Sarchedon, galloping furiously on his mission, yet cast more than one glance over his shoulder at the battle raging behind him. He too marked the overwhelming charge of the Anakim, and its effect on that solid mass against which its might was hurled. Trained in the subtlest school of war, by the great captain of the age, he perceived at once that if ever they were to be routed, now was the critical moment at which the discomfiture of his countrymen must be achieved. The bay horse reeked with foam and reeled from want of breath when it reached Thorgon's side; and Sarchedon, deeming not an instant should be lost, ventured so far to extend the command he had received as to urge on that old warrior the necessity of putting his men in motion at a gallop. Thorgon frowned and bit his lip. "Go to!" said he. "I am not to be taught by an Assyrian youth how to set the battle in array. Nevertheless, if thou wilt share in a death-ride to-day with the children of the north, pull that knife of thine out of thy girdle and come with me."

Thus speaking, he drew his own long heavy sword, and waving it round his head, placed himself in front of his horsemen, and led them against the enemy at a rapid pace, which, when within a bowshot distance, he increased to their utmost speed.

The Anakim had now penetrated so far into the ranks of the Armenians as to be nearly surrounded, while victorious, by the very foe they were engaged in defeating. It needed but this charge of Thorgon and his grim long swords in their rear to complete the circle that hemmed them in.

Semiramis, from her chariot, marked the crisis and the manner in which it must be met. "Assarac," said she, in her calm modulated voice, "I cannot trust the children of the desert. They would not retire if I bade them, and so weaken the wedge by drawing it after them in pursuit. We must check these wild cattle of the mountain, nevertheless. Bring up my spears in solid column of a thousand men in front, masking the chariots. When I raise my bow, let them open out and every driver urge his horses to a gallop. I will not give the signal till I see my opportunity, so watch me like a falcon over a fawn. Send for my horsemen clothed in blue. Ten squadrons may serve to bring the Anakim out of peril, and with the rest I will myself make a dash for the person of this Beautiful King."

Her commands were implicitly obeyed. With a shout that denoted their courage and unshaken confidence, the chief strength of the Assyrian army advanced steadily to the attack.

Meantime the Anakim were fighting at considerable disadvantage. Hemmed in by falling foes, encumbered by dead of their own slaying, they had no space to turn their horses, scarce elbow-room to swing their swords. Twice had Ishtar's rein been seized by a dismounted enemy, and her horse dragged down to its knees; twice had his veiled queen been rescued by some tall champion, who pierced her assailant to the heart, or clove him to the chin. But, nevertheless, the farther these desperate giants fought their way towards the centre of the Armenians, the more difficult became the task of extrication, the more hopeless their chances of retreat. It seemed that all was indeed lost when Thorgon and his long swords came pouring down upon their rear.

To Ishtar the events passing before her eyes were but as the horrors of some ghastly dream. Faint, gasping, terrified, stunned with the din, choked in the dust, blinded by the flash of weapons, sickening at the smell of blood, she was only sensible she had seen Sarchedon, as in a vision, and had cried to him for assistance in vain.

Helpless and bewildered, she must have been slain a score of times but for the chief of the Anakim, whose weapon kept her assailants at bay, while his hand guided her horse through the press of battle; but even this protection failed her when that formidable champion found himself engaged with Thorgon hand to hand.

Wary and experienced, hardened and toughened by continual toil in warfare and the chase, the old Armenian knew every wile of the swordsman, every turn of the horseman, familiarly as he knew the spring of a panther or the rush of a mountain bull. But he was no match for the larger frame and lengthier limbs of an opponent who was a younger, stronger, and quicker man, riding a better horse. While he waved his long sword round his head to cleave his adversary to the girdle, the other smote him sharp and true below the fifth rib, and, with a loud curse on the only god he acknowledged—the weapon that had failed him—Thorgon fell headlong from his saddle, dead before he reached the ground.

Men, horses, flashing weapons, reeling banners—all swam before Ishtar's eyes; and, swaying blindly forward, she was scarcely conscious that a protecting arm supported her, a careful hand guided her bridle, towards the outskirts of the fight.

The fall of their leader seemed in no way to discourage the mountain men; rather they fought with greater fierceness and obstinacy than before. The children of Anak too, considerably out-numbered, and disheartened by the helplessness of their Veiled Queen, began to give way, striking furiously about them indeed, without a thought of flight, yet obviously bent on effecting a retreat, if possible in good order, but at any sacrifice a retreat.

In this imminent crisis of battle, the Comely King and the Great Queen were moved simultaneously with a conviction that now was the moment at which to throw all the weight attainable into the scale. If either side could be driven back but a score of spear-lengths, it might be made to give ground imperceptibly, till wavering grew to flight, and flight culminated in defeat. For Armenia, it seemed the only hope to push forward the wedge till it penetrated and divided the queen's solid columns of spearmen; for the sons of Ashur the sure path to victory lay in a breaking up of that dense obstinate mass, already weakened and mutilated, while its nucleus should be annihilated by their chariots, and its component parts cut to pieces by their horsemen hovering on its flanks.

Therefore Aryas, standing erect in his chariot, encouraged his men of war, with voice and gesture, in the very fore-front of battle. Therefore Semiramis, scanning with undisguised approval the ranks of her body-guard clothed in blue, placed herself joyfully at their head. The Armenian monarch had resolved to save crown, kingdom, and friend, or die, like a true mountain man, in his war-harness; while the Great Queen, thirsting for victory as the drunkard thirsts for wine, was urged by her longing after Sarchedon and the spur of a feminine desire to behold Aryas the Beautiful face to face.

They were now scarce ten spear-lengths apart, on the dried-up river's brink.

The ground was rough and broken, the wheels of her chariot drove heavily, and Semiramis found herself more than once in danger of being thrown from her elevated position between the horses that plunged and laboured over slippery rock or yielding sand.

Against the carved and inlaid panel beside her hung a quiver with its single arrow—one of those sent to Babylon in return for her embassy, and which she had sworn by Nisroch to plant in the breast of Aryas the Beautiful with her own hand. She snatched it from its case, made a sign to the attendant who led him, leaped on Merodach, and, looking proudly round, raised her bow aloft to brandish it over her head.

Then, while spears went down and bridles shook, a shout rose from the warriors in blue raiment that was caught up by the whole Assyrian army, and every man called lustily on Baal, swearing a mighty oath that he would fight to the death for the Great Queen.

Aiming, as was her custom, at the heart of the enemy, Semiramis broke furiously through the opposing long swords, now deprived of their leader, with the view of first extricating the Anakim from their perilous position, and afterwards directing all her force against the Armenian king in person.

Assarac too had done his part like a practised warrior. The deep array of spears, a solid column many furlongs in length, strong in its front of a thousand marching men, was nearing the conflict every moment, with that smooth and even step, that mechanical regularity of approach, which seems the very impersonation of discipline and power. Concealed behind its masses, betrayed only by an unceasing jar of iron and roll of wheels, came on those formidable war-chariots, so irresistible by an enemy who had sustained a check that caused the slightest confusion in its ranks; and wielding the whole array, governing at once each element of the storm, drove Assarac the eunuch—he of the cool brain, the steadfast courage, the pitiless heart, who could be moved but by one sentiment on earth—his mad infatuation for the queen.

Aryas marked it all, and knew that now the end was very near. Glancing towards Sarchedon, he beheld his bowbearer, scarce ten spear-lengths off, in the hottest of the struggle, defending, as it seemed, from stroke and thrust some object at his side. The Anakim gathered about him; while the long swords, shouting "Aryas! Aryas!" were making desperate efforts to approach, believing, no doubt, they were rallying round their king.

Semiramis neared her object with every stride. Aryas had stooped to take another arrow from his quiver, and, as he raised his head again to confront his enemy, looking boldly over his shield, behold! for the first time, he stood face to face with the Great Queen.

Deceived by the likeness, duped by her own wild heart and reckless longing, she called on him she loved by the name she had learned to whisper in her dreams; but the hoarse shriek that cried "Sarchedon, Sarchedon!" was so different from the full soft tones in which she was used to doom a culprit or direct a battle, that her guards pressed fiercely in, thinking their leader must have been stricken with a death-hurt.

Casting down horse and rider in the fury of her career, she urged Merodach towards the chariot, every consideration of war and policy, all care for herself, her army, her people, lost in a fierce thrill of triumph that the desire of her eyes had not escaped her, and she had found him even at the last.

Surrounded by the chosen horsemen of Assyria, over-matched, out-numbered, and now at his sorest need, Aryas shouted to his bowbearer for help; and Sarchedon, still struggling in the strife as a swimmer fights and reels amongst the breakers, answered lustily to the call.

The Great Queen, making, as she believed, for another, was now within ten paces of Aryas the Beautiful himself.

In that hideous din of battle she neither heard his cry nor the voice that replied to it; but the white horse with the eyes of fire had a truer memory and a sharper ear. Recognising his master's accents, he swerved aside to reach him, but meeting the wrench of the queen's practised hand on his bridle, reared high with tossing head, and plunged blindly forward against the king's chariot, struck himself and his rider heavily to the ground.

As the good horse rolled over a maimed Armenian, the dying mountain man shortened the sword he grasped fiercely even then, and buried it in the animal's bowels.

Agile as a panther, Semiramis extricated herself, and was up like lightning; but when she saw the beast she prized so dearly dead at her very feet, her heart burned, and her eyes blazed with a fury wilder, fiercer, madder, than the rage of any beast of prey.

Baffled, stunned, bewildered, she only knew that Merodach lay slain beneath her; that an armed enemy stood above with shielded face and javelin raised to strike; that here across the body of her horse was the turning-point of battle, and that she held a bow and arrow in her hand. Unconsciously, she fitted the one to the string, and drew the other at a venture, as it were, in self-defence.

It was the Armenian arrow, cut in Armenian forests, tipped with Armenian steel. It had travelled to Babylon and back as a symbol of dignified remonstrance and royal self-respect; now the white cruel arm impelled it straight and true, to find its home in the heart of an Armenian king.

Stricken below the buckler, he felt his life-blood oozing down to wet its feathers, drop by drop.

"Turn thy hand out of the battle," murmured Aryas to his charioteer, "since I am hurt even unto death!"

But he never spoke again; for the Great Queen's men of war, making in to aid their leader, hurled him from his chariot, gashing with pitiless sword-strokes the comely face so fair even in death, crushing under trampling hoofs the stately form that, maimed, bruised, and mangled, was grand and kingly still.

So the horsemen of Assyria triumphed; her spears made victory secure, her chariots rolled over the slain. The blue mantles smote and spared not; the Anakim extricating themselves, not without considerable loss, departed in good order; and the pursuit rolled on till the sons of Ashur sacked the town of Ardesh—to burn, pillage, and destroy, even unto the going down of the day.

But men looked in vain for her who had led the attack and achieved the victory, asking each other with eager looks and anxious faces,

"What tidings of the Great Queen?"

Her armour lay, piece by piece, beside her; there was dust on her lustrous hair, the pride of her royal garment was rent from hem to hem, while bowed down in anguish, with fixed eyes, white face, and rigid lips, she knelt beside a dead horse, over the body of a dead king.