----"
"Impossible!" she repeated, mocking him. "There is no such word
acknowledged by the servants of Semiramis or Baal. Nothing is
impossible, nor impenetrable, nor improper in the city of the Great
Queen!"
"But my life would hang on your discretion," urged Beladon, much
disturbed--"on the silence of a woman, whose very office it is to repeat
everything she hears, whether false or true!"
"And where could it hang more safely?" she retorted. "Nay, Beladon, your
welfare and mine are blended together like the bronze and gold of that
buckle on your belt. The interest of one is the interest of both.
Besides, think of your oath! Lead on."
There seemed no help for it. Taking her by the hand, he guided her
softly through those darkened courts and passages; urging, in impressive
whispers, the necessity of secrecy, laying no light stress on the peril
he was himself encountering for her sake. Thus gliding like shadows,
they passed stealthily through the great hall of the king's palace,
immediately beneath that _talar_, or upper chamber, into which Ninus had
ascended when he poured his last drink-offering to the host of heaven,
and was seen by his people here on earth no more.
She could not help shuddering while she recalled that awful night, when
a great horror seemed to brood over the city, and men looked blankly in
each others' faces, wondering what should befall them next.
Catching sight of the famous carbuncle over the gate, glowing, even in
utter darkness, like a living coal, her fortitude gave way, and she
screamed aloud.
However obtained, Beladon's experience seemed to have taught him that
vigorous measures were judicious in cases of feminine alarm. Seizing her
arm so impressively that she well-nigh screamed again for bodily pain,
he whispered in her ear:
"It is death for both of us if we are discovered by the priests of Baal,
who now guard the palace. I know my brethren, Kalmim, and I _love_ you.
Listen! I wear a knife at my girdle, and you shall die first!"
Thoroughly frightened, she hung her head, and held her breath. Could
this be the free-spoken light-hearted Beladon, whom she had hitherto
esteemed a mere frivolous idler, fit only to fill a place in the showy
pageants of his god? He was rising rapidly in her good opinion, while in
her characteristic love of excitement a certain thrill of pleasure
sweetened the terror that admonished her how many risks she ran at every
step.
Traversing the great hall, they emerged on a terrace commanding one of
those pleasure-grounds for which Babylon was then no less famous than in
after years for the celebrated hanging-gardens that adorned the age of
her decay. It was a wilderness of shrubs and flowers, of grove and rock
and stream--fit haunt for the game with which it had been plentifully
stocked--fit retreat for luxurious royalty during the heat of an
Assyrian day--fit hiding-place to secrete the fair favourite of a
jealous lord--fit stronghold to immure the person of an imprisoned king.
Its recesses were distinctly visible from the terrace twenty feet above,
on which Kalmim stood. At that elevation she looked over its entire
length and breadth, while a bright moon, high in the heavens, flooded
every nook and corner of this paradise with a light like day.
It was now dead of night, the wild bird had gone to roost, the wild deer
was couched in its lair, yet a dark object moved across the lawn, on
which Kalmim's eyes were fixed, slowly, stealthily, with long-continued
pauses, like some feline creature prowling for its prey.
"Come away," whispered Beladon in her ear. "You have traversed the
palace; you have seen the king's garden. It is time to depart."
She made no answer. Her eyes were fixed and shining; her face set like
that of a sleep-walker, or of one horror-stricken in a dream.
The figure turned slowly round. Its garments fell disordered and awry,
its hair was dishevelled, its mien wild and scared, but none could
mistake the beauty of that pale startled face; and in the miserable
object thus stealing, shivering through the moonlight, Kalmim did not
fail to recognise the person of Ninyas the king.
Surrounded by a dense column of spearmen, on whom threats,
protestations, and remonstrances were alike wasted, the hapless son of
Ninus and Semiramis had no sooner entered the city of his inheritance,
in ill-advised disguise, than he found himself a helpless prisoner under
the very eyes of his assembled people, shouting enthusiastic welcome of
his return. So wisely had Assarac's measure been taken, so skilfully had
he disposed the large force at his command, that Ninyas and his
attendant, spite of their struggles, found themselves engulfed, as it
were, and swept away in a resistless rush of spears. Their horses'
bridles were seized, the animals themselves urged to a gallop, the
guards who hemmed them in drowned with noisy cheers even the
acclamations of an excited populace; and so the whirlwind swept on
unchecked towards the king's palace, where all Babylon was persuaded its
beloved queen had betaken herself, there to assume the royal diadem and
sceptre, ere she sought her own dwelling on the other side of the river.
But Ninyas shuddered while they hurried him under the outspread wings of
those colossal bulls; for something told him they guarded a prison-gate,
obdurate and impenetrable as the very granite from which their huge
proportions were hewn.
"It is all over," he whispered to Sethos. "The bow is broke and there
are no more arrows in the quiver. This is one of the Great Queen's
master-strokes. I ought not to have trusted her, and yet I thought my
mother loved me too well to have worsted me like this!" Whereto his
follower, from whose smooth and easy nature fortune, good or bad, glided
without making much impression, only answered, "A silken cushion is a
softer couch than the desert sand; a palace in Babylon is a nobler
lodging than the fortress of Ascalon. Baal himself knows not what the
coming hour may bring, but the three wings never cease to turn their
everlasting wheel, and the spoke that is lowest one moment comes
uppermost the next!"
The cup-bearer's philosophy was so far borne out, that the royal
prisoner found no reason to complain of his personal treatment. His
banquets were sumptuous, his pleasures magnificent, his retinue
submissive, as if he were in truth a king; but, turn which way he would,
he encountered the smooth faces and downcast looks of the priests of
Baal, who answered his questions with irritating professions of
ignorance, and waited on him with a subservience maddening in its
vigilant humility. To those whose very existence depended on the favour
of Assarac had been confided the care of this important captive, and
scrupulously they fulfilled their trust. Though he wandered at will from
court to court and hall to hall of the roomy palace--though he might
take the air, when it pleased him, in its gardens, or follow the chase
in its wilderness--he knew that never for a moment was he
unwatched--felt that words, looks, gestures, all were noted and
reported, that his very thoughts were known; for while many of his
wishes seemed anticipated, his attempts at escape were foiled almost
before contrived.
This constant supervision could not but tell on such a nature as that of
Ninyas, could not but injure a constitution already sapped by luxury and
indulgence. His health gave way; his mind became affected. He drank wine
indeed, freely, but neither ate nor slept, wandering listlessly to and
fro, chiefly in the open air, regardless of times and season--during the
hours of darkness, as under the glare of noon. Had it not been for
Sethos, who attended him with touching fidelity, his intellects must
have wholly succumbed, and perhaps the purpose of his incarceration
would have been accomplished. But the cup-bearer exhausted all his
ingenuity to rouse and keep alive the faculties of his lord, desponding,
nevertheless, more than was natural to his cheerful spirit and tendency
in all things to hope the best.
Kalmim, watching the king with sudden frightened gaze, marked how pale
he had grown and wan, how shrunken seemed his stature, how loose the
costly garments hung on his limbs.
Could he see her? She knew not. He started indeed, and stood at gaze
like a frightened deer, then muttered and ran on, looking up at the
moon, pausing after a few steps, with drooping head and downcast eyes,
to stare on the ground beneath his feet.
She was a hard, bold, pleasure-loving woman, yet her heart melted within
her, and she wept.
"Are you satisfied?" whispered Beladon, in accents of considerable
alarm. "I tell you, it is death to know our secrets, death to look on
the sight you now see. Will you not depart ere it be too late?"
But Kalmim, it is scarce necessary to observe, had another object
besides that of an idle visit to the king's palace, in thus cajoling her
admirer and risking discovery by the dissolute priests of Baal. She had
reason to believe that Sethos shared the captivity of his lord, and with
Sethos she resolved to speak, if such an interview could be brought
about by woman's wit, woman's duplicity, or woman's charms. Laying her
hand caressingly on his arm, she shot one of her sweetest glances in
Beladon's face, and whispered,
"Be patient with me, if you love me. I do but ask that you will take me
hence to the cedar gallery. I know my way then to the outer court, and
so can depart in peace."
Her quick wits reflected, that as a communication existed between the
lawn and the cedar gallery, Sethos would be there in attendance on his
lord.
The young priest pondered in some perplexity. It was his turn to watch
all night over the seclusion of this important prisoner, and he had
counted on the society of Kalmim to beguile the tedious hours till
daybreak; but the risk of discovery by his comrades was too great, the
penalty they would surely exact too hideous, and, for her sake, he
thought better of his enterprise, even at the last.
"You do with me what you will," he said, after a pause, in which she
almost believed she could hear her heart beat. "If I let you go free
now, you will promise to steal softly out, silent as the dead.
Whatsoever you see you will forget; whomsoever you meet you will pass
unnoticed. All that takes place here must be as a vision of the night,
to vanish with dawn of day. Swear it, by the Serpent of Ashtaroth!"
"By the Serpent of Ashtaroth!" she repeated, glad to escape on such good
terms; and, true to her easy careless nature, added in a whisper that
sent Beladon well-pleased to his watch, "I am not ungrateful, as you
know; when shall I see you again?--to-morrow, by the temple of Dagon, at
noon?"
Nevertheless, her cheek paled and her breath came quick while she stole
through the cedar gallery, because, light and fickle as she was, she
_did_ entertain for the cup-bearer something of that mysterious
preference which makes a woman instinctively conscious of _his_ presence
whom she thus distinguishes from the rest of mankind; and, though she
could not see five paces before her, she felt that Sethos was there, and
would accost her as she passed.
He could be vigilant enough for the safety of his lord, and, if he was
indeed slumbering, her light step brought him to his feet at a bound.
The next moment she was in his arms, with her head on his shoulder.
"I have risked everything to see you!" she sobbed wildly; "life, and
more than life. O, Sethos, you are a prisoner to those who know not
mercy, suffering none to escape. Do they use you well?"
His composure was sadly disturbed. It was startling enough to be
accosted in the dead of night by this beautiful vision, glowing and
panting in his embrace; but yet more surprising, surely, to find himself
an object of such interest to the queen's tirewoman.
It is but justice to say that his first thought was for the safety of
his unexpected visitor.
"How came you here, Kalmim?" he exclaimed, "and how are you to get away
again? Know you not that we are closely guarded by the priests of Baal?
If they found you in their precincts, all the wings of Nisroch would
scarcely save you from their wrath."
"I am not so bad a captain," said she, hanging fondly to his arm, "but
that I have secured my retreat. I made Beladon guide me to this spot. I
know the secret passage hence to the outer court. It is guarded by a
hundred of the neophytes, hewers of wood and drawers of water for the
temple. They would as soon dare question Semiramis herself as the
favourite tirewoman of the Great Queen. It is of _you_ I am thinking,
Sethos. It was to find _you_ I came here at the dead of night--to see
_you_, to comfort _you_, and to consult upon some plan for _your_
escape."
The moon shone faintly into the gallery. By its light she could observe
how sad was his brow while he answered, pointing to the terrace:
"Kings on their thrones have armies at command, and hosts are left them
after hosts have melted away. But this king in a prison hath but one
subject to do his bidding. Shall not that servant stick closer than a
brother, cherishing for his master a love surpassing the love of women?"
"It is impossible to save you both," said she despondingly.
"Then save the king," he answered simply and with a cheerful smile.
"Nay, Sethos," said she; "I would peril much for your sake,
because--because--you never asked of me anything for yourself, and what
you bestow on man or woman is given freely and without an afterthought.
But Ninyas is one, and you are another. If I am to risk life and limb,
it must be for the cup-bearer, not for the king. I am not like an armour
of defence, to be put on or laid aside at will. Steel headpiece and
linked habergeon ward off death from this man as from that; but, trust
me, there is some difference between a harness of proof and a woman's
heart."
He looked kindly in her face, and a thought seemed to strike him.
"Even here, in our imprisonment," said he, "there sometimes reaches us
an echo, faint and feeble, of rumours that stir the outer world. Is it
true the Great Queen has summoned an innumerable host to march
forthwith on this expedition to the North?"
"It _is_ true," said Kalmim; "and she leaves me here at home--_me_,
without whom awhile ago she could not lay a plait nor plant a bodkin.
But that you are here in captivity, Sethos, and I shall be near you, it
would have angered me bitterly, and I had reproached her roundly to her
face. But let her beware! A smouldering flame is not a fire
extinguished; and none was ever yet the better for offending Kalmim,
with or without a cause."
"In the queen's absence, there must be a governor of the city," he
whispered. "Will the obedience of the people be given to such a one when
their ruler is many a day's march away? O Kalmim, if Ninyas be ever
righted, ever sit on the throne of Ashur in the palace of his fathers,
I, even I, shall stand in a dress of honour at his right hand; and who
but Kalmim will then really sway the sceptre, far and wide, over the
whole land of Shinar?"
Her eyes flashed, her cheek glowed. No woman is so empty, so frivolous,
but that she willingly entertains a project of ambition; and the last
watch of night had passed away, dawn was already glimmering on the
horizon of the desert, while Sethos and his visitor were yet taking
earnest counsel together how they might restore the dynasty to its
rightful heir, and sap, till it crumbled into ruins, the glory and power
of her who was now supreme mistress of the eastern world.