Sarchedon Part 11

"I speak not of G.o.ds made by men's hands," answered Sadoc. "The time must surely come ere long when there will be one wors.h.i.+p of the true G.o.d through all the earth, as there is one sun that s.h.i.+nes over the whole heaven. Clouds may obscure it for a season, but no less doth it exist in its warmth and splendour, giving vitality to creation and light to day."

"When there is but one wors.h.i.+p, there will be but one dominion," argued a.s.sarac. "The altar and the temple will then become the judgment-seat and throne, while the high-priest will be the true monarch and ruler over all. Listen, my brother; for indeed here in the house of your captivity you have found a friend. I am a priest of Baal, as you behold; but in truth I am no hot-brained votary who mistakes his own intoxicated frenzy for the inspiration of a G.o.d. My subordinates may gird their loins to leap and run and gesticulate, shedding their own blood the while in crimson streams. Such extravagances are foreign to my nature, and below the dignity of my wors.h.i.+p. I am a priest of Baal, but I am also an a.s.syrian descended from a line of warriors, and to me the greatness of my country is the paramount object and interest of life.

What else have such as I, who are severed, without being alienated, from their kind? To extend an empire founded by our father Nimrod from the Bactrian mountains to the Southern sea, to behold the standards of Merodach waving on the confines of Armenia and over the gates of Memphis, while conscious that I, a.s.sarac the priest, had set in motion the armies of victory and guided the march of triumph, were worth all the fire-wors.h.i.+pper's dreams of luminous immortality, all the starry thrones of the G.o.ds who are supposed to be looking down in judgment on us even now."

"And when your wishes have been fulfilled," said Sadoc quietly--"wishes only to be accomplished through much bloodshed, cruelty, and sin--you will not be one whit happier than now."

The other laughed in scorn.

"Is fame nothing?" he asked. "Is power nothing? Is it nothing to cast down the mighty from their golden thrones, and to raise the lowly, as I have raised you to-night, from fetters of iron and a bed on the cold earth? Teach me the lore of your wors.h.i.+p, as I will impart to you my own secrets of priestcraft, and hereafter--ay, sooner than you may think--I will set you in judgment over a score of nations, in a purpled robe, with a sceptre in your hand."

"_My_ lore!" repeated Sadoc, with a sad smile. "You would deem it beneath your understanding, as it would be above your practice. It is but to do justice, and to love mercy, dealing with man as before the face of G.o.d."

"But surely you have learned important secrets amongst the Egyptians?"

urged a.s.sarac, somewhat disappointed with this exposition of the Israelite's simple creed. "Surely they have taught you mysteries of magic and the art of divination, in which they boast their proficiency, handed down, as they profess, through scores of dynasties and hundreds of successive generations. Or is it true that your nation have been the teachers, and Egypt, with all her pride, is but the pupil of a people who took with them from this very land the art that we, its present inhabitants, have lost, the spells that compel gigantic spirits to work out their behests--rearing colossal buildings, causing wide tracts of desert to blossom like the rose, bidding the very waters of the great deep to subside and overflow at their will?"

"You know not our nation," answered Sadoc, "nor have you felt the iron hand of our oppressors, who practice the forbidden arts of which you speak, but with no result that hath ever spared groan or stripe to a single captive. The Israelite must toil under the scourge for his scanty morsel of bread. The great river indeed rises and falls at the command of one who is mightier than our task-masters, and who will not surely forget his people for ever in their bonds; but for the huge shapeless structures--the gigantic monster idols of the South--they are reared by a magic of which blood, sweat, and hunger const.i.tute the spells, under the fierce eye that never sleeps, the cruel hand that is never raised but to urge, and smite and destroy. Yet when our fathers were driven by famine into Egypt they found there one of their own people, reigning wisely over a prosperous nation, and second only to Pharaoh on the throne; they found themselves honoured guests where now they are degraded prisoners, friends and allies where now they are hated and despised, masters, in truth, where they are slaves! And slaves to those who are themselves sunk in the degradation of a vile and brutal idolatry."

His eye blazed, and his very beard seemed to bristle with anger, while he spoke. It was in such flashes of indignation or excitement that the likeness of kindred races was to be noted on the features of Israelite and a.s.syrian.

"You scorn the G.o.ds of Nimrod," replied a.s.sarac, with a sneer; "but the fathers from whom we claim a common descent have taught _us_, at least, a n.o.bler impersonation of our wors.h.i.+p than the goose, the serpent, the stork, the locust, and the cat! If we choose the lotus, the fir-cone, or the beetle to convey an idea of that reproductive power in nature, always existing even when dormant, as the flower in the bud, or the blade in the seed, at least we do not hang our temples with carvings of the humblest animals, the most loathsome reptiles, and the meanest utensils of our daily life! It is baser, I grant you, to adore the stars than the principle which gives them light, baser to kneel before the sculptured image than the G.o.d it represents; but basest surely of all wors.h.i.+p is that practised by the cruel Egyptian, the enemy whom _we_ have humbled, the master who is grinding _your_ people into dust!"

"Our G.o.d will surely free us," said Sadoc, in a low mournful tone. "It cannot be that we, the lineal descendants of his favoured servant, are to remain for ever in the house of bondage, eating the bitter morsel of slavery, weeping tears of blood under the task-master's las.h.!.+ But we have neither arms nor leaders; there is no proven harness in our dwellings, nor sword, nor s.h.i.+eld, nor spear. How are we to go out from our enemies in the garb of peace, with our wives and children in our hands? And yet, I pray that it may come to this--I, for one, would march out fearlessly to die in the wilderness rather than gather another armful of straw, bake one more brick for the useless structures that only bear witness to our sorrows and our shame."

The pride of race, the intense consciousness of a peculiar destiny, in all ages an inheritance of the sons of Abraham, gave to the words of Sadoc a truth and bitterness, marked with no slight satisfaction by the scheming priest of Baal.

"Hands that have toiled so skilfully for their task-masters," said he, "can surely strike a blow in their own behalf. Courage that has borne long years of suffering and privation will not fail at the moment of liberation and revenge. You and yours are of our blood and lineage. You shall be no captives in Babylon, as you have been in Egypt. This very night I will take order for your food and lodging--nay, fear not, they shall be found you without the temple, if indeed you entertain any scruples as to entering the abode of Baal--and you shall return to your own people in safety and honour, as a son returns to the dwelling of his father with a gift in his hand. You will tell them that here, in the great city, our warlike a.s.syrians look on the Israelites as their kinsmen and friends; that when the oppressed rises against the oppressor, and the children of Terah resolve once for all to throw off the Egyptian yoke, they will see a cloud rising out of the desert from the trampling of horses, countless as locusts in a west wind--they will hear a thousand trumpets sounding far and wide from the hosts of the Great King!"

The Israelite's eye sparkled and his cheek glowed but he answered solemnly,

"It must be a mightier king than yours, who leads us forth into the wilderness out of the house of our captivity."

CHAPTER XIII

MOTHER AND SON

Not the least sumptuous range of halls and chambers in the queen's palace had been devoted, from his boyhood, to the accommodation of her son. Here, surrounded by his own servants, he had lived ever since he could walk alone in princely state and magnificence, imitating, though on a less extended scale, the splendour of the Great King's court, and exacting from his attendants those ceremonious observances which somewhat chafed his father's spirit, causing the fiery old warrior to break out in words and gestures savouring rather of the swordsman's impatience than the monarch's dignity. Here too he had been trained under the queen's own eye in manly exercises befitting his rank, practising mimic warfare on the wide terraces of the royal dwelling, and even hunting the lion in dangerous earnest through its s.p.a.cious paradise, a wilderness in the heart of the swarming city.

It had been the policy of Semiramis, as it was her pleasure, to keep the future monarch under her own eye and within her immediate influence, teaching him to depend on her alone for all his occupations and amus.e.m.e.nts, thus obtaining an ascendancy over his young mind, which daily custom rendered so easy and natural, that he never attempted to shake it off.

Arrogant at the feast, valorous in the fray, reckless and unscrupulous in the gratification of every pa.s.sing desire, every whim of the moment, he was yet in his mother's presence the same loving wayward child, who, though wilful and petulant, had ever looked to her alone for succour and encouragement, had run to her knee with a bruised skin or a tear-stained face, and would have begged of her, with equal confidence, a bunch of grapes and a string of pearls worth a king's ransom.

It was not strange then, that, waking from his heavy slumbers after the banquet, with a vague impression of some unfulfilled desire burning at his heart, his first wish was for his mother's presence, even before he remembered the purpose for which he wanted her a.s.sistance and advice.

Semiramis, on this the morning after his return from a campaign in which her boy had won no slight reputation as a warrior, pa.s.sing into his chamber according to custom, found him, as she had often found him before, tossing, heated, and restless on his couch, pus.h.i.+ng his short dishevelled locks off his brow, while he turned on her a glance, half mirthful, half imploring, from eyes deep liquid and beautiful as her own.

The queen's head was tired, her dress arranged with the utmost skill and care, while in her gait and bearing there was a dignity of repose no less graceful than becoming; but if her dark locks had been unbound, her robes shaken into disorder, and her fair face heated with the flush of mirth, pleasure, or excitement, surely never had been seen so wondrous a resemblance as existed between that unquiet youth on the couch and the beautiful woman who bent over him to lay her hand against his hot forehead with a gesture of endearment and caress.

"What ails my boy?" asked Semiramis, looking fondly down on her graceless offspring. "Was the triumph yesterday so long and wearisome?

the wine of Eshcol last night so rough and new? Or has he left his heart among the daughters of Egypt, in exchange for the fame and high repute of valour he has brought with him from the Nile?"

"I wish I had never gone there!" answered Ninyas petulantly. "I wish the reins had rotted in his hand who turned my chariot from the Gates of Bra.s.s to leave Babylon and all the pleasures it contained!"

"It would not have been like your father's child," said the queen, "to have forborne going forth to warfare with the host. You would not be _my_ son," she added more tenderly, "did not your heart leap to the rattle of a quiver and the roll of a chariot, wheeling at a gallop amongst the spearmen. Think you it was no pain to me when I sent you down yonder to learn your first lesson in war, under the eye of my lord the king? But you have made yourself a name for valour, and I am content."

"Valour!" repeated Ninyas. "Men have a strange way of computing courage and portioning out the fame, which is indeed of small value when you have got it. Is it such a great deed to be driven under s.h.i.+eld in a chariot of iron through ranks of half-armed wretches flying for their lives? I saw one of our bowmen stand his ground in a vineyard, when we pa.s.sed the Nile, having three arrows in his limbs and a spear through his body. But Arbaces scarce cast an eye on him as he drove by in hot haste to bring up the rearguard of spears; and I thought, if a man would be accounted mighty, it were well to be born a king's son. Valour indeed! That very day, an hour later, I would have bartered all the valour and all the fame of the a.s.syrian army for a cup of the roughest wine that ever burst a skin. I love pleasure, for my part; and whosoever will have it is welcome to my share of hunger and thirst, long marches, weary sieges, heat, privation, night watches, and all the troubles of war."

The queen smiled, well pleased, as it would seem, with this frank confession of opinions, in which of all women on earth she was the least inclined to share. Had she been a man, she thought, the saddle should have been her only home, the spear never out of her hand. Not even Ninus, with his insatiable desire for fame, should have flaunted so far and wide the banners of a.s.syria, so pushed the conquests of the mighty line founded by Nimrod the Great. And yet here was one of her own blood, her very counterpart, who, being of the stronger and n.o.bler s.e.x, could sit calmly down in the flush of his youth to scoff at warlike honours, to confess his unworthy preference of inglorious ease and material pleasures to the immortality of a hero.

"For one so young," said she, "you have already attained to high dignity. Even my lord the king has spoken of you as a judicious leader and a man of valour in fight. Arbaces himself was obliged to admit,--my son, you are ill at ease,--Arbaces, I say, though so devoted to the king's interests that he seems to look with an evil eye on the king's successor, could not but acknowledge that on the field you were a worthy descendant of the line of Ashur; though in camp, he added, the example of one prince was more injurious to the discipline of armies than the taking of ten towns by a.s.sault, with all the license and outrages of a storm."

There was enough of his father's nature in the lion's cub to bring the flash to his eye, the scowl to his brow, while he listened.

"Arbaces dared to speak thus of _me_!" he exclaimed, springing to his feet, and grasping instinctively at a gilded javelin standing against the wall. "He must be a bold man, this chief captain of the a.s.syrian host."

"He must be a bold man," repeated the queen, "since he is _your_ enemy and _mine_."

"Let him beware!" said the prince. "I can take up my mother's quarrel as heartily as my own. He will have no woman to deal with if he crosses _me_. And yet," he added, sinking back on the couch, and turning his head aside amongst its cus.h.i.+ons, "there is not in the whole empire one whom I would so gladly call my friend."

A shade of perplexity crossed the queen's brow; but she forced a careless laugh while she asked,

"What have you, the future ruler of all the earth, to gain from this war-worn spearman, whose very existence hangs on the breath of your father, my lord the king?"

He turned to her with one of the caressing gestures of his childhood; and even the queen's steadfast heart wavered for a moment in the merciless prosecution of her schemes.

"Mother," he said, "you have never denied me from my youth upward what I asked. Give me now the daughter of Arbaces, and I am content. If she be withheld from me, I care not to look on an unveiled woman again."

As the light of morning creeps over a fair landscape, the queen's smile brightened her face into matchless beauty; as the summer sky is mirrored in the lake, that smile was reflected on the glowing features of her son. Again how comely they were, and how alike!

"Is she then so fair," asked Semiramis, "this pale slender girl, to whom you flung a cup of gold yesterday from your chariot in return for a posy of flowers? Such exchanges, my son, are made every day in follies like yours; but I did not believe that a bow drawn thus at random could have sent its shaft so deftly through the joints of _your_ harness. Is there magic about the girl, that she draws men to her feet with a mere look and sign? I have heard that her mother was a daughter of the stars."

"The daughters of earth are good enough for me," replied the prince.

"But if this one comes not into my tent, I will never look in the face of woman again."

"The tent is not to be despised," answered Semiramis, glancing round the gilding and vermilion, the beams of cedar, the inlaid flooring, the purple hangings, of that painted chamber. "And she must be difficult to please, if she find fault with its lord. Nevertheless, there are obstacles in our way. Arbaces would surely neither wish nor dare to oppose us, and, if he did, could be silenced or removed. But how shall we set aside the opposition of my lord the king?"

"He would never consent," said Ninyas. "I know it too well. The mill-stone is not harder than the heart of the Great King. May he live for ever!"

"May he live for ever!" repeated the queen. "Those of Nimrod's race are indeed immortal; and you have little to hope from the lapse of time.

Tell me, my son--do you really love this girl so much?"

"I would give my whole life afterwards," he answered pa.s.sionately, "to bring her here into my dwelling for a year and a day."

At the moment, no doubt, he spoke truth. The stream of a pa.s.sing inclination, stemmed by opposition and difficulty, had swelled into a torrent of desire he had neither power nor inclination to control.

"And if you might take this fair dove to your bosom," continued the queen, "would you consent to forego Babylon and its pleasures? Would you make your escape in secret, and remain for a season in seclusion, until the wrath of the Great King was overpast?"