Читать книгу Semiramis: A Tale of Battle and of Love - Edward Peple - Страница 4

CHAPTER IV

THE FISH GODDESS

Menon, Governor of Syria, was troubled in his soul. Throughout the night he had courted sleep, yet rest came not to body or to mind, for the air was close, and vexious thought stood sentinal beside his couch.

When the cool of dawn came stealing down on Syria, he left his heated pallet, clothed himself, and wandered along the lake shore where the freshening breezes blew. He sprawled at ease upon a shelving stone, cast off his outer robe, and watched for a ruby sun to spring from out the east.

Behind him lay the village of Ascalon, where dwelt the herders of sheep, the tillers of the thirsty soil and the wardens of flocks and herds. Before him stretched the lake, deep, green and chill, the palm and pomegranate casting ghostly shadows from its shores. On the further side, in the gloom of shrubbery and trees, the temple of the fish-god Dagon seemed but the end of a morning mist that trailed across the waters. In the shallows beside the rocks swam countless fishes, now darting to cover beneath the stones, now leaping at some luckless fly that swung too near the danger line. From end to end the surface broke with myriads of fins, while ever and again a louder splash proclaimed some monster's upward rush, the widening ripples cut by minnows in a scurrying flight.

They dwelt in peace, these denizens of the deep, for the Syrians eat no fish, nor may they snare them with hooks or nets lest the wrath of Dagon utterly destroy such fools, together with their flocks and herds, their wives and children, their soil and the fruits therein. And thus the fish lived on and multiplied.

There were men, as countless as the fish of Ascalon, who envied Menon as one on whom the gods had smiled; yet now he sat with his chin upon his palm, with a foot that tapped impatiently on the wave-bathed shore, while he scowled at the glory of a coming dawn.

Wherefore should he scowl, this favorite of the gods, Chief Governor of Syria, a warrior beloved of men, a youth watched covertly from many a latticed screen till his careless passing caused a yearning sigh? Wherefore should he mutter curses in his palm and dig his heel into the sands? Had he not on yestereve received a scroll from the King himself, wherein that monarch praised him for his services afield, and, more, for his crafty rule? Had Ninus not made offer of a high reward when Nineveh should be builded at the end of two short years? Ah, here the sandal galled! Full many an older man, for very joy, might have danced upon the lake shore happily, yet Menon muttered curses in his palm and digged his heel into the sands.

Ere another moon was dead, the waiting messengers must return to Nineveh and with them bear an answer to the lord of all the lands. Agreement to the King's desire meant cruelty more bitter than he dared to dream. Refusal dragged the keystone from his arch of hope, to crush him beneath the very walls his youthful strength had raised. To seek delay—

Of a sudden Menon started from his revery, as a round white pebble struck his knee and bounded into the lake. He looked to learn whence the missile came, but all was still. Behind him in the distance stretched the rolling hills, with herders following in the wake of drowsy sheep; to the right, the lake's rim lay in peace, barren save for a fluttering bird or two, while on the left a fringe of bush ran out on a point of rocks, too low, it seemed, to screen a human form. Still wondering, the Assyrian rubbed his knee and gazed reproachfully at the fishes in the lake, when a flute-like laugh pealed forth—a joyous, bubbly laugh—that rang along the shores till every rocky ledge took up its notes and flung a mocking echo across the waves.

Menon sprang upon a stone, to explore each nook and crevice with a hunter's circling gaze. With body bent, with every sense alert, he swept the shores for the jester's hiding place; and at last, when hope was well-nigh spent, he caught the gleam of a wind-blown lock of hair from the rocky point close down by the water's edge. Menon smiled, then seemed to become engrossed in the sight of some floating object far out upon the lake; yet, the while, from the tail of his crafty eye, he watched the point whence mischief hid as behind a shield. A silence fell. No sound was heard save the splash of plunging carp, the yelp of a shepherd's dog, and the harsh, shrill cry of a crane that passed in lazy, lumbering flight.

From the water a form rose noiselessly, while a pair of dancing eyes looked out through a leafy screen; a rounded arm was raised, and Menon wheeled and caught the second pebble as it came. For an instant the two stood motionless; the one surprised at her swift discovery, the other stricken speechless with amaze at the bold, unearthly beauty, of a water nymph.

"A goddess!" he gasped at length, and stared in the wonder of a dreamer roused from sleep.

She stood at the water's edge, a girl just budding into womanhood, her fair skin glistening with the freshness of her bath. A clinging skirt from hip to knee, revealed her slender symmetry of limb, clean, lithe, and poised for nimble flight. For the rest she was nude, save for a tumbling wealth of flame-hued locks, tossed by the rising breeze, half veiling, half disclosing, a gleaming bust and throat. Above, a witch's face, Grecian in its lines, yet dashed with the warm voluptuousness of Semitic blood; a mouth, firm, fearless in its strength, yet tempered by a reckless merriment—a mouth to harden in a tempest-gust of scorn, to quiver at the sigh of passion's prayer, or fling its light-lipped laughter in the teeth of him who prayed. Her eyes—a haunted pool of light, wherein, a man might drown his soul, and, sinking, bless his torturer.

For an instant more stood Menon, gaping at the girl, till humor gripped him, and he flung back his head and laughed.

"By Asshur," he cried aloud, "a kiss shall be the price of thy sweet impertinence!"

At a bound he cleared the intervening space and stretched his hand for a wayward coil of hair, yet ere his fingers closed the girl leaped backward, turned, and plunged into the lake. In a flash she disappeared, to rise again and strike out swiftly in a line with Dagon's temple on the further shore.

"Oho!" laughed Menon, "t'is then a fish's game! So be it, saucy one, for two shall play it to the end!"

Not pausing to divest himself of clothing or the leathern sandals strapped upon his feet, he followed after, sank and shot upward, snorting as he shook his head to free his ears and eyes. With strong, free strokes he began the race, smiling happily because of its speedy end. What chance had she against his splendid strength, he who had breasted the swollen Euphrates, or stemmed the Tigris when its waters sang to the plunge of hissing arrow points? The chilling bath lent vigor to his limbs and sent the young blood bubbling through his veins. The shoulder muscles writhed beneath his skin, while his heart beat faster in the fierce exhilaration of pursuit. What joy to run such quarry down, that gleaming body moving with an easy sweep, the flame-red hair that barely kept beyond his reach!

Faster and faster Menon swam, with every grain of power behind his strokes; yet the maiden kept her lead, now pausing to fling a mocking glance behind, now darting forward till the ripples danced against her breast. And so the chase went on, till the lake was well-nigh crossed, till the temple, which had seemed to twinkle among the trees, now stood out boldly, and an image of the ugly fish-god Dagon watched the stragglers in stony silence.

Then the pace began to tell, even upon the Assyrian's strength. His muscles ached; his hot breath broke between his lips in labored gasps; about his breast a band of bronze seemed squeezing out his life, and a sweat of weakness dripped into his eyes. He was gaining now! He saw with a hunter's joy that his quarry wearied of her work. Her strokes grew feeble, while the flaming head sank lower among the waves.

"By Bêlit," he wheezed, "the kiss is mine, or I rest my bones at the bottom of thy lake!"

The space of a spear's length lay between the two, and inch by inch the pursuer cut it down, while the nymph had ceased to mock him with her laughter, and bent her ebbing strength to the effort of escape. For her the race was run. On came the panting hunter in her wake, remorseless, eager, a hard hand reaching for her floating locks. She ducked her head, eluding seizure by a finger-breadth, leaped as the struggling fishes dart, and regained a tiny lead. Once more vantage slipped away, and now was hanging on a thread of chance. Again and again the Assyrian's hand shot out, to clutch the air or a dash of spray in his empty fist. His failure angered him. He clenched his teeth and worried on, yet splashing clumsily, for exertion now was fraught with agony.

"The kiss!" he breathed. "I'll have the kiss, I swear, or—"

The oath died suddenly upon his lips, for the maiden tossed her arms and disappeared. With a cry the youth plunged after her, forgetting his pain in the fullness of a self-reproach. He reached the spot where her form had sunk, and strove to dive, but weary nature proved a master of his will. He floated to regain his wind, while scanning the lake for a rising blotch of red; but only the leaping carp made circles through the waves, and a ruby sun climbed upward from a bed of mist. The breeze hummed foolishly among the palms, and a blue crane flung an accusing cry across the waters.

Menon's hope ebbed low and lower still, to die, to spring again to life at a peal of bubbly laughter, sweet unto his ears. Behind him he caught a flash of flaming hair, the gleam of a throat that shaped the taunt, a shoulder cutting through the ripples easily—the lake-nymph, fresh, unweary, an impish victor of the race!

By a trick she had lured him to expend his strength in the chase of one who swam as the minnows swim; and to Menon came this knowledge like a blow between the eyes. He turned him shoreward with a feeble stroke, striving to keep himself afloat, for his heavy sandals weighed him down, and languor seized on every fibre of his frame. He was beaten, spent. A blurred mist rose before his eyes, while the droning call of distant battle raged within his ears. A thousand flame-hued heads danced tauntingly beyond his reach, and laughed and laughed. The world went spinning down into a gulf of gloom, and a clumsy crane reeled after it—a steel-blue ghost that stabbed him with a beak of fire. He choked; he fought for life as he lashed out madly, till the foam-churned waters mounted high and fell to crush him in their roaring might.

For the space of an indrawn breath a white face rode upon the surface of the lake, then slowly the Assyrian sank.

It was easier now! He seemed to slide from the grip of pain to a waving couch of peace. The world had slipped from out its gulf of gloom at last, to rock through league on league of emerald cloud, and the crane was gone. The lake-nymph's laughter, too, had died away. She fled from him no more, but stretched her arms and held him close, his limp head pillowed on her breast. She warmed his flesh with the coils of her fiery hair, and her child-voice rose and fell in a crooning slumber-song.

"The kiss!" sighed Menon, and the waters hung above him drowsily.

CHAPTER V

A PRAYER TO DAGON

As the young Assyrian sank, the maid smiled cunningly and edged away, fearing to be snared in a trap of her own device; yet when the moments melted one by one, her merriment gave place to fear. Full well she knew the space a swimmer might remain beneath the waves, and when at last four tiny bubbles rose, she took one long, deep breath, and dived.

Downward her course was laid in a slanting line, down to the very lake-bed, where the rocks were coated with a slimy muck, and tall grey weeds swayed gently to and fro. She worked in circles among the sharp-edged, slippery stones, groping with hands and feet where shadows closed the mouths of the darker pools; and at last she touched his hand. She strove to seize it, but her breath was well-nigh spent, and with a spring she shot toward the air.

A moment's rest and again she dived, now certain of the spot whereon he lay. She reached him, paused an instant while her fingers sought a clutching point and closed upon his belt. She raised his weight, then bent her knees to lend a springing start, and began a battle for the stranger's life.

Slowly, too slowly, was the journey made, for the body in its water-laden robes was dragging heavily, while the swimmer, with only one free arm, was hampered in her toil. But still she rose, though her lungs were like to burst, and the sinews across her chest were taut with pain. Up, still up, till youth and will could bear the double tax no more. She had ceased to move. She was sinking now, and of a sudden loosed her hold and raced for life—alone. High up she shot, till her slim waist cleared the water line. Another long, glad breath, and she sank again ere the body might once more settle among the weeds; and now she was beneath it, swimming cautiously, lest her burden slip.

How far it seemed to that wavy blur of light above, and how he weighed her down! How the lagging moments crawled, while each was a hope that slid away as the waters swept beneath her arms! His trailing hands were checking speed, and his robe was torn and entangled with her feet; yet across her shoulder hung his head, his cheek pressed close against her own.

By Ishtar, she would save him now, or rest beside him on his couch of weeds!

At last! A prayer of thankfulness to Dagon whistled across her lips with the first sweet rush of imprisoned breath; then, grasping the Assyrian's locks, she turned upon her back and swam to the temple's marble steps.

Once she had seen her foster-father bring back the life of a shepherd boy whose spark was well-nigh quenched in a swollen mountain stream; and so she wrought with Menon, first turning him upon his face and by her weight expelling the water from his lungs; then she chafed his pulses, beat with her fists upon his body, and moved his arms with a rhythmic motion to and fro. This she did and more, for, womanlike, when hope had oozed away, she took him on the cradle of her breast and sought to coax him back to life by soothing, childish words.

"Live! Live!" she breathed. "How young thou art to die! And I—a fool!—a fool!—to cause thee ill! Come back, sweet boy, and I will give the kiss! Aye, an hundred if thou wilt—but come!"

She wound her arms about him and looked into his upturned face. How beautiful he was, but oh, how still! How deep were his eyes which gazed into her own, but saw not her tears of pity and of pain! Some noble was he, perchance, in the train of Menon, the mighty Governor, who would doubtless sell her into slavery because of her wicked deed. But why should a youth do foolish things? Why had he dared the waters of her lake where fish alone or the child of fishes swim? Must a life so young, so precious, pay the price of folly? The folly of a kiss! Ah, he might have it now, though his lips were cold, unconscious, beneath the pressure of her own.

Again and again the blazing head was bowed, while the color raced from cheek to throat, and the lake-nymph's blood awoke—awoke with a flame that would one day boil the caldron of Assyria, when the froth was stirred by a spoon of passionate unrest—a flame that would parch a thousand lands and drive their hordes to madness in a quenchless lust for war.

With the strength of despair the maiden lifted Menon's body, dragged it up the temple steps and laid it at the foot of Dagon's altar; then on her knees beside it she raised her arms and prayed, in a woman's passion-born desire.

"See, Dagon," she cried aloud, "see what the spirits of thy lake hold prisoner! See how still he lieth—he who was warm and filled with the breath of youth! An offering? No, no, sweet god, 'tis not an offering at thy daughter's hands. The fruits, the garlands, and the grain are thine; the fattest kids and the first of the springtime ewes, but he is mine! List thee, mighty one! Why lookest thou across the lake in silence, unmoved, and heeding not my cry? Do I not bring thee dates and flowers, the goat's milk and the buds from the tallest palms? No boon have I asked of thee, yet grant it now! Ah, pity, pity, and give him back to me!"

The suppliant bowed her head and waited, but the fish-god gave no sign. High up he towered, a hideous effigy in rough-hewn stone, with human face and hands, with the scaly body of a fish, while below his human feet were seen, distorted, half concealed in heaps of withered blossoms borne in offering by his shepherd worshippers. Behind him lay a carven plow, in emblem of the tiller's art, a sickle, a herder's crook, and vessels of wine from the vineyard's choicest juice.

Long moments passed. The lake-nymph's eyes were shifted from Dagon's visage to the stranger at her side. His body lay in an ugly, helpless sprawl, his arms outstretched, his dark eyes fixed on nothingness, as vacant as the idol's own. Once more the maiden turned to the god who seemed to mock her with his icy calm, whose stony ears were closed to the voice of prayer. She waited, and childish reverence melted as a mist dissolves, and fury rent her heart. She sprang to her feet and beat upon the effigy with doubled fists, her eyes ablaze, her loose hair whipping at her naked breast.

"Awake! Awake! Art sleeping, Dagon, that thou heedest not? Awake, I say! 'Tis I who call—Shammuramat![#] Am I, too, not a child of gods, whom the good witch Schelah sayeth will one day rule the world? Heed, or I tear thy temple down and set a Moloch in thy stead! Awake, thou fool! Awake!"

[#] The name "Shammuramat" has been corrupted by the Greeks into Semiramis, in which form the great Assyrian Queen is better known.

The shrill voice ceased. The pale girl listened with a chill of terror till the echoes died in the temple's dome. Once more she fell upon her knees, and though her rage still stormed within her heart she softened her speech, as in after years she won by flattery where anger failed to lash obedience to her will.

"Forgive, dear Dagon," she whispered, as she clasped his feet, "my tongue is the tongue of Derketo, my mother, whom thou didst curse with a just unhappiness. Yet listen! In error didst thou cause this youth to sink in the waters of thy lake, for he, too, loveth thee, with a love as great as mine. Give me his life, divine one, and in payment will I steal rich wine from my father's oldest skins—the palm-wine, Dagon, which is sweet and strong. Also, my goat is thine. I will slay it here in sacrifice and lay its heart in the hollow of thy hand."

She paused in thought profound. The bribe was large, yet the scales of barter needed still another weight; and well she knew the gods demand in sacrifice the parting with gifts which cause the keenest pangs. Of all her treasures two were held most dear, her dog and a string of pearls; and now, as she looked into Menon's sightless eyes, her treasures seemed to shrink in worth. Yet ere she squandered all upon an altar stone, the voice of wisdom whispered at her ear and caused her to hide a smile.

"Hear me, Dagon," she murmured, meekly, "thou knowest my good dog Habal that on rest-days cometh to thy temple's door? Him, too, might I give in offering to turn thy heart, yet the deed were folly and to thee unjust; for doth he not watch my father's flocks, with a faithful eye upon the lambs which are slain for thee alone? Were Habal dead, who then might save thy lambs from the beasts of prey? Nay, Habal's teeth can serve thee unto better ends than Habal's blood."

She stole a glance at Dagon, and, finding his features placid in content, became emboldened to seal her bargain with a master-stroke. In a corner of the temple lay her robe of fine spun wool, discarded for her morning bath; and now from beneath its folds she brought her necklace, holding it up for the greedy god to see.

"Look! Look, sweet god," she cried. "This I offer thee—a treasure given by a great Armenian prince. Soften thy heart and I cast it into the deepest waters of thy lake, where none may find it and dispoil thee of my gift."

True, Semiramis herself might dive and recover it at will, albeit she hoped a point so trifling might escape the god. Yet, lest the thought occur to him, she hastened on:

"Knowest thou not the value of such pearls? With a single bead thou couldst buy an hundred Habals for thine altar's needs. Think, then, what all would mean—they are twice a score—and I give them for the life of this one poor youth, whom me-thinks is of common blood and lowly born. Heed, wise one, and hasten, lest wisdom tempt me and I keep my pearls."

A shaft of sunlight filtered through the thick leaved palms, wavered, and crawled across the temple's floor; for an instant it rested on a tangle of blazing hair, then slowly climbed the fish-god's scaly side. As the maiden watched, with parted lips, with bosom fluttering to a quickened pulse, the flame of sunlight flickered and went out. Yet at her choking cry, it leaped to life again, to splash the face of Dagon with a leering glow of happiness—and Menon groaned and stirred.

While one might count a score, the girl leaned, limp and nerveless, on Dagon's altar stone; then she cast aside the blistered cat's paw of divine appeal and set in its place a swift, more vigorous god of force. With a zeal of hope she fell upon the body of her charge in all the strength her wild, free life had built, till Menon's eyelids fluttered and a frown of half unconscious protest ridged his brow. In the twilight of understanding, he fancied himself an ill used prisoner in the hands of enemies who mauled him from neck to heel; and when with returning life came an agony of water-laden lungs that labored to be free, he turned on his side and muttered curses, deep, fervent, touched by the fires of poesy.

It was then, then only, that the toil of Semiramis gave place to indolence. She rested her chin upon her knees and listened to the music of his oaths—music far sweeter than the liquid notes of shepherd's flutes, or the echoes of sheep bells tinkling through the dusk. A seed of love had broken from its strange, unharrowed soil, and the bud had opened to look upon its god.

With a sigh of peace she rose and clothed herself in the robe of fine spun wool, clasped tight her girdle and strapped the sandal thongs about her feet; then she rested Menon's head upon her lap and forced between his teeth the rim of a wine cup of which she recklessly deprived great Dagon's shrine.

"Dagon and I," she murmured, with an impish smile, "have compassed much; yet Dagon alone, without the measure of my aid—"

She paused, for a young cloud slid across the sun, flinging a shadow on the temple floor, a shadow which crept and crept till the fish-god's visage darkened with its gloom; then Semiramis remembered, rose, and cast her pearls far out into the lake.

Once more she sat beside her charge, chafing his temples with a patient, lingering caress. Long, long she watched, her fancy looming lace-work webs of fate, while her heart marked joyfully his battle with reluctant life; till, presently, his breath flowed gently and the sweat of pain was dried upon his brow.

Menon's glance met hers, and a flush of shame grew hot upon his cheek—the shame of defeat to him, a war-tried soldier, at the hands of a shepherd girl. Yet in her smile a man might forget defeat—forget and rejoice—forget all else save the smile and the maid who smiled.

His color spread, yet the blood-warmed tint now told no more of the sting of an humbled pride. He strove to raise his arms, but they seemed as weights too heavy for his strength, and sank beside him weakly. His thews were slack; he lay as helpless as an unweaned babe, yet the victor's eyes were laughing down into his own, and were kind.

"The kiss!" sighed Menon, and the maiden bent and gave her soul into the keeping of his lips.

CHAPTER VI

THE DAUGHTER OF DERKETO

A coppery sun climbed upward on his hill of cloud; the south-wind ceased, and the lake drowsed lazily in the morning sun. The Assyrian still reclined with his head upon the lap of Semiramis, for in the beginning she would not suffer him to tax his strength with speech. She urged that he rest, while she told her name and the story of her birth; and he, content, asked nothing more than to look and listen, while his heart grew hungry and his pulses sang to a tune of joy. So the maiden babbled on of gods and men, of the shepherd's home with Simmas, her foster-father, and of her simple life with sheep that browsed upon the hills and the fishes swam in the waters of Ascalon.

Her mother, Derketo, had been a goddess whom the Syrians worshipped in her temple beside the lake, till she drew the fatal wrath of Dagon down, because of her beauty and her foolish vanities. She lured the hearts of mortals from their level paths, consuming them with mad desires which were barren and unfulfilled; playing with passion, yet drinking not its flame—a reckless sprite who mocked at hell, while she danced on a thread that stretched across its throat.

Then Dagon, troubled at her wickedness, brought forth from some far eastern land a warrior youth who sighed and sang before Derketo's shrine. Slender was he and shapely, with deep blue eyes and locks that shone as a flame of golden red; so the goddess came out to him and was pleased because of the sweetness of his song. Through the long blue night he sang and whispered in her ear, till by his arts and a subtle tongue he wrought her fall, then straightway disappeared.

A babe was born, and Derketo, in her shame and grief, stole out by night upon the hills and left her child among the rocks to die; then, weeping, she crept into her temple, hiding behind its altar's shadow from the sight of men. By day she slept; by night she crouched beside the water's edge, to fling shrill curses at Dagon across the lake.

Then Dagon in wrath waxed terrible, and sent a lightning bolt which destroyed the goddess and her temple utterly, so that Syria knew her beauty and her wiles no more.

Now a farmer who dwelt in Ascalon was sorely vexed because of theft, yet never could he lay his hands upon the pilferer, albeit he watched together with his wife and sons. The goats' milk left in crocks outside his door would disappear in the broad of day, and after a space his cheeses began to suffer likewise. Marveling, he set himself to watch again, and at dawn a flock of doves dropped down before his door. They pecked at his cheeses, or filled their beaks with milk, then winged their flight to a distant point on the hillside over against the lake. The farmer and his sons marked out the spot and journeyed thither, to find a babe that was sheltered among the stones—the same which Derketo left to perish, and now was nurtured by these sacred birds.[#]

[#] This is the accepted legend of the origin of Semiramis.

The farmers bore her tenderly to the house of Simmas, chief warden of the royal flocks, a kindly man who reared her as his own; and they called her Shammuramat, which name, in the Syrian tongue, means Dove.

Thus the offspring of a goddess, and adopted child of doves and mortal man, grew swiftly to a strength and beauty of the gods themselves. From early childhood she loved the lake, where she sported among the waves till none might match her in speed or grace of stroke; yet, truly, born of Derketo, goddess of the fishes, what marvel, then? Again, as her mystic father hunted through far off eastern lands, so the girl soon turned to hunting through the hills of Syria, with a passion which made her bow and spear a wonder among the simple shepherd folk.

"And now," said Semiramis, as she toyed with Menon's hand, "and now am I a woman grown, with lovers who come in droves as the cattle come, yet daring not to voice the yearnings of their hearts. Great, stupid youths are they, the sons of farmers and tenders of our herds, who stare at me in tongue-tied wonderment; aye, like unto the yearling calves whose thoughts we may not fathom because of their foolishness."

The Assyrian laughed and drew her down till her lips met his and clung; and she joined his merriment, in that he seemed so unakin to the yearlings of which she spoke. Then, presently, she thought to ask his name.

"Menon," he answered simply, whereat she started, pushed his head from out her lap and edged away.

"Menon—thou!" she cried. "Ah, no, my lord! A jest! That man is but a devil's leech who clingeth to the throat of Syria, taxing, taxing, till its very blood is sucked in tax! Thou—!" She paused to laugh. "The Governor is ugly, fat—and thou—"

Again she stopped, with suddenness, and blushed.

"Nay, harken," said Menon, "of a truth I am the Governor; and it cometh to me that I would tax thy country further still—tax it till I snatch from thy foster-father, Simmas, his choicest store of all."

"Eh—what!" she demanded, angered at his words. "My father—that kind old man? Shame! Shame, my lord!"

Menon pursed his lips and ridged his brow with his sternest frown.

"I fain would rob him as I say; yea, even thy sacred doves and the very gods themselves, of Syria's Pearl—Shammuramat."

The girl said naught, but gazed in silence out across the lake, while a smile played softly at the corners of her mouth. She was not ill pleased to be called the Pearl of Syria, albeit she herself had long been conscious of the pretty truth. Moreover, t'was most unseemly in a maid to gainsay a mighty Governor; and in her heart she could find no dread of this weighty tax on Syria's birds and gods. Therefore she waited for his further speech, which came at length with earnestness:

"Now as to these taxes, concerning which I am called a devil's leech, it grieveth me sorely to oppress a simple folk, and it causeth my soul's unrest by night and day."

Again the maiden laughed.

"Aye, truly," she answered, spreading out her locks for the sun to dry; "I well can believe thy words, for never have I looked upon a youth so melancholy, or one on whom his sorrows ride with a tighter knee. Yet tell me, O Prince of Woe, what in truth may chance to be thy station and thy name?"

Menon spread his hands, though he could not help but smile at the maiden's doubt of him.

"Nay, believe me," he urged, "I speak the truth. I swear it on thy fish-god's altar. I am indeed the Governor, sent hither at the King's command, to do his bidding, not my will alone. King Ninus buildeth a city for himself on a far off river bank, a city which is like unto a huge, devouring monster, swallowing up the stores of men, the fruits of the earth, and the children of every land. This, then, is why I come to tax thine honest neighbors of their wealth."

He told her of the city's walls and of how they rose from out the waste of sand; of the temples, palaces, the towers and the soaring citadel. He told of millions toiling through the nights and days, and of an army which girt the walls around, while Semiramis sat listening, drinking in his words.

"Ah!" she breathed. "Ah, now I understand! And what is this city called?"

"Nineveh—the Opal of the East."

Again Semiramis came close to Menon's side, and, at his pleading, once more took his head into her lap.

"This monarch of thine," said she, as she nodded thoughtfully, "is right. He is wise and strong. My people are fools to murmur against the justice of his tax. For listen! I, too, will some day build a city, more grand, more vast in its reach and splendour, aye, even than this Opal of the East. Its walls shall top thine highest towers—its gardens shall hang between the earth and sky. Ah, laugh if thou wilt, yet Schelah hath seen it all—as I have seen—as it rises on her kettle's smoke."

At Menon's look of wonder, she told him that Schelah was a witch who dwelt in a cave among the hills, who wrought strange spells, told fortunes, and healed disease with her arts and herbs.

"A withered crone is she," the maiden said, "ugly and of crooked limbs, whose very name the farmers fear; and yet she is not an evil witch, but kind and gentle to those who understand. Why, I fear her no more than—than—"

"Than me?" asked Menon, with a smile.

"Than thou," she nodded happily, "and I fear thee none at all. Yet tell me more."

He told her of the battles he had seen; of the siege of Zariaspa, where Ninus, baffled of desire, needs turn away till a mightier army could be raised, and engines devised to batter down the walls. He told her of other wars, long, fierce, triumphant in the end; and as he spoke Semiramis saw it all, even as she once had seen a dim and ghostly Babylon which rose from out old Schelah's kettle-smoke.

She saw vast, rolling plains, where armies met with a rending crash and roar; where warriors, locked in a grip of rage, fought desperately and died; where chariots charged as against a cliff, to totter and overturn, and the sands ran red with blood. She heard the cries of men and the clang of blows, exultant shouts of victory and the shrieks of those who fled—the rumble of wheels and hoofs that shook the earth—the clamour of ranks that reeled through tossing clouds of dust. Her bosom heaved; her cheeks, her lips, grew crimson with the rush of blood; her dark eyes kindled, and she trembled as in a chill.

"Ishtar!" she cried, as she raised her head and clenched her outflung hands. "Oh, if I but once might sing a battle-song! To struggle—to fight—!"

Menon checked her with a rich, full-throated laugh that echoed to the temple's dome.

"Fight?" he asked. "In the name of all the gods, fight whom?"

She gave no heed to his merry tone, for the spark had caught, the flames were lit, and the fuel needs must burn.

"Poof! I care not, so it be a foe—a foe who will stand and scorns to fly!" Again she raised her arms, her rich voice shrill in its pitch of feverish desire: "To drive a chariot and lash its steeds through hedges of swords and spears! To drink of the wine of war! To conquer and to reign—a queen! And see!" she cried, as she caught her flame-hued hair, "this will I cut away, that none may know me for a maid. Then, then wilt thou suffer me to follow as a youth who is in thy train. Speak, lord, I wait."

Menon smiled and shook his head, for a maiden's path, he told her, was not amidst the perils of the field; but she took his cheeks in both her palms and bent till her breath was mingled with his own.

"Nay, once," she pleaded, in her haunting, liquid tone, "one little war—no more! Ah, Menon, sweet, thou will let me go?" Lower she bent and leaned upon his lips, while her strange eyes burned their passion into his, her fair arms clinging in a love caress. "Menon! Menon!"

He trembled, for his heart cried out aloud and longed to give this maid whatever she asked; and she held him closer still, murmuring into his ear as her mother, Derketo, might have whispered when she lured the steps of men from their level paths.

"Heed me," she pleaded low, and brushed his cheek with the velvet of a softer curve, "didst thou not will to tax my father of the Pearl of Syria? What then? Wouldst leave me in thy home—alone—to yearn for a loved one far afield, to weep, to listen for his footstep through the weary night? Nay, Menon, that were cruelty, and thou art kind."

A shadow settled on the Governor's brow. He arose and paced the temple's floor, his hands locked tight behind his back. Grim duty called his name, and it came to him that the scepter of Assyria was thrust between his heart and the woman for whom it beat alone.

"What troubleth thee, my lord?"

For a space he answered naught, but kept to his thoughtful pacing to and fro.

"Maiden," he began at last, "there are matters of state which come to pass, and a woman may not understand, by reason of their strange complexities."

The girl looked up, with a sparkle in her eye which warred with a sense of vague misgiving in her heart.

"Perchance, my lord, the tongue of a learned Governor is happily of that turn which maketh such matters simple, even to a woman's foolish mind. I pray thee try."

Menon laughed, then began to tell his trouble as best he might, though the task now seemed more weighty than the sealing of a truce; and rather far would he have faced Boabdul's scimitar than the eyes of this red-haired girl who watched him, hanging on his utterance.

"King Ninus," said he, "hath sent me messengers who on yesterday were come. They bear me a scroll wherein my master is pleased to laud my deeds with flatteries and praise. At his command have I taxed thy people till the very grass blades wilt, and thereby won the enmity of all the land; yet the King is glad, for because of me he receiveth vast stores for the building of his city. In reward"—here Menon faltered, turned away his eyes and looked upon the floor—"in reward he offereth me his daughter's hand—Sozana—when the walls and palaces of Nineveh shall be."

"Ah!" breathed Semiramis. "Ah! I see!" She crouched upon the temple steps, one knee clasped tight within her arms, her pink chin resting on it thoughtfully. "Go on, my lord."

"This offer," continued Menon, scowling as he spoke, "is a fruit of bitterness upon my tongue, for the maid is loved by my best of friends—Memetis—an Egyptian Prince whom Ninus holdeth hostage at his court lest his nation rise to—"

He stopped, for Semiramis had checked his speech with a cold command.

"Nay, let Memetis rest! What manner of maid may this Sozana chance to be?"

"She is dark and slight," the Governor answered slowly, "of a trustful nature, gentle in her ways, and kind." The girl beside him laughed, yet merriment was not its tone; and Menon blundered on: "As children we played together, she and I—a saucy little rogue of mirth and song—a child, for whom I'd cut away my hand rather than bring a pang of suffering."

"So," said Semiramis, in a whispered drawl, "so the Princess is fair to look upon. I did divine as much. Well? Well, my lord?"

"And now," sighed Menon, "the King would cause this pretty child to stifle love and wed where she hath no will."

"Not so," declared Semiramis, with a snap of her firm white teeth. "Be warranted, my lord, the jade hath put him up to it. What! Hath she not seen thee? Hast thou not beguiled her with thy, craftful wiles? How should it, then, be otherwise?"

Again the lake-nymph laughed, ungently, and with a shrill, derisive ring.

"Nay!" said Menon. "Nay! She yearneth not for me, nor do I yearn for her. In secret is she betrothed unto Memetis whom she loveth utterly; and should I bow to the King's desire, t'would bring a hurt to her whom I took to wife, and to him whose happiness I hold more dearly than mine own."

Once more the Assyrian paused and gazed in trouble through the temple's door. In the waters of the lake he seemed to see the faces of his monarch and his friends, the King, with a smile upon his bearded lips; Memetis, sad and silent in reproach, and sweet Sozana, wondering at a grief too deep for tears.

"Then why," asked Semiramis, quivering as she spoke, "then why, in the name of Bel and Moloch, wouldst thou do this wicked thing?"

The Governor stood before her, cast in gloom, and answered sullenly:

"The offer of the King is the King's command, and once, once only, may a subject thwart his will."

"Ah!" breathed Semiramis once again. "Ah, I see! Moreover, I do perceive that Menon hath a mighty leaning to this maid of Nineveh, who is dark and slight, of a trustful nature, gentle in her ways, and kind. Nay, shake not thy head, deceitful one. Shammuramat is not a fool. What, then, remaineth for my lord to choose?"

Menon sighed, but answered naught, while she sat and watched him pacing in his deep unrest. Presently she spoke again, slowly, softly, yet the tone was cold:

"I have marked, my lord, that those of smallest mind demand the longest span of time in making up the same. The wise man acteth! His love and greed he weigheth not in the selfsame scale. What! Hath the mighty Governor still to choose?"

The Assyrian leaned against a pillar of the temple, gazed gloomily before him, and brooded on the mandate of the King. The warrior within him whispered at his ear, calling, pleading, as with a trumpet's blast. Another voice there was, that told of a love of power—of the joy in ruling over weaker men—and Menon's place was beside the King. They dragged him, these voices, as with a chain of bronze, yet his heart cried out Shammuramat! With her he could dwell in peace for all time, an outcast from his land, a wanderer, in want and poverty—a worshipper who died content in the glory of her smile. And yet—

"Is my lord still praying to his gods of guile, or doth he slumber because of weariness—and me?"

The troubled Governor did not note a certain purring in her tone, nor the gleam of her eye, while she crouched as the leopard crouches, noiseless, ready for its spring.

"By the great lord Asshur," Menon muttered between his teeth, "my wits are tried and grievously." He shook himself and turned with his winning smile. "Can the friend of the good witch Schelah lend aid to one who is vexed in spirit and in mind?"

"Yea!" cried Semiramis, springing to her feet in a gust of fury. "Yea!" Her eyes flamed hotly, and her fingers clenched till the nails bit deep into her palms. "Go, thief of kisses! Go, when thou hast scorched my country bare with tax! Go back to thy maid of Nineveh—this whining jade whose sire is but a savage and a fool! Yet tell her this—thou hast looked on the Pearl of Syria! Tell her—and she will understand!"

For an instant stood Semiramis, a queen of consuming rage and scorn; then she laughed—laughed hoarsely—in the mockery of mirth, sprang down the temple steps, and was gone.

Menon followed after, shouting, begging her return, as he sought her among the trees and tangled undergrowth.

"Shammuramat! Shammuramat!" he called aloud, and only the echoes of his yearning voice came back to taunt him. For a weary space he searched, yet his search was vain; and when hope had departed utterly, he turned him homeward, skirting the lake shore with a lagging step.

Then a girl crept out from the shadows among the trees and sat on the temple steps. She rested her arms upon her knees, her chin upon her arms, and watched till Menon's drooping figure passed from sight.

Once more she cast her robe aside, tore off her sandals and flung them down; and then, in the wondrous beauty of her form unveiled, she stood in wrath before the fish-god Dagon, her eyes aflame, her red hair tumbling in disorder on her neck.

"What!" she stormed. "Did I—Shammuramat—drag out this liar from the lake, to save him for a minx at Nineveh?"

She snapped her fingers scornfully and turned upon her heel; then she dived for her string of pearls.