Then he laughed out loud, a strange harsh laugh that scared the guards who held him, while he thought that here in his mortal anguish, throbbing under the knife or writhing on the stake, he had power to wring and torture that proud heart still.

Before deigning to notice him, she thanked her people for their loyalty with a sad and weary smile.

"Sons of Ashur," said she, "let none persuade you I have ever believed you could fail your queen. She has but trusted you once more to-day, and n.o.bly have you once more answered her appeal. I have spoiled for you another city; I have conquered for you another kingdom; I have journeyed far and fast to return to you. My bow is unstrung, my sword is sheathed, and I would fain rest from my labours. But Ashtaroth sleeps not in heaven, nor Semiramis on earth; and be the queen's eyes never so heavy, justice must be done by the greatest, as by the least, through the length and breadth of the land of Shinar. There is one here who has imagined evil in his heart against his ruler. a.s.sarac, priest of Baal, what have you to say why you should not forthwith be put to death?"

With these last syllables she turned full upon him her deep inscrutable eyes, and if he had any hope of it before, he neither desired nor expected pardon now. The pitiless gaze chilled him to the marrow, while he felt, that were their positions reversed, he too could be as cold and calm and cruel as his judge.

One glance of sympathy in the crowd would have unmanned him; but he looked for it in vain. On earth he saw a dreary wavering ma.s.s of sullen faces, and in heaven a wide-winged vulture, wheeling, hovering, poising itself in the blue eternal sky.

It was not his G.o.d that sustained him now, nor his sacred character, nor his priestly lore; not even the stubborn pride engrained in the nature of such spirits, destined to affect the fate of dynasties and trouble the security of an empire. No; he took refuge in the bitterness of that despair which has found and proved the worst--when love turns to hate, and faith to scorn--when the sweet springs of hope are poisoned at their source, and the vision of an angel in a halo of light changes to a mocking fiend, or a bare gaunt skeleton crowned with a grinning skull.

He returned a stare of defiance, calm and contemptuous as her own.

"It is for the Great Queen to reward her servants according to their deserts," said he. "Let her ask herself if I have merited death at her hands."

"It is not Semiramis who accuses you," she retorted coldly. "By the laws of Shinar you are judged, and by them you are condemned. I have spoken."

There was no hope; none. Yet would she but look kindly on him, he could bear it bravely, he thought, and die in his utter weariness, as a man lies down to sleep. He made one last effort.

"Have I not served her," he asked, "through good and evil, in no hope of payment or reward, but for the love and loyalty I bore to the Great Queen? I have lived too long when the face of Semiramis is turned from me in anger. I ask for no pardon, no reprieve. Let her but say that she forgives me before I die!"

"I have nothing to forgive," she replied, with pitiless unconcern. "The servant has raised his hand against his ruler; the subject has conspired against his queen. Whose are these white-robed bands cowering and trembling before me, though each man carries a naked knife in his girdle, and another in his hand? Who drew up that sullen and dejected line of warriors, instructing them to bend their bows and point their spears against the leader they have followed to victory? It is not for Semiramis to ask the question, but a.s.syria. It is not for Semiramis to answer it, but Baal, and he cries with a loud voice, 'a.s.sarac the priest!'"

"Who turned on her at the last!" he shouted, in a paroxysm of fury and despair. "Who bears here in his bosom the secret she would give all her empire to obtain; but who defies and reviles the Great Queen to her face, even in the jaws of death!"

She started, and for a moment seemed uncertain how to act; but recovering herself, p.r.o.nounced firmly the fatal words, "Cover his face, and lead him forth. I have spoken."

It was a sentence that could never be annulled. The eunuch felt he was doomed, and glanced instinctively upward, where the vulture pa.s.sed between him and the sun.

So they brought the hideous stake, and impaled him in sight of all men, that the people of Babylon might pa.s.s by to rebuke him with scoffs and curses, for a traitor who had lifted his hand against the Great Queen.

Two days, two nights, he writhed and languished in his agony. On the third morning men had become wearied of him, and he was left alone, save that the vulture floating overhead kept watch on untiring wing, and waited for him still.

At sunrise there came a veiled woman, with a jar of water in her hand.

His dim eye lightened, and the spasm, that should have been a smile, crossed his face, for he recognised in her gait and bearing the presence of his queen.

She raised her veil to look fixedly on those dying features, so changed, so distorted--to mark the quiver of those dry cracked lips, the flutter of life that played over the blackened, withered frame.

"Speak," said she, in a low hoa.r.s.e whisper, while the water rippled pleasantly in its jar. "Speak, and I will have mercy; for you shall drink and die."

He nodded a.s.sent, eyeing with piteous eagerness the deadly draught for which he longed.

"Doth he live?" she asked, and laid the jar almost against his lips.

Another nod, a convulsive choking gasp, and a roll of the half closed eyes.

"And where?" she continued, in fierce impatience, pitiless of his sufferings, careless of all but the secret she was fain to extort, even from the dead.

It was obvious that till his lips were moistened he could not answer, if he would. She held the jar to his mouth, and he took such a long and greedy draught as dulled his mortal agony with a sense of relief from suffering that was almost joy.

Again she watched those baked black lips with jealous eyes. They strove to form a word that yet died on them ere it could be uttered. Was it in mockery they trembled with certain faint syllables, that to her sense of sight, rather than hearing, seemed to indicate the desert? Was it in mockery they smiled and writhed and gibbered ere they set themselves, fixed and rigid for evermore?

Semiramis turned thoughtfully away, and the vulture came swooping down; for he, too, had waited long and patiently to take his share of one who had been a reader of the stars, a governor of the empire, the Great Queen's favourite servant, a.s.sarac, high priest of Baal.

CHAPTER LIX

FORGIVEN

For two days, woe, perplexity, and dire confusion reigned in the temple of the great a.s.syrian G.o.d. Baal might be an hungered, but they slew for him no droves of sheep and oxen; athirst, but they poured him out no drink-offerings; displeased, but they sought not favour and forgiveness with praise and prayer, because his servants looked in vain for a high-priest to interpret the commands of their deity, and the great golden image, towering sullen, and unmoved, afforded neither word nor sign. The denizens of the temple stared blankly in each other's faces, for men doubted sore in this crisis of the a.s.syrian hierarchy whose turn it might next be to die.

But on the third day, court and temple were once more redolent of incense and bright with flowers; altars blazed, victims fell, ditches ran crimson with blood. A hundred priests leaped, howled, and cut themselves with knives, a thousand voices raised their hymn of triumph, and Beladon, chosen by direct interposition of his G.o.d, under the authority of Ninyas his king, was proclaimed high-priest of Baal, in place of the dead man, crouched yonder on his stake in an open s.p.a.ce near the northern gate, already torn and mangled out of human likeness by the birds of prey.

Careless of a fallen master, the new high-priest had turned gladly from a.s.sarac to obtain favour in the sight of Ninyas; and that prince was content to give him honour and promotion in the mean time, waiting his own leisure to destroy him without pity or remorse.

For on this third day, the son of Ninus again sat in the gate to administer justice, again shook off the fetters of sloth, and the drowsiness of wine-cups, to wear the royal tiara of his fathers, and carry the sceptre of Nimrod in his hand.

The people of Babylon indeed clamoured loudly for their queen, crowding the streets and terraces about her palace, rending the air with their cries, vowing vengeance on priest and prophet, if she forbore to show herself, and even threatening the sacred person of her son.

It needed all the influence of a priesthood bribed by gifts and promises, all the intimidation of an army corrupted by gold and spoil, to persuade them that she had left her faithful subjects for the realm of those divinities to whom she was akin, and that the white doves they had seen since sunrise, flitting on restless pinions through her favourite city, were but so many messengers from the spirit-world, bidding a nation of mourners take comfort for the departure of the Great Queen.

It was to Beladon that Ninyas intrusted the promulgation of this strange belief, resolving that so soon as the tumult had subsided, so soon as he was himself firmly established on the throne, it would be wise to destroy the only power that rivalled his own in the land of Shinar, by the slaughter of their new high-priest, and general destruction of the worship of Baal, in favour of Nebo, Nisroch, or some other deity, over whose servants he would take care to retain undisputed influence and control.

For in the golden morning, lying tossing and troubled on his couch, a deep sleep had fallen on Ninyas, even with the rising of the sun, and he had dreamed a dream, or seen a vision, such as moved even that heart of his, so hardened by years of vice and self-indulgence, brought the unaccustomed tears to those eyes blinded by folly, sensuality, and sin.

He dreamed that he was a child once more--a tender happy child, triumphant in a new toy, or a treasure of fruit and flowers, loving, hopeful, and believing in his mother, the queen, as he believed in the light of day. He thought she came to his bedside carrying a fair and bending lotus in her hand; that she withheld from him the flower, resisting alike his prayers, his caresses, and his tears; that in his impatience and childish wrath, he seized the white caressing hand and bit it till the blood came, striking and buffeting the while so fiercely that his efforts seemed to wake him, and yet he could not rise, though he knew that he lay there a grown man, stretched on his own royal couch, struggling with the influence of a dream.

He must be helpless, he felt, and pa.s.sive--chilled, shivering, speechless--so long as those reproachful eyes held him in their gaze, so long as that stately figure bent over him so tenderly, that pale sad face confronted his own in the shadow of an unearthly beauty, that awed him with the majesty of death.

His tongue clave to the roof of his mouth, yet it seemed loosened, and his senses were freed from their heaviest restraint, when the vision addressed him; for was it not his mother's voice? And in spite of the injuries she had inflicted, in spite of injustice, treachery, all that had come and gone, those tones were liquid with a music that could still dominate his spirit, still soften and subdue his heart. "Ninyas," she said, "beloved, has it come to this, that my son could thirst for his mother's blood?" He almost believed while she spoke there were red drops on the white hand that had tended and fondled him from a child. Twice he raised his eyes to hers, and cast them down in very shame; twice he essayed an answer, and his lips refused to form the words; but the third time he took courage, and, with a great effort, exclaimed, "Forgive me, mother; for I have sinned! I am unworthy to reign in Shinar; I am unworthy even to draw bow among the sons of Ashur! Yet forgive me, mother; for am I not your son?"

A smile, unspeakably sad and tender, came over the pale fair face. "I have forgiven," said she, "although the arrow from my son's quiver bit into my very heart. Listen, Ninyas: it was foretold long ago, by one who read the stars, and who knows doubtless, ere now, whether he read them right--it was foretold, I say, by this wise man, that when the spear on which she leaned at her utmost need should break and wound her hand, then must the doves that nourished her childhood come back to lead Semiramis away, and the sons of Ashur must wander to and fro through old Nineveh and mighty Babylon, and all the wide bounds of the land of Shinar, asking each other in vain for tidings of the Great Queen. I mourned in sorrow and sadness, but my son was yet left to me, and I leaned on him as his father was wont to lean after battle on his spear.

My spear is broken, my son has failed me; he would reign unvexed, unwearied by the counsels of his mother. Go to! He will never look on that mother's face again."

He fell into a great sweat and trembling; with a desperate effort, he leaped like a young lion from his couch, to fall at her feet and clasp her knees, and detain her even by force, that he might make amends.

Alas, he grasped the empty air! He searched in vain with eager gaze throughout the chamber, and looked only on coloured carvings and vermilion roof, on alabaster columns, scarlet hangings, winged monsters tipped with gold, all the pomp and symbols of imperial sovereignty, his own without question now, because she was gone for evermore. Then he burst into a pa.s.sion of tears, and so, draining the flagon of Damascus wine that stood by his couch, felt comforted, and went out among his people with diadem and sceptre, feeling in his heart, that at last he was really an a.s.syrian king.

As the day waned, and the populace, who had been feasted at the royal expense, found themselves refreshed with food and gladdened by wine, discontent gave way to hilarity, and anxiety for the fate of their queen lapsed into easy indifference, or a stupid satisfaction in those supernatural attributes, by which they were taught to account for her disappearance.

It was credited of all men that she had been claimed by the unearthly order of beings to which she belonged; that she had only been intrusted for a time to the a.s.syrians, for the completion of their national glory; and that now, having fulfilled her mission, she was summoned back by kindred spirits, who, in the form of doves, birds she always prized and cherished, were to-day flitting in unusual numbers about the city of her choice.

Kalmim, whose eyes were red with weeping, stoutly supported the general belief, finding in it, no doubt, a salve for certain qualms of conscience she could not but entertain, regarding her own varying loyalty towards the mistress she served. This nimble-tongued tirewoman found herself regretting many a hint she had thrown out, many a petty scandal she had promulgated in derision of the Great Queen to have seen her back in the royal palace, to have smoothed her robes, tired her head, and done her bidding once more, Kalmim would willingly have given all she prized in the world, except perhaps the affection of Sethos, whom she now claimed as her own possession, by every rite of love and law known in the land of Shinar.

Standing with him on a house-top over against the temple of Baal, and marking with fond eyes how his bright young face glowed in the parting rays of a sun already touching the horizon of the desert, she could not forbear a sigh of pity for one whose lot, in spite of beauty, glory, and power, seemed so dark and sad, compared to her own.