THE VOICE OF THE CHARMER
It was not the custom of an Assyrian army to leave its work half done.
The day after the great battle of Ardesh, the Armenians were scattered
to the four winds of heaven. Thorgon and his long swords indeed lay on
the field in regular lines of rank and file, as they had fallen; but,
though resisting bravely while his crest could be seen above the tumult,
when their king went down, the remnant of the mountain men broke up and
fled in confusion to their homes. The very stratagem that had, as it
were, doubled his presence for their encouragement, served perhaps but
to dishearten them the more, when they no longer beheld the royal form
which had hitherto seemed ubiquitous in the fight. Every portion of his
host was satisfied it had taken its orders directly from the monarch;
and when at last those two mailed figures, each of which was believed to
be Aryas himself, came together in the hottest of the conflict, men lay
so thick about the spot, that few indeed were left to observe the fall
of one and disappearance of the other warrior, either of whom might have
been their king.
Through many a league of mountain pass and tangled brake, fording the
torrent or scouring the wind-swept plain, fled broken bands of
fugitives, panting, scared, disarmed, looking wildly over their shoulder
for the fierce and terrible foe, who spared not where he conquered, and
when he lifted sword or javelin, never failed to drive it home.
But there was one troop of horsemen, scanty in number, yet formidable in
appearance, that although fighting on the side of victory had suffered
considerable loss. Returning towards the south in fair and orderly
retreat, it yet bore no symptoms of discomfiture or flight. The children
of Anak presented rather the appearance of assailants proceeding on some
promising expedition than of a solitary force wilfully deserting the
cause it had espoused. They restrained their invincible little horses to
a steady regulated pace, halting at frequent intervals to show a bold
front in case of pursuit from friend or foe. Their arms were bright, and
held in readiness; their bearing was haughty and full of confidence;
even the wounded sat firm and upright in their saddles, and at any
moment all seemed prepared to resume the fray.
In the centre rode their Veiled Queen, accompanied by one in Armenian
armour, who seemed less a prisoner than a guest.
While the battle raged at its fiercest round the white stone which
Semiramis had marked at its turning-point, Ishtar found herself carried
on its tide against the very person of him whom she had come to seek. It
needed but a wave of her arm to rally round her those champions who
believed so simply in her supernatural attributes, with whom no horsemen
in the world could counter stroke for stroke. Pressing in on their
leader, they soon encircled Ishtar and Sarchedon, soon cut their way to
the outskirts of the battle, and merging alike their compact with
Semiramis and their own love of fighting in blind obedience to their
queen, drew off in perfectly good order, to commence a steady retreat
for their southern home.
The Assyrian had seen Aryas fall in fight, had noted the destruction of
the long swords, the total rout of those hardy warriors who hoped in
vain to make head against his countrymen. What was left him now, but to
drift with the stream of fate in the arms of the woman he loved?
The Anakim soon recognised him as the companion of their leader, when
first she appeared among their tents and they knew her not. This was
enough to insure their protection and regard. At the first halt, there
was even a question of receiving him as an adopted brother in the tribe;
but he wanted more than a span of the necessary stature, and that
project was unwillingly abandoned. Nevertheless, every man felt pledged
to do him homage and defend his person to the death.
It seemed to Sarchedon that he was riding through some unreal paradise
in a dream. He told Ishtar as much, while she related her trials, her
sorrows, and her undeviating constancy since they parted in the desert
after their flight from Ascalon. He feared to wake, he said, and find
himself again in that Egyptian dungeon, from which escape seemed
hopeless as from the tomb.
"Beloved," she answered, "the queen of heaven will not permit us to be
tried yet farther. Behold! twice has she brought you deliverance through
me her servant in your hour of greatest need. It is enough. We shall be
parted no more. We will cast in our lot with these children of the
wilderness: they are brave, generous, faithful; they will fence us from
our enemies with a hedge of steel."
"Be it so," he answered, looking fondly in the dear face that was
unveiled only to _him_. "Better a goats' hair tent with Ishtar in the
desert than a painted chamber and an empty heart in the palace of a
king. And yet," he added somewhat wistfully, "I would fain see the
inside of great Babylon again before I die."
They were crossing a fair and level plain, the mountains above Ardesh
were already sinking on the horizon, and the children of the desert
welcomed that smooth unvaried surface, as reminding them of the
boundless tract they called their home.
Presently the chief, riding warily in their rear, shouted to halt.
Forming towards the point of danger, they observed a column of dust
rising in the distance, as of an armed party proceeding rapidly on their
track.
To those observant eyes, prompt and reliable information was afforded by
the lightest tokens of earth or sky. While Sarchedon could detect but a
rolling yellow cloud, the sons of Anak told each other of ten score
horsemen and a war-chariot travelling at speed.
They bore down, therefore, in the direction of the approaching party,
forming carefully round Ishtar and her companion in case of conflict.
When within a furlong of each other, both troops somewhat slackened
pace, and a chariot, driven furiously towards the Anakim, was stopped at
a spear-length from their chief.
Standing in it, erect and fearless before drawn bows and levelled
spears, with head bared, shield lowered in token of amity, Assarac
raised his unarmed hands, and cried in a loud voice, "Is it peace, O my
brother?"
"Let there be peace, my brother, between thee and me," answered the
chief of the Anakim; and the eunuch, getting down out of his chariot,
proceeded to explain the reason of his coming and his absence in the
hour of victory from the army of the Great Queen.
"Semiramis," he said, "had been grievously wounded at the very moment of
triumph. If not hurt to the death, she was at least unable to retain
command of the host, or even to provide for the government of her empire
at home. Therefore must he hasten back to Babylon, that he might rule
wisely and in accordance with the laws of Shinar, while the queen's
authority was thus for a space in abeyance. New times were coming--a new
policy, perhaps a new dominion. Those who were so skilful to rein a
steed and wield a sword must ever be welcome to a warlike government,
such as could alone control the sons of Ashur. He had it in his power to
offer the Anakim a tract of fertile country, a land of corn and wine and
oil, in which to dwell at ease, ruled by their hereditary chief and
subject to their fathers' laws. Would they not hold it of the Great
Queen by service of bow and spear, each man sitting under his own vine
and his own fig-tree, doing that which seemed good in his own eyes?"
The Anakim glanced doubtfully at each other; their chief pointed to the
mare from which he had dismounted, and shook his head.
"I could not breathe Lotus-flower," said he, "in the confines of such a
tract. Like the wild ass, whose speed she laughs to scorn, her limbs
would stiffen if she might not stretch them on a plain boundless as the
sky that meets it on every side."
"There is rich spoil to share," urged the eunuch. "Herds of sheep, oxen,
and camels, droves of captives--men, women, and children--wine, jewels,
goodly raiment, and gold to be had for the asking."
The other stooped his tall person to bend his bow against the hollow of
his foot and ease its string.
"All these," he answered, "I can have by the tightening of this weapon
in my hand. What need I more than the inheritance of my fathers--the
desert sun, the trackless sand, and the goods of every man whose spear
is a span shorter than mine own? Go to, thou lordly son of Ashur! my
portion is better than thine. I have spoken. Take a gift from thy
servant, and depart in peace."
Assarac would never have been in his present position had he admitted
the impossibility of an enterprise because of its first failure.
"I will accept the gift of my brother," said he, receiving with
exceeding courtesy a loaf of barley-bread and a handful of dried dates,
offered by one of the Anakim at a signal from his chief. "May it be
returned to him a hundredfold when he encamps without the gate of
Babylon, and I, even I, Assarac, governor of the city, bow my head at
the door of his tent to do him honour! If we may not draw bow again side
by side in battle, at least let there be peace between thy people and my
people, so that a son of Ashur, meeting a child of Anak in the
wilderness, shall cast his spear down before him and say, Is it well
with thee, O my brother?"
Pausing to mark the effect of these friendly sentiments, and observing
that they were well received by his listeners, the eunuch turned to
Sarchedon, and continued in a lighter tone:
"There is indeed a new dominion in Babylon when those laws of the land
of Shinar have been set aside which sentence to death that Assyrian-born
who shall be found arrayed in war-harness against the banner of Ashur.
And therefore, Sarchedon, if thou art a prisoner among these my
brethren, I will ransom thee at a royal price. If a friend, I will bid
thee leave them for a space, to their profit and thine own. If a captain
and leader, I will promote thee to yet higher honour in the great army
that has never known defeat."
Sarchedon, glancing doubtfully at Ishtar, noted the colour fade from her
cheek ere she drew the veil over her face. Nevertheless, the tempter was
skilled in his art; and the prospect of once more bearing arms with his
countrymen was too welcome to be dismissed.
"I would fain return to the land of my fathers," said he, "and ride to
battle with my brethren in burnished armour and costly raiment once
more. But yet it is better to dwell in the desert with a whole skin than
to writhe on a stake in the sun, even though it be over against the
palace of a king. If I came in the light of the Great Queen's
countenance, behold, she would consume me in her wrath. If Ninyas
reigned in her stead, my death might peradventure be more merciful, but
more speedy also, and no less sure."
Assarac had a purpose to serve, and the lie glided smooth and facile
from his lips.
"Semiramis," he answered--and even now, in this his hour of fierce
revenge and mad disloyalty, he could not speak that name without a
quiver of the lip, a tremble of the voice--"Semiramis sickens in her
tent with a death-hurt. Ninyas her son, sunk in sloth and pleasure,
lover of the garland, the wine-cup, and the couch, would soon weary of
the sceptre as he wearied of the sword. The Assyrian ruler needs a wise
brain and a long arm. The Assyrian people look for qualities in their
kings that are the attributes of their gods. Ninus will never return to
us from the stars; but Ninus was less powerful than Nimrod, even as
Nimrod himself was weaker than Ashur, from whose loins he sprang. Why
should we, his descendants, owe allegiance to any earthly power? Why
should kings, queens, and princes come between Baal and the people of
his choice?"
The audacious project of wresting from the line of Nimrod that dynasty
it had held with so strong a hand, and substituting a hierarchy of
which he should himself be the head, had long appeared to Assarac a
feasible project enough--one worthy of his own tameless energy and
insatiable ambition, although the temptation had been stifled hitherto
by his loyalty, his devotion to the queen. Now, in the torture of a
vexed heart and wounded spirit, he swore to cast aside every sentiment
but revenge, at least till Semiramis was at the mercy of him whose
fidelity she had used, and scorned, and outraged without remorse.
Therefore, it would be well, he thought, to strengthen his hands with
all the weapons he could seize, to make such friends for himself on
every side as should become willing tools, to ply at need, and cast away
at will. When he met them by chance in the plain, it struck him that the
Anakim would be no contemptible auxiliaries; when he found Ishtar and
Sarchedon in their midst, he reflected that the former might still be
made a bait, if necessary, for the allurement of Ninyas; the latter,
according as events fell out, might form a snare, a bribe, or a
punishment for the Great Queen. That she believed him to have been
killed, and in her agony of sorrow thought to raise him from the dead,
he knew by the evidence of his own senses, and although the Armenian
habit, in which he now recognised Sarchedon, convinced him of her error,
the bitterness of his anguish seemed rather enhanced than modified by
this discovery that the object of her desire was not yet wholly out of
reach.
It was scarcely jealousy he experienced, for jealousy implies
possession, past, present, or prospective; it was rather that morbid
recklessness of despair, which pulls down the whole edifice on its own
head, if only the idol may be crushed and buried in the ruins of its
shrine.
Could he have hated her as sincerely as he wished, he would, perhaps,
have triumphed, and, favoured by circumstances, might have held the
proud Semiramis in his power, if only for a day; but when did man ever
succeed in any perilous enterprise who suffered his heart to paralyse
his arm, the outcry of his affections to drown the promptings of his
brain?
Nevertheless, it was his present object to gain over Sarchedon, and
after a pause, as of deep consideration, he spoke out with a semblance
of the utmost frankness:
"Hearken, my son. Let nothing be kept back between thee and me. Baal,
though he lead a host in heaven, needs also an army here on earth. That
army must have a captain. He who has set the battle in array for friend
and foe, at home, in Egypt, here among the mountains of the north, is
surely well fitted to command the warriors of the Assyrian god. When
Assarac declares his will from the altar before his temple at home,
Sarchedon shall stand forth in shining raiment, chief and Tartan of the
great Assyrian host. Said I well, my son? and wilt thou not follow me in
all haste to Babylon?"
He had bought him, he thought, for a price, and, through him, that
foolish girl, together with this formidable tribe of stalwart
simple-minded warriors.
Again Sarchedon glanced at Ishtar; but her veil was down, and she made
no sign.
"To lead the host!" he muttered thoughtfully. "To have the power of
Ninus, and wield it wisely, as did Arbaces!"
"Ponder it well, my son," said the eunuch solemnly, "while I speed on to
prepare the way. What art thou here?" he added, lowering his voice. "A
hostage in a foeman's camp, at a woman's will. Behold, I can make thee
the noblest leader on earth, and she, this veiled queen of a handful of
horsemen, shall sit on the throne of a province larger than the great
northern land we went out to conquer. What Baal offers, do not thou
despise. Go to! Stretch forth thy hand, and take it whilst thou canst.
To-morrow it may be too late. I have spoken."
Then, with a courteous farewell to the Anakim, he mounted into his
chariot, and was gone, speeding, like some pestilent wind, towards the
south on his mission of treachery, rebellion, and revenge.