"It is our only course against such a foe," said Aryas, after a gloomy silence, during which lord and servant seemed to have been following out no cheering train of thought. "For any nation on earth to oppose thy countrymen in warfare is to wield a shepherd's staff against a blade of tempered steel. But one heavy blow from the club, well-aimed and unexpected, may sometimes shiver the deadlier weapon to its hilt. Our long swords of the mountain bite sharp and true. The wedge of Armenia can pierce a column, however dense, and the gap widens as we fight on. Surely it will cleave the might of Assyria, as a woodman's axe cleaves the sturdy oak of the hills."

"But the oak is rooted to its place," objected Sarchedon, "while the Assyrian can wheel and stoop and strike like a falcon in the air. His horsemen will open out, and bend their bows till they have wrapped the advancing wedge in a storm of deadly hail—till its men fall thick, and its might is loosened from the rear. Then will Semiramis order up her war-chariots on either flank; and, once broken, as well he knows, there is no rallying for the long swords of my lord the king."

"They shall not be broken," exclaimed Aryas. "With Thorgon to lead them on foot, with their king to direct the battle in his chariot, with thy skill of warfare, Sarchedon, and our own good cause, I commit the result to that power which hath ever befriended Armenia, in attack and in defence—the might of the Naked Sword. Yet I would we could fight them at a vantage, nevertheless," he added, his enthusiasm changing to deep anxiety and concern. "Their armour, their weapons, their horses, are better than ours, and they outnumber us ten to one."

"True, O king!" replied Sarchedon; "therefore must we fall upon them unawares. Behold! In their ranks every spearman hath been taught to handle spade, every slinger uses the pick deftly as he whirls the thong, each third man carries a mattock or a shovel; and the Great Queen values their labour no dearer than their lives. This night one half her host will be employed to turn the course of the river that keeps your city on its eastern side. Let my lord the king summon his men of war in the hours of darkness, and at daybreak go down to battle. If he conquer, it will be with the first onslaught. If he fail, then may Sarchedon, his friend and servant, pay back the life he owes, and die at his lord's feet."

Again that ominous shadow passed over the king's face: he laid his hand kindly on the other's shoulder, and spoke in a low sad voice.

"Sarchedon," said he, "when I shielded thee from the demand of an Assyrian embassy, it was for jealousy of my father's honour—for the cause of the stranger and the oppressed. When I took thee out from under thy horse—ay, from off the very horns of the wild bull—it was for care of a faithful servant risking life at the pleasure of his lord. Now we are master and slave, crowned king and belted bowbearer no more, but friends in esteem and affection, brothers in confidence and love. I tell thee that the days of Aryas, the son of Aramus, are numbered, and the Mountain Men must choose them another king to guide their counsels and lead their long swords into battle. Last night I dreamed a dream; and it needs no wise man, no cunning soothsayer, to read the interpretation thereof. Behold, I was hunting in the mountain, riding to and fro with bow in hand and hound in leash, seeking to take a prey. In vain I traversed hill and valley, rock and river, stately forest and scattered copse—leaf, grass, and flower were alike scathed and blighted. It seemed that a flight of locusts had passed over all. Then I cursed the nakedness of the land in my wrath; and while thrice I shouted 'Barren, barren, barren!' mine own voice sounded hideous in mine ears. So I rode slowly on, and beneath my horse's feet I beheld three things that caused my blood to curdle and the hair of my flesh to stand on end.

"The first was a slain eagle pierced by a headless shaft; the second was a wild bull noosed in a woman's girdle; the third was a dead man lying on his face with the king's sandals on his feet, the king's baldrick on his shoulders, and the king's quiver at his back. I tell thee, Sarchedon, the warning lies betwixt thee and me. Let us drink a cup of wine in fellowship to-night; for if we go down to battle with to-morrow's dawn, one of us shall have quenched his thirst for ever by noon of day."

"On my head may it fall!" exclaimed Sarchedon. "Let the slave perish, and let his lord, who raised him from the dust, ride forth to victory!"

"Nay, hear me," replied the king; "for I have already told thee lord and slave are no words between Aryas and Sarchedon. If I accept the vision for myself, I am willing to face its interpretation freely as I would face the horsemen of Assyria and the chariots of the Great Queen. I might die many a baser death than to fall in battle with Thorgon and his long swords at my back. But if it is for thee that the dream has been sent, I tell thee, my faithful friend and comrade, I cannot bear to think that thy share in our joint venture should be all loss and no gain. When I took thee into my palace, rude and homely though it seem, I swore its halls should be a harness of proof and a tower of defence for the stranger who sought its shelter. When I gave thee a place in my heart, I resolved I would bring thee to promotion and honour—not to danger, defeat, and death. Go out from among us, Sarchedon, ere it be too late. Return, as of thine own free will, to the Assyrian, with fair words and costly gifts. Buy their favour and the safety of thy body with that fair province of the south that lies by the Glassy Lake. Behold, it is a gift from me to thee. Tell them that the open hand of Aryas is heavy as his clenched fist. Bid the Great Queen depart in peace; but if she must needs come to buffets, there is space enough to fight a kingly battle beneath the walls of Ardesh. If she desires to seize my father's crown, she must take it off my brows by force where I stand, in my war-chariot armed with bow and spear."

For all answer, Sarchedon stripped the quiver from his shoulders, took the sword from his thigh, and laid the weapons at his lord's feet.

"It is enough," said he. "If the king can believe his servant capable of thus ransoming one poor life at the cost of honour, I have served him already too long. There are many brave men among his subjects better fitted than Sarchedon for the highest post Armenia has to offer. Poor and naked as he came, let the Assyrian return to the station from which he was raised by the favour of my lord the king. Yet, if true service and a grateful heart may plead for him, even now he will but ask to take his place to-morrow in the fore-front of battle, and, habited like a simple soldier of Aryas, march with the Men of the Mountain to his death."

The king's features worked with emotion. "Not so," he exclaimed in hoarse and broken accents. "True and faithful servants I can number by scores, but such a heart as this cleaveth to a man, be he king or herdsman, once in a lifetime. Surely it sticketh faster than a brother. I have proved thee, Sarchedon, as one proves the harness that is to keep his life. I tell thee, we will go down to battle side by side; together we will bend the bow and point the javelin. Honour, danger, and triumph we will share alike; and when the end comes, as something warns me come it will, peradventure in death we shall not be divided."

Then he lifted belt and baldrick from the stones, and with his own hand fastened the quiver at Sarchedon's back, girt the sword on his thigh, thus reinstating the bowbearer in all the honours he had voluntarily resigned.

Standing side by side in this reversal of their relative positions, it chanced that the servant caught sight of his own figure and his master's reflected in the burnished surface of an empty wine-flagon over against him. Remarking, not for the first time, their extraordinary similarity of form and features, Sarchedon now ventured on a request that only the high favour in which he stood, and the humility of his tone while proffering it, could have rendered palatable to his listener.

"Let not the king be wroth with his servant," said he, hesitating, like one who tries a plank with his foot ere he commits it to the whole of his weight, "if we ask yet another proof, in addition to all the honours heaped on him, of the trust in which he is held by his lord. Behold, like the sand that sucks the desert spring, he thirsteth yet for more! Let the king grant him the desire of his heart, and live for ever!"

"Say on, man!" replied Aryas, somewhat impatiently; "surely there needs not all this ceremony between thee and me. By to-morrow's sunset," he added, in a lower, sadder tone, "the same wild dog may be scaring the vultures from us both."

"Then, if we are to meet our death together," replied Sarchedon, "let it be in the same habit and the same armour. This is the boon I earnestly beg of my lord to grant. Men have said, ere now, that armed and in the field there is some such resemblance between Sarchedon and him who is called Aryas and Beautiful, as between the illusive verdure of the desert and those groves and waters that it represents. Let me take upon me then to array myself in such attire and harness as are worn by my lord the king; so, in the press of battle, the advantage of his presence and conduct shall be double, while the risk from his enemies—for my people strike ever at the head—will be but half."

Aryas pondered.

"And if I fall," said he, "wilt thou bring on the Men of the Mountain like a free Armenian king, leading the long swords to the charge again and again, even unto death?"

"I will do my best," replied the other; "for, indeed, whither am I to retreat? and what will be my fate if I am made a captive? Surely I have nothing to fear but defeat. If the long swords will follow, I ask no better than to lead them through the ranks of Assyria—to the very chariot of the Great Queen!"

The king's eyes blazed with unwonted fire.

"Swear it!" he exclaimed vehemently.

"I swear it by the everlasting wings!" answered Sarchedon; and so they made their compact with death.