"SHE COULD NOT BE DECEIVED: IT WAS MERODACH!"

Watching with fond and eager eyes, she turned sick and faint, while she crouched down, like some poor hunted fawn, into her shelter; for on its back, soothing the good horse with many a gentle word and tender caress, sat the form of him whom most she feared and hated in the bounds of earth. Yes; the beautiful face she seemed yet to behold lulled on her own breast, in flushed and drunken sleep, was surely there, within a few paces, gazing dreamily into the distance; while Merodach, scarcely wetting his dark muzzle in the water, pawed and snorted in restless impatience to rejoin the companions he had left.

What was Ninyas doing here? Had the prince pursued her from Ascalon? was he on her track, and searching for her even now? could she escape him, neither in the city nor the plain? All these thoughts whirled through her brain, while she lay still as death, scarcely daring to breathe, peering at her enemy through a crevice of the crumbling wall with pale face and wild dilated eyes.

The horseman seemed moody and abstracted—strangely lavish of caresses for his steed, strangely indifferent to the heat of the sun, the ripple of the fountain, everything but his own engrossing thoughts. Without dismounting, he sat wrapped in meditation for a space of time that appeared interminable to the watcher, ere he woke up, as it were, with a start, and, curbing his beast's impatience, rode away at a walk to enter the city by a different gate from that which the party he had left were about to pass through.

Emerging from her shelter, though not until the white horse and his rider had disappeared in the distance, Ishtar felt sadly perplexed. To abide by her present hiding-place would be imprudent in the highest degree, for the Well of Palms was the resort of every traveller who approached Babylon on its southern side. If she retraced her steps, and fled once more into the wilderness, she must perish from thirst and fatigue; for to be afoot in the desert without a camel was to be adrift on the sea without a boat; and she had even abandoned the honest plodding beast that brought her thus far after she left her gigantic protector at sunrise. She almost wished now she had remained in their tents with the Anakim, intrusting to those tameless denizens of the waste her own safety and the task of eventually recovering her lover.

She saw no other course left but to trudge wearily on, and pass, if possible, unnoticed through the gate of Babylon, there to seek high and low some real friend, who, for her father's sake, would give her bread to eat, a roof to cover her, and aid in the one object of her life.

Wrapping her veil closely round her, counterfeiting as well as she could the gait and bearing of a woman advanced in years and of humble grade, Ishtar toiled slowly forward, carrying indeed a sorely laden heart into that glittering capital of splendour, luxury, and sin.

The troop that had so disquieted this forlorn and friendless fugitive trampled bravely on, raising clouds of dust, through which flashed the magnificence of their arms and apparel, as a beautiful face sparkles and blushes through its tawny veil. Without waiting for the detached horseman, they hastened towards the city, galloping, it seemed, from sheer exuberance of spirits rather than from any actual necessity for speed. The principal figure in the group, to whom the others turned obsequiously for guidance, was Assarac; and the eunuch's bearing, as he managed his steed with the graceful ease of an Assyrian born, was dignified and commanding in the extreme.

By his side rode Beladon, laughing, talking, gesticulating, proud to show his countrymen that a priest of Baal could back a horse and bend a bow with the best of them—that if his sacred character debarred him from seeking fame in the war-chariot, he was yet a true child of Ashur for skill and daring in the chase.

His eye gleamed, his cheek glowed; there were stains of blood on his linen garments; and from his horse's chest dangled the muzzle and fangs of a full-grown lion, that had fallen since sunrise to his bow.

He was never weary of detailing this achievement, dwelling in boundless satisfaction on his own success and the formidable size of his prey.

Assarac listened, with his usual imperturbable smile.

"I called on Baal," said Beladon, "and urged my good horse to his speed; for already the lion was scarce the cast of a javelin from the reeds, and had he reached his thicket, I must have gone in and finished him on foot. By the belt of Nimrod, I can tell you it was no comely face he showed me when I came up with him. His eyes glared like the carbuncles on the palace-gate, and he bared all these fangs that hang here at my horse's breast, as who should say, Behold! a score of proven warriors, and every one an enemy! I drew my bow thus—to my very ear—and as he rose on his hind-legs, I pierced him straight and true right through his open mouth, then turned my hand and galloped off across the plain, lest he should rise up ere life was extinct, and tear my good horse limb from limb in his death-pang."

"So the spearmen gathered round and slew him," observed Assarac.

"The spearmen gathered round and slew him," repeated the other, "after they found him disabled by the might of this right arm. When I turned back and got down to measure his carcass, there was my shaft driven through the roof of his mouth, cleaving his very skull."

"Was there not an arrow in his body when he fell?" asked the eunuch.

Beladon coloured and looked vexed.

"The king had, indeed, loosed a shaft at the beast when first we roused him," said he. "Doubtless, the royal hand never misses its mark."

"Had you come between Ninus and his prey in the olden time," observed the other, "not all the host of heaven could have turned aside his wrath. He would have impaled you before set of sun."

"He loved the chase dearly," answered Beladon, "as did the Great Queen, and Ninyas too, till lately. What has come over him now? He leaps to the saddle at dawn—hasty, eager, excited, as though every beast of chase between the rivers must be swept away forthwith, slaying and sparing not—then, after one fierce dash at the wild-bull, one savage thrust at the lion, leaves his followers, as he left us even now, to ride slowly home, sad, moody, and alone. Always on the same steed too. It seems as though he cared for nothing under heaven but the white horse with the wild eyes."

"'Tis a good beast," answered the other, scrutinising the face of his follower, "and worthy to bear the person of a king."

"A good beast indeed," said Beladon simply, "and belonged once to as good a warrior as ever lifted spear or emptied wine-cup. It seems but yesterday that Sarchedon brought back the Great King's signet, and made his night's lodging with us in the temple of our god. What has become of him now? I would we knew!"

"I would we knew!" repeated Assarac in a careless tone, as if he only echoed the other's sentiments, not as if he would have given wealth untold, deemed no waste of blood or treasure too lavish, for the information.

Reining their horses to a walk, the gaudy troop had already passed through one of her gates, and entered the crowded streets of Babylon. Thinking their king was amongst the party, his people gathered round in considerable numbers, and appeared disappointed to miss the beautiful face and form they so seldom looked on now. It was a common remark amongst all classes, that the wild, free-living, free-spoken young prince had become strangely solemn and reserved since his accession to the throne. There was far less revelry in the palace than in the days of stern old Ninus. His son seldom rode abroad through the streets or showed himself to his people. The shadow of the priests of Baal seemed over the monarch, and it was known that Assarac had great influence in the royal counsels. As is usual in such cases, the favourite came in for a larger share of obloquy than his lord.

Nevertheless, there is always enough popularity about a gay cavalcade to insure its welcome in a pleasure-loving city like Babylon. Assarac could not but observe that, although there were dark frowns and angry glances in the outskirts of the crowd, the nearer spectators shouted their welcome cordially enough, pressing in to kiss the trappings of his horse, the hem of his garment, with all the transitory enthusiasm of their impressionable nature.

"Tis an easy people to rule!" whispered Beladon in the ear of his superior. "Believers in Baal, and a thousand gods besides; mark the reverence they pay your sacred character. Surely the sons of Ashur love the linen vestment of the priest."

"Were not their shouts yet louder, their welcome kinder, to the scarlet and steel of the Great King's horsemen, when he marched in from Egypt?" returned Assarac. "Trust me, Beladon, they bend lowest when they carry the heaviest load. They love deepest where most they have to fear."

"And they fear Baal," said the other.

"Only because they know not Nisroch," replied Assarac. "God or man can be great for this false fickle nation only until there cometh a greater than he. Do they not offer homage willingly to Abitur of the Mountains? And why? Because they dread his power, not knowing its nature nor its extent. Their ruler should indeed be a god in all but benevolence. He must have no natural sympathies, no human weaknesses, no remorse, no pity, and, above all, no fear."

"There is but one man in the land of Shinar who is above and without these softer failings of his kind. May I sit on his right hand henceforward, as to-day!" was Beladon's insidious reply.

Though half despising the flattery of his follower, Assarac smiled. Yet it did not escape the other's observation, ever on the alert, that in the eunuch's smile lurked an expression of weariness and sorrow almost amounting to pain.

"The king has faithful followers," said he "and wise counsellors—may he live for ever!"

The crowd hemmed them in very close; his last sentence, though uttered in a low voice, was caught up and repeated by a thousand tongues. Through the noise and confusion that prevailed, only Assarac could hear the whisper of his subordinate,

"Baal is great. What are kings and princes compared to the mighty Assyrian god? Let Baal rule alone in Babylon and through all the land of Shinar; while Assarac, the interpreter of his will to the people, twines the sacred lotus round the royal sceptre, he needs but stretch out his hand to take."

"As the serpent of Ashtaroth twines round a man's heart!" answered the other. And Beladon, looking in his face, marvelled to see it drawn and white, as of one who strives with an agony of mortal pain.