"The storm has broke at last," said Aryas, stooping to lift a headless arrow that had fallen at his feet. "If it hail no deadlier missiles than this, there will be little glory in sheltering under buckler and headpiece, behind stone buttress and unbroken wall."

Sarchedon took the arrow from the king's hand.

"Behold," said he, "the feathers are dipped in blood. Such a token is the deadliest of all defiance from my countrymen. My lord the king hath ever measured glory by danger. Trust me, he will have enough of both who holds a fenced city against which the armies of Assyria come up to cast a bank."

"So be it," was the dauntless answer. "The god of our nation hath never failed us yet, and those can scarce refuse to accept the award of battle who worship no other power but that of the naked sword!"

They were standing on the wall of Ardesh, scanning anxiously the lines of the Assyrian camp, which now encircled them. The Comely King had here concentrated all his forces, and the hosts of Semiramis, disappointed, it may be, that they met so little resistance on their march, completely invested the capital of Armenia, where the men of the north had taken their stand, determined to put forth all their strength in a single blow, and finish the struggle once for all.

The Assyrians had surrounded the city by night. At dawn their trumpets sounded about it on all sides, and ere noon the siege had so far commenced, that the headless arrow, formerly dispatched to the Great Queen as a token from Aryas, was shot into his stronghold, to alight at his very feet, wet and stained with blood.

"She is here in person," observed Sarchedon in a low grave voice, while he turned the arrow round and round in his hand. "None of her servants would have dared to send such a messenger as this. It means war to the death, no ransom for the captive, no mercy for the wounded, no burial for the slain."

"Is she, then, so pitiless a conqueror?" asked the Comely King, repressing certain hideous misgivings, that he had undertaken a task beyond his strength, and that not only his own life, which he was always willing enough to wage freely, but the safety of his people and the very existence of his kingdom were in the utmost peril.

"Merciless!" repeated Sarchedon. "An eagle has mercy when she turns from the dead carrion, a lion has mercy when he is gorged; but how shall men look for mercy from the solid impenetrable rock? That woman has, indeed, the lion's courage and the eagle's ken; but her heart is stone. And yet she is so beautiful,—so beautiful," he added, while a tide of wild and thrilling memories imparted a mournful tone to his revilings; "I have seen a poor wretch she has condemned turn on her his last look, full of love and worship, ere they covered his face and led him forth to die. Is she not more than woman? Is she not Ashtaroth, Queen of Light, come down to lead the sons of Ashur to their doom?"

The king was straining his eyes towards the camp of the enemy. He cared as little for the beauty of Ashtaroth as of Semiramis.

"If she is with her armies in person," said he, "and leads the attack, I will slay her with mine own hand. Behold, when I have cut the string, her captains and men of war shall bend the bow in vain. Look out yonder, Sarchedon, over the eastern slope. You know the array of your countrymen in camp or line of battle. Surely where the chariots of iron are massed, down yonder by the waterside, between the lines of horses, should be the abiding place of the Great Queen."

From the rampart whereon they stood, a bluff face of rock descended precipitously towards the camp of the Assyrians. Such, indeed, was the defence of Ardesh on every side; the natural difficulties of the stronghold being enhanced by a solid wall of masonry, against which, even after a bank had been raised by the besiegers to the necessary height, their battering-rams might be plied for a considerable period without effect. Save on the eastern quarter, the fall was nearly perpendicular, affording no encouraging prospect to an attacking force; but here the cliff sloped off in an incline, up and down which a goat might travel freely, or an active man unencumbered with armour might pass to and fro. If Ardesh were to be carried by assault, this was its only practicable point, although the inequalities of the surface were so trifling, and the angle so imperceptible, that the ascent looked perfectly smooth and upright from below.

Leaning over, with his attention riveted on the camp of the enemy, the king let his helmet fall from his head at this very spot. It rolled several cubits down the incline, till caught by a projecting corner of rock, where it hung bright and glittering, like a morning dew-drop on a dead autumn leaf. Aryas looked after it and laughed.

"Token for token," said he. "A headless helmet in answer to a headless shaft. If it ever gets down to their camp, they may summon their wise men to read the riddle in vain."

"It must not remain there!" answered Sarchedon. "The flash of steel will draw every eye in the host to the only joint in our harness; and I know their cunning of warfare well. Let my lord the king shelter for a space beneath the wall, lest I draw on him a storm from yonder dark cloud of archers in the vineyard when I show myself. We shall have no more headless arrows shot into Ardesh to-day."

"I would I had known in time!" muttered Aryas. "Not a leaf had been left on the vines to screen a marksman, not a hand's breadth of green but had been scathed and shrivelled by fire within a bowshot of the walls. Well climbed, Sarchedon! By the sword of my father, the Assyrian hath a leap and a footfall like a goat!"

While he spoke, the royal bowbearer crept cautiously down the precipice, taking advantage of every inequality that afforded foothold, of every tuft and fibre of vegetation that he could grasp. Slinging the recovered helmet round his neck with a bowstring, and thus leaving both hands at liberty for his ascent, he returned even less laboriously than he departed; and surmounting the wall, stood by the king's side, panting, breathless, but exulting with boyish glee in the achievement of his exploit.

"And they marked me not from below!" said he triumphantly; "though I dared not often trust myself to look down, I could have seen if bow had been bent or arrow pointed from the camp. Surely the Assyrian sleeps on his post; surely they have lost their discipline since I carried a spear in the guards of the Great King!"

"We will give them a lesson in warfare ere long," answered Aryas, but though his tone was bold enough, his eye wandered uneasily over the mighty array of tents and banners that covered the plain below. "We can hold them at our pleasure till the snow winds come to help us from the north, unless they give the assault at this very spot beneath our feet, and here, too, we are guarded by the river, shallow though it be, for if to-day it steals smoothly and gladly through the water-flowers, like a youth wooing a maiden to the dance, to-morrow it comes roaring down in a seething flood, unbridled and irresistible as a host of northern horsemen with a broken enemy in their front."

But the king's prevision and the keen eyes of his bowbearer were alike at fault. Thus it fell out that the only assailable point in the defences of Ardesh was laid open to an enemy who never failed to strike home without delay at the weakest place.

It had been the custom of the Great Queen, during their long and toilsome progress from the country between the rivers to the mountain regions of Armenia, to inspect with her own eyes the camp-life of her armies, and to satisfy herself of their nourishment, their comfort, their general efficiency, above all, their loyalty to her person and fidelity to the standard under which they marched.

For this purpose she would assume the disguise of a simple archer, hiding her face, as if to screen it from the sun, with the folds of a linen head-dress, such as has always been affected by inhabitants of hot climates, and so, often without a single attendant, would stroll unrecognised through the camp, listening to the rude talk of the spearmen, and noting for future reproof any instances of negligence, tyranny, or misconduct that took place within her observation. Men wondered how an ill-yoked chariot, a trodden and turbid watering-place, an over-loaded camel, all came under notice of the Great Queen; so that the prevalent belief in her godlike birth and more than human attributes gained ground day by day from these examples of a knowledge that seemed at once ubiquitous and infallible.

No sooner had she disposed her forces, with all the skill her experience suggested, round the stronghold of her enemy than she determined to examine for herself the actual state of the wall which fortified it, even if she had to venture within bowshot of the defenders. For this purpose she stole from her own magnificent pavilion in the attire of an Assyrian archer, and covering her face as usual, passed slowly through the lines where the flower of an army lay encamped, which, though sadly weakened by the toil and hardships of its protracted march, seemed yet formidable antagonists to any power on earth.

The men were scattered about in groups, already making preparations, though noon was not long past, for their principal meal at sundown. Here a brawny warrior, with arms bare to the shoulder and legs to the thigh, was shredding herbs in his headpiece, the homeliness of his occupation contrasting ludicrously with the warlike nature of his cooking vessel, as did the nudity of his extremities with the proven harness that kept his mighty chest. A comrade, lying on his back with arms folded over his face, kicked his legs in the air, while he watched the proceedings with a listlessness that denoted he was for evening duty, and would have no share in the result. A score of others, ungirt, unsandalled, half-armed, half-dressed, were gathered round a dying camel, vociferating many opposing remedies for the poor beast's treatment, while the roar of an irritated stallion, the peal of a trumpet, the stamp and snort of a row of feeding horses, mingled with the hum of voices rising from a circle of stalwart warriors sitting, though the sun beat fiercely down, round the embers of their camp-fire.

It was not in the nature of Semiramis to pass these magnificent specimens of manhood without notice. Half unconsciously she lingered in their vicinity, marking their ample beards, fine stature, and robust proportions, agreeing well with their deep full tones, while they discussed freely enough the chances of the expedition and the stirring events of their daily life, sparing not the captains of ten thousand, nor forbearing to criticise the great leader herself, who stood by and overheard.

"'Tis a strained bow they bid us bend, my brothers," observed a scarred, war-worn veteran, whose mien and bearing displayed all the fierce pride, the overweening self-confidence assumed by those who had served under the Great King; "a strained bow and a frayed cord—peradventure, a headless shaft to point, as well; but that makes little odds against solid masonry and bare rock. I doubt, if we are to get at the kernel of this date here over against us, we must crack the shell with our teeth."

"I can tell thee that mine are blunt for want of use," retorted a comrade, hammering busily at a broken link in his habergeon. "How are men to be fed on the march through a country that grows nothing but oaks and brushwood? There is grass, indeed, between the hills, and game for those who can hunt it in the woods, but of corn and cattle the valleys are bare as the palm of my hand."

"And empty as his belly," laughed a third. "He liketh well to have store of good things in both."

"But Semiramis forbade pillage," interposed his neighbour, grinning. "They took an auxiliary with a shield full of barley that he snatched from an old man's threshing-floor, and she impaled him on the spot."

"Fool! that was in our own land of Shinar, before we crossed the frontier," said the first speaker. "The Great Queen never forbade pillage in an enemy's country till we marched into this wilderness, where there is nothing to take. Besides, the rogue slew the old man in his own vineyard, and he was only an auxiliary after all."

"And an ungainly wretch to boot, I will wager my share of supper presently out of that scanty pot," added a handsome young spearman, arranging his curly beard in the breastplate he had polished up to the brightness of a mirror for that purpose. "A comely youth of proper stature, be he captain or camel-driver, need never fear but he will find favour in the sight of the Great Queen."

His fellows laughed loud and long.

"Hear him!" shouted one, clapping the speaker on the back, "the favourite of Ashtaroth!"

"The dainty lotus-flower of the host!" exclaimed another; while a third, turning on him with mock gravity, bade him,

"Go to for a fool, who must be answered according to his folly."

"Dost thou verily believe," said he, "that because of thy bull's head and shoulders, thy foolish leer like a sheep in a sacrifice, and the perpetual grin of a southern ape eating a sour pomegranate, thou wilt get preferment at her hands, who knows a man when she sees one, and treats him like the arrows in her quiver? Lo! the bow is bent, the mark is struck or missed, another is fitted to the string; but the same shaft never comes into her royal service again. Though thy turn of duty takes thee daily to the great pavilion, I doubt if the queen hath ever seen thee yet."

"She shall hear of me, nevertheless," said the other, with a glance at the beleaguered town.

"Knocking that empty head of thine against the wall!" returned the veteran. "I tell ye, my brothers, that of all the wars yet undertaken by the sons of Ashur, this is the most untoward and ill-advised. What said the Great King when he turned back from the Zagros range, taking earth and water of the Men of the Mountain, but refraining to occupy their country? 'I would be lord of all below,' said he, pointing to those snow-whitened hills that mingle with the clouds, 'while I leave to my fathers the dominion of the sky!' He has gone to join them at last; but could he come back to us this night, I tell ye by to-morrow's sunset we should be a day's march on our journey towards home!"

"Then why are we here now?" was asked by two or three voices at once.

The answer came in a grave important tone:

"Because of a treasure within those walls that Semiramis would wage life and empire, and you and me, and the whole might of Ashur to attain. What it is, I know not; if I knew, peradventure I dared not tell. But this I will uphold of the Great Queen, that her lightest wish is to the fixed resolve of another, as a man walking in armour to a maiden washing her feet in a stream."

His listeners nodded approval, and scanning the lofty towers above them, began hazarding many conjectures as to the nature of that possession so coveted by their queen. A strong opinion seemed to prevail that Ardesh contained some illimitable store of spoils hoarded by Armenian kings for ages; and this impression served partly to counteract their general feeling of despondency and disheartening belief in the impregnable strength of the place. The youngest of these men of war spoke the most hopefully.

"I will never admit," said he, "that the might of man can shut out the sons of Ashur under the banner of our Great Queen. A rock is steep. Go to! shall we not cast a bank against it? A wall is thick; shall we not undermine it from beneath? Give me a high curved shield to keep my head, a steel pick, and an iron crowbar; behold, I will sit like a partridge in the barley, and burrow like a coney amongst the rocks."

"So be it," answered the veteran moodily. "The sooner our trumpets sound to the assault the better. I tell thee, man, though the guards still show a goodly front, the hosts of Assyria are wasting and waning day by day, like that river in Egypt I passed over dry shod, like a flagon of Damascus wine, my brother, standing betwixt thee and me."

The archer turned thoughtfully away, walking through the lines with folded hands and head bent down in earnest consideration.

There was food for reflection, even for anxiety and alarm, in the light talk of these careless spearmen. When they touched on her personal weaknesses, her predilection for stalwart warriors, and especially her indomitable strength of will, the queen could not forbear a smile; but it faded into an expression of deeper gravity than was often worn by that bright face, while she pondered on the cost and peril of this adventurous expedition, so wild in its object, so disastrous in its results, confessing to her own heart that its impolicy was as obvious to her meanest followers as to their leader. Had not Assarac himself expressed the same opinion, almost in the same words?—Assarac, to whom she had never given a problem so hard but that he could solve it, a task so difficult, but that, for her sake, it was fulfilled.

Her armies melting away daily, her men of war dispirited and ill-supplied, a strongly-fortified city in front, a barren desert in rear! Not a captain of her host but would have quailed at the prospect, and had he been chief in command, would have commenced a fatal and disorderly retreat.

The character of Semiramis, however, was one on which danger and difficulty produced the effect of a hammer on glowing steel, welding and forging it, indeed, to the ends in view, but tempering it to an exceeding hardness and consistency the while. The desire of the present too, whatever it might be, became her master-passion for the time, and while sanguine and impetuous like a very woman, she possessed the courage, foresight, and obstinate perseverance of a man; also she enjoyed unlimited and irresponsible power as a queen; therefore it never entered her mind to abandon her task, or forego her intention of taking Sarchedon out of Ardesh by the strong hand, and marching the Comely King back to Babylon, a fettered captive at her chariot wheels.

"But to lie here inactive, waiting till he surrenders," thought the queen, "is like staring at ripe fruit in an orchard, till it drop down into the mouth. If a man hunger, let him climb the bough; I am but a woman, yet I think I can at least shake the tree."

So she resolved that, at all hazards and all loss, the place must be carried by assault without delay. Thus musing, she passed through the vineyard occupied by her own archers to within an arrow's flight of the beleaguered fortress, unnoticed by those who believed her to be a simple bowman like themselves, and so proceeded to scan the wall, with an eye trained to detect the slightest point of advantage at a glance.

It was strong, very strong. Here, perhaps, a bank might be cast against it to some purpose; but the besiegers would suffer fearful slaughter in the work. There, covered by their large wicker shields, and plying their mining-tools, her heavy-armed spearmen might sap the foundations of the wall; but could they climb, and fight, and work, all at once, where there was scarce foothold for a goat? It must be done, nevertheless; but how to do it? She taxed her memory and her invention in vain.

Accident, however, came to her aid, when all her warlike skill was insufficient. Gazing steadfastly on the place, she marked the king's helmet drop from the wall, and her heart leaped with triumph when she beheld his bowbearer, who recovered it, reascending with little difficulty to return it to his lord—with triumph, and with a sharper, keener, sweeter sensation still; for in that bowbearer she recognised him for whom she was thus willing to risk life and empire; while the same glance revealed to her at once the desire of her eyes, and the path by which it was to be attained. She felt her cheek burn and her pulses throb; but even in that glowing moment, the instincts of the commander dominated those of the woman, and her brain was never clearer, nor her eye more accurate, than while she measured the height of the steep, and noted every fall of ground, every inequality of surface, that could be turned to account in moving the strength of her army at this point to the attack.

Ashtaroth, she knew, would always be ready to do her bidding, but it needed prudence, self-restraint, and a steadfast heart to force Merodach to her will.