The trader, whose avocations led him to visit different countries bordering on the land of Shinar, spoke fluently the dialects of all.
Springing from a common root, the language differed so little from his own, that Sarchedon mastered without difficulty such idioms and address as became an Armenian slave in presence of his lord. When, therefore, he reached at length the rushing waters of swift Araxis, and beheld the towers of Ardesh against the clear pure northern sky, he was fit, thought the trader, in every quality of mind and body to stand in a dress of honour before Aryas the Beautiful himself.
Ushered into the presence of the Armenian monarch, Sarchedon, lifting his eyes to take note of his future master, actually started to behold a form and figure that seemed, as it were, the reflection of his own in some magic mirror, glorifying and enhancing every quality for which he was himself most conspicuous. He beheld a man of similar stature, frame, and countenance; but the stature was a trifle loftier, the frame even more shapely, more graceful; while over the comely face, with all its kingly dignity, played a light smile, so feminine in its softness that it might well have irradiated the beauty of a twin-sister of Sarchedon.
To outward splendour of jewels and apparel the king owed nothing. His garments were of the coa.r.s.est texture and the simplest shape, such as became a hunter of the mountains who would have every limb free and unfettered for the chase. The bow in his hand, though tough, well-seasoned, and of formidable length, was rudely tipped with elk-horn, the sharp straight sword on his thigh hung in a frayed leathern scabbard, the sandals on his feet were of untanned hide, and one of them was stained with blood.
Yet Sarchedon gazed on him with an admiration he was unable to control.
He had seen Ninus in pride and pomp of warlike power, Pharaoh dazzling in the blaze of his golden throne. The one, without his chariots and banners, might have been a mere war-worn spearman, the other, denuded of priceless gems and shining raiment, a peasant or a slave; but this man, standing unadorned, save by his comely face and n.o.ble bearing, looked every inch a king.
Twice he prostrated himself in unconscious and involuntary homage, and twice Aryas the Beautiful smiled on him well pleased; for he too could not but acknowledge the n.o.ble bearing and fair exterior of this stately captive, vowing in his own mind, that if the courage and intelligence of the a.s.syrian were in any proportion to his good looks, he would promote him without delay to the most honourable post in his court, that of bowbearer to the king on all dangerous expeditions, whether in warfare or the chase.
As time rolled on, there sprung up a strange feeling of regard and attachment between these two men, so alike in person, so different in all besides. Such a feeling as is indeed rarely reciprocal when race, religion, and station are wholly at variance, when one is a monarch, the other a captive, one master, the other slave. Nevertheless, Aryas took no small pleasure in the society of Sarchedon, and the a.s.syrian entertained in return for this foreign prince a sentiment of loyal fidelity that bade him ignore hardship or danger, and count life as a thing of little cost in the service of his lord.
These feelings, the result of grat.i.tude for kindly courtesy and gentle usage, grew to utter and entire devotion, from an event that took place soon after Sarchedon had been appointed bowbearer to the Armenian king.
With all its feminine beauty of expression, the face of Aryas was that of a brave resolute man, well suited to such an athletic and graceful frame, as enabled the Comely Monarch to excel in bodily exercises demanding strength, agility, or endurance. He was pa.s.sionately fond of the chase, and followed out his favourite pastime with a persistency and reckless daring that rendered it more laborious, and even more dangerous, than actual war. The Armenian lion, bred among the glens and fastnesses of those colder regions, was doubtless inferior in size and ferocity to his African brother, or even to that which Ninus loved to hunt on the sunny plains of the country between the rivers; yet was he a formidable antagonist to one who went out to meet him on equal terms, discarding the advantage of horse or chariot, but advancing on foot to take his enemy by the beard, opposing teeth and talons only with sword and shield. Such was the practice of Aryas the Beautiful, and Sarchedon could not control a transport of generous admiration when he witnessed the confident courage with which this royal Armenian slew the lord of the forest in single combat, rousing him to spring rampant against the buckler, and stabbing the mighty beast from beneath that defence, with well-directed thrusts of a broad two-edged sword in its tawny sinewy chest.
They were together in a deep ravine of that chain of mountains where tradition declared the first ship to have rested with its various cargo and its G.o.d-fearing crew, when the raven flitted round it to and fro, when the white bird of peace came back with an olive-branch in her mouth, ere she left it for evermore. Crowned by the dark and silent forest, the gray rock rose precipitous on either side. The king"s retinue remained with their horses at a distance, and Aryas followed his prey into the defile, attended only by Sarchedon in his capacity as bowbearer. It did not increase the a.s.syrian"s confidence to know that his quiver was empty and his bow strained. Had Aryas been overpowered, he could have rendered him no a.s.sistance; and the hors.e.m.e.n must have gone round many furlongs ere they could have ridden down the mountain-side into this deep and dangerous gorge. Nevertheless, Aryas the Beautiful, with the bright smile and jaunty step of a peasant-girl going to market, tracked the lion"s footprints one by one till he came up with him; and when the formidable game turned at bay, observed calmly to his follower:
"You are strong, Sarchedon, and I will help you; but "tis a weighty carca.s.s for you and me to carry up that steep when we have slain him.
Nevertheless, I must have his skin at any cost. I want it for a foot-cloth in my war-chariot."
Ere he spoke again, the lion was quivering in its death-pangs at their feet, and the king had drunk his fill from a clear cold mountain-spring, sparkling like a diamond on a cushion in its mossy velvet nest. With no little labour they carried the dead monster to their companions; and then for the first time it occurred to Aryas that the life of his attendant would have been somewhat wantonly risked if he had lost his own.
"Up in these mountains," he said kindly, "we are no longer lord and servant, but true comrades and brother hunters of the wood. That is why I love to come here. But we all take our share of sport and danger alike. Wherefore did you not tell me you were unarmed? Had my foot slipped on that strip of turf, you would have found yourself in no maiden"s embrace, my friend; and stout as you are, yonder, I think, lies a better wrestler than you."
"It was for his servant to follow where my lord led," answered Sarchedon modestly; adding, with the inborn pride of his nation, "The sons of Ashur are little given to fear; but if a man lacked courage, he might borrow all he needed from such an example as is afforded by my lord the king."
"Nay, my friend," replied Aryas, laughing, "I have no such superfluity to lavish, for I see my danger clearly when I confront it. Nevertheless, where there is no fear there is no courage, as there can be no fort.i.tude where there is no pain. But I will not suffer my followers to risk life for my amus.e.m.e.nt; and when we reach the dark forest you see yonder across the valley, to drive the mountain-bull from his covert and chase him over the plain, you shall be as well armed and mounted as myself."
By such frank dealings with his inferiors, such kindly consideration for others, the Comely King had so attached his attendants to his person, that it was generally believed amongst his subjects he possessed some magic amulet compelling all that came about his person to love him and do his bidding. Perhaps they were not far wrong, and the charm he used had in it much of strange and subtle power; for men cannot resist a fair face, a frank manner, above all, the kindly sympathy of a brave and generous heart.
Leaping on his horse, the king bade Sarchedon change his bow, replenish his quiver, and follow him across the defile. As he plunged down the steep after his leader, over slabs of rock affording but slippery foothold, and through broken ground clothed with tangled brushwood, Sarchedon found himself wishing more than once for the sagacious instinct and obedient paces of his own Merodach. The animal he rode was strong, active, and full of mettle. For all common purposes he could not have desired a better; but when a man is galloping at speed over unforeseen obstacles, where a false step is a certain downfall, he learns to appreciate that electric sympathy, the result of constant companionship, which const.i.tutes so subtle and mysterious a link between the horse and its rider. Merodach would obey an inflection of the body readily as a turn of the rein, would spring to the gentlest pressure as to the l.u.s.tiest shout; but Merodach stood picketed far off under a southern sky, and Sarchedon"s horse was on his head twice ere he rose the opposite hill to come up with his leader, who had halted for a few moments that he might look about him and observe his ground.
"We have the wind of them," said Aryas, pointing to a few indistinct dun-coloured objects glancing like shadows in and out amongst the trees. "But they are disturbed, and have left off feeding. When their heads are up like that, they mean moving, and pretty quickly too. Dost see that broad-leafed oak standing by itself there over the waterfall?
Gallop round it, man, without drawing rein, and you will be in the thick of them. They will not expect danger from that quarter, and even if they do make a rush for it, you will turn the old bulls to me."
While Sarchedon obeyed, the Armenian king unwound the scanty fold of linen that formed his head-dress, and permitted it to float at length on the breeze, thus distracting the attention of the wild cattle, now thoroughly on the alert, from their enemy.
Sarchedon galloped on unnoticed so long as his horse"s footfall was lost in the roar of the torrent. When within a bowshot, however, the herd became aware of his approach, and forming line almost like the hors.e.m.e.n of a.s.syria, paused for a s.p.a.ce while they roused themselves to fury, throwing the earth about them with horn and hoof.
For once the king"s wood-craft was at fault. Preferring, as it seemed, a known to an unknown danger, they elected to bear down on the advancing horseman rather than make farther acquaintance with that long mysterious strip of white which had hitherto engrossed their attention.
Sarchedon now found himself called on to sustain the charge of the whole infuriated ma.s.s. While he fitted an arrow to his bowstring, his horse snorted and trembled, its eye turning blue with terror. He could but hope to discharge one shaft at the foremost and then take his chance with the spear.
"The fool!" muttered Aryas, sitting like a statue, though eagerly on the watch, "not to keep on their flanks. It was my fault," he added; "I should have warned him."
Then he shook his horse"s bridle and charged down at speed amongst the herd.
In the meantime the entire ma.s.s, headed by the oldest and heaviest bulls, came thundering on against Sarchedon. Their leader he transfixed, indeed, with an arrow through its mighty neck; but the animal, with a roar of rage and pain, only lowered its head and made at him with the more fury. Had he been on Merodach, he might have escaped; for watching its attack with wary eye, he would have evaded the collision, and stabbed it as it pa.s.sed by; but the horse beneath him had now become unmanageable from fright, would answer neither heel nor bridle, and turning its flank towards the enemy, was rolled up by the wild bull in a confused ma.s.s, with its prostrate helpless rider.
Looking wildly out from under his horse, Sarchedon saw the conqueror"s eye glow like a living coal, felt its warm slaver streak his own defenceless face, and knew that ringed, curved, ma.s.sive horn, brandished aloft with sidelong menace, would only descend to be buried in his entrails. Already the bitterness of death seemed past, when a horse"s head showed over the wild bull"s ma.s.sive shoulder, an arm was raised to strike, and the ponderous brute went down almost across Sarchedon"s feet, with spine and marrow deftly cloven by one lightning stroke from the sharp hunting blade of the Comely King.
Extricating himself from his fallen horse, the a.s.syrian bowed his forehead to the ground, and kissed his preserver"s feet.
"My life is as a prey," said he, "delivered into the hand of my lord the king, who has saved it at the peril of his own. Therefore, in storm and sunshine, peace and war, good and evil, I am his slave for evermore."
Aryas was measuring the dead bull"s horn with his bowstring.
"I can get slaves enough for gold," he answered carelessly. "When I venture life, it is to buy a _friend_."
Sarchedon"s voice came very low and hoa.r.s.e, and in his eyes shone the unaccustomed glitter of tears, while he replied,
"When I fail my lord, may my steed fall, may my bowstring rot, may my javelin splinter, and may the woman I love betray me to another for a measure of barley or a paltry handful of gold!"
CHAPTER XLVI
A WIND FROM THE SOUTH
Day after day the friendship of these congenial spirits grew closer and more familiar. The a.s.syrian had related his own eventful history to his new lord, and Aryas seemed never weary of listening to the tale. Bold, enterprising, and imaginative, he loved to hear of the conquest of Ninus, the prowess of the sons of Ashur, the splendour of Babylon, the wealth of Egypt, and the many adventures through which Sarchedon had pa.s.sed in his long journey from the tents of the Anakim to the mountain fastnesses of his own northern kingdom. He would inquire minutely concerning the evolutions and tactics of the a.s.syrian armies, the number of their chariots, the strength of their cavalry, the weapons of their men of war, and the proportion in which they made use of sling, bow, and spear; but he could not be brought to take any interest, apart from her warlike skill, in the character of Semiramis, paying little attention to the other"s glowing description of her lavish state and luxurious magnificence, least of all caring to hear of her beauty, her attractions, the glory of her apparel, the l.u.s.tre of her personal charms.
Even when Sarchedon poured his heart out freely on the subject of his beloved Ishtar, the Comely King listened, indeed, with a certain show of kindly interest, as due to the emotion of his friend, but obviously failed to appreciate the importance of the subject, or to comprehend the enthusiasm which could thus set up a pair of soft eyes and a fair face for the aim of a man"s whole energies, the reward of his perils and toils. He did not understand how a woman"s smile could possess such attraction as the bray of a clarion, the flaunt of a banner, or the managed leap of a horse.
Beautiful exceedingly, formed to be the delight of the other, as he was the admired of his own, s.e.x, love to the Comely King seemed but a foolish riddle, not worth the trouble of solving, an irksome study interfering with the pleasures of the chase, unmanly, untoward, but, above all, tedious and out of place when other affairs were on hand.
"Show me a woman," said he, smiling at his bowbearer"s rhapsodies, "with an eye like my falcon and a heart like my dog; so will I too drink myself drunk with this folly as with wine, to get sober again as surely, if not so soon. Till then, give me horse and hound, bow and spear. I tell you, Sarchedon, the whitest arm that was ever thrown round a man"s neck could not yield me such a thrill of triumph and rapture as the lion"s claw that tore me from loin to shoulder over my buckler while I stabbed him to the heart with my short sword, ere we carried him, you and I, up the mountain-side, and skinned his tawny carca.s.s under the old oak-tree!"
Sarchedon sighed.
"I love the chase well," said he, "and warfare better, and Ishtar best of all."
"Warfare!" repeated Aryas, catching and kindling at the word like a war-horse at ring of steel; "talk to me of that till sundown, if you will! Ah, war is something to live for, something to die for, something on which to wage sceptre and kingdom and all, if only the foe be worthy of the venture. Could I but see the sons of Ashur drawn out fairly before me in battle array, I would fall willingly in their midst, and hold my fame was crowned since I had lived to measure swords with the conquerors of the South. But what do I say? These are dreams and unreal visions. Too many ranges of impa.s.sable mountains, too many leagues of scorching desert, lie between the gaudy pinnacles of Babylon and my rude towers here in Ardesh. I have not power to go to _him_; and I think, with all his courage, all his l.u.s.t of conquest, the fierce a.s.syrian dare not come to _me_!"
They had spent the morning since sunrise in the chase, and had been so successful as to regain the palace in Ardesh by noon. After a rough but plentiful repast, the king and his bowbearer were sitting over the embers of a brazier, each with an untasted cup of wine beside him, conversing as above. Scores of warriors and retainers, s.h.a.ggy, tall, athletic, clothed in furs and skins, crowded round a huge wood fire in the outer court under the open sky; for although the sun was fierce and powerful, a storm of sleet had lately swept across the heavens, and these hardy champions laughed while they wrung their beards to dash the frozen drops away. There was a shade of despondency on the young king"s brow, and he shook his comely head, while he reflected on the remote position of his kingdom, and suggested the impossibility of an a.s.syrian invasion.
Sarchedon started to his feet and listened.
"It is the tramp of a horse at speed," said he. "For good or for evil, there comes a messenger bringing tidings in hot haste to my lord the king."
Even while he spoke, a stir in the outer court denoted some unusual excitement, while the fire was deserted for the gate, where a crowd had already gathered round a travel-worn horseman, dismounting from his reeking beast, panting and jaded with fatigue.
Sarchedon"s face fell, and there was at least as much of self-reproach as of grat.i.tude in his tone while he exclaimed:
"Cursed be my day, and oh! that I had never been born! Something tells me I have brought evil to the hand that fed and the roof that sheltered me. I know too surely that the enemy is at the gate, that the sons of Ashur are bending their bows against the safety of my lord the king."