It was but according to an established principle of nature and general law of race, that the descendants of Nimrod should entertain a keen predilection for the chase. In this particular Ninyas, notwithstanding habits of luxury and effeminacy at home, formed no exception to the princes of his line. He was never so happy as when urging a good horse to speed after the scudding ostrich, loosing a grim leopard from its leash to spring on the fleet antelope, tracking with fierce and heavy hounds the footprints of some lordly lion on the desert sand, or watching with eager eyes his long-winged falcons wheeling and stooping in the desert sky. Skilled in bodily exercises, sitting his horse with the graceful ease of constant practice, flushed, panting, joyous, he rode to and fro, beautiful as a woman and radiant as a god.

After that night of revelry, on which he so lowered the pride of Rekamat, to be in turn foiled by Ishtar, it was not strange that this wayward prince should wake from a feverish sleep in the very worst of humours; but having relieved his irritated feelings by condemning the captain of the gate to a painful death, and settled himself in the saddle for a long day's pleasure on the plain, he felt sufficiently comforted to enter with considerable zest into the amusement of the hour.

While his horse was fresh, he had succeeded in approaching within bowshot of some wild asses to wound one of the herd wantonly and uselessly, with an arrow from his own royal quiver. He had fairly ridden down and secured an ostrich of unusual plumage, breaking the bird's long legs by a blow from the club, which he flung while galloping at speed with marvellous dexterity. His leopard had not failed to strike an antelope at the first pounce; his hawks never once missed their quarry, nor delayed returning obedient to the lure; moreover, he had brought an old male lion to bay, and, riding in on him, wounded the monster so severely with his spear, that although it had crawled for refuge into certain inaccessible rocks, it must have died before night; and as none of his servants had come up to help him, the glory was exclusively his own.

Accordingly, when he paced back into Ascalon at sundown, weary and dishevelled, yet happy and triumphant, he felt at peace with mankind; revenge seemed hateful, anger impossible, and all he thirsted for was a cup of wine.

Dismounting within the gate of the fortress, it was served as his foot touched the ground. Then he bethought him of the fugitive from Egypt, to whom he had not yet granted audience, and desired that this visitor should be brought into his presence forthwith. Sethos, in his dark and cheerless apartment, scooped out of the very rock on which the fortress stood, received such a summons with considerable dismay. The care taken to secure him, the dreary nature of his lodging, the coarse food brought by his only visitor, a spearman, belted with bow and quiver, grim, silent, and armed to the teeth, denoted that his offence, whatever it might be, was considered of exceeding gravity, and that in all likelihood his imprisonment would soon be terminated by death.

Bold and joyous as was his nature, the cup-bearer followed his conductor with a sad brow and a heavy heart. He knew the prince's character well, and a peal of laughter from his lord, while he bent low at the royal feet, served by no means to allay his fears.

"So I have kept him in ward from sunrise to sunset," exclaimed Ninyas, shaking his sides and wiping his eyes, in the exuberance of his mirth, "little guessing who he was! The Great King's cup-bearer, the curled and scented ornament of all the Assyrian host, the daintiest flower in the whole of dainty Babylon; for whom the royal banquet was but a coarse meal of broken meat; the royal court, blazing with a thousand torches, but a dim and dismal den. And I ordered him bitter water and bread of affliction; shut him up in a stone cell without a breath of air or a gleam of light! By the beard of Ashur, I shall never recover it. O Sethos, Sethos! had I known this morning it was you, I could not have sat my horse for laughing all day. And think what a spoil we should have lost! Five antelopes, man; an ostrich as tall as my spear; scores of all the birds of heaven; and a lion, though we brought him not in, so tawny that he seemed almost black, old, and fierce, like Nimrod himself, big as a wild bull, and with fangs more than a span long. By the quiver of Merodach, I have not taken such a prey since we hunted that pleasant time in the northern mountains, before the Egyptian campaign!"

Ninyas seemed in high good-humour. Sethos, raising his eyes to look in the prince's joyous face, knew that the bitterness of death was past.

"His servant has received many good gifts from my lord," was the conventional reply. "Shall he not accept evil without complaint? There can be no injustice between a master and his slave."

"But how come you here?" asked Ninyas, ignoring, from force of habit, the accustomed formalities of the other. "They tell me you rode in with half-a-score of bowmen, pursued by the hosts of Egypt—chariots and horsemen, banner, bow, and spear. I would have loosed a shaft or two amongst them nevertheless, had they been a hundred to one."

"My lord speaks well," answered Sethos proudly. "His servant slew their leader with his own hand ere he turned rein, and fled to seek shelter with my lord!"

"I would I had been at your back!" exclaimed the prince, kindling. "I grew weary unto death of their country, I own, when we rode there under the banner of Ashur, and I never wished to set eyes on one of their tawny faces or their supple backs again. But to have them brought here at bowshot distance, without any trouble, like a troop of wild asses or a herd of deer! Ah, Sethos, you were always a favourite of the gods—Baal, Nisroch, Merodach, and above all, Ashtaroth, Queen of Light!"

"My lord gives praise to his servant out of his own bounty," answered the other. "Hath Ninyas ever yet been known to come down from saddle or war-chariot without taking the first spoil? And as for Ashtaroth—surely, fairer game than feeds in field or forest falls to him, even before he lifts his bow."

The prince loved flattery dearly, though he had wit to despise the flatterer. He smiled well pleased.

"I cannot blame the gods," said he; "they have served me better than ever I served them. Do you remember the old lion we slew in the mountains ten days' march from Nineveh, when you drove my chariot up to the axles through the marsh? That was a prey worth the taking of a king. How he grinned and roared, and fought, with my javelin through his shoulder, and my arrow in his neck! Had he not torn at the chariot-wheel with claws and fangs, in blind senseless rage, we had hardly brought his dark skin home to make a foot-cloth for the Great Queen. Believe me, man, the beast I slew to-day might have been whelped in the same litter—as old, as savage, flecked in the jaws with grey, leaner perhaps, and a thought longer—say a span—from muzzle to tail. I am no boaster, Sethos; but surely old Nimrod himself can scarce have won nobler triumphs over the fiercest beasts of chase than mine!"

"My lord hath spoken," answered Sethos. "Is he not unrivalled in war, in the chase, in love?"

The last word seemed to touch some painful chord, rouse some bitter memory in his listener. The prince's handsome face reddened, and then turned pale. When he spoke again, it was the cup-bearer's turn to feel discomposed; for the voice of Ninyas sounded cold and hard, his manner had become stern and almost severe.

The lion's cub so far resembled his fierce old father, that his mood would change on occasion at a moment's notice from joyous good-humour and hilarity to a paroxysm of wrath, all the more dangerous that it was so sudden and unexpected.

With Ninus, however, such an access of passion betrayed itself in uncontrolled violence of language and gesture; while his son, on the contrary, concealed his feelings under a smooth brow and calm demeanour, far more implacable than the savage outbreak of his sire. The one would order an offender to be taken out and strangled on the spot, but forgive him perhaps before the fatal covering had been drawn round his head. The other spoke softly, nodded courteously, passed sentence of death in a whisper, and remitted it for no consideration of justice or mercy whatsoever.

But the prince loved pleasure even more than cruelty, and was therefore popular enough with the multitude, who were willing to give his beautiful face and graceful form credit for every royal virtue; believing no evil of one who rode abroad so gallantly in such shining raiment, sat so long at the feast among brave men and beautiful women, drank so deep, laughed so loud, and looked so fair, garland on head and wine-cup in hand.

"You have not yet accounted for your presence in Ascalon," said he coldly.

And Sethos, knowing well that he must trim his sails according as the wind blew, answered with the gravity of some high official making a report:

"In order to fulfil the mission of my lord, I was compelled to journey swiftly, tarrying nowhere by the way. Therefore were our horses somewhat faint and wearied, or we had laughed to scorn the speed of the Egyptian, flinging sand like the wild ass in their faces who pursue."

"You should have halted and fought it out," observed Ninyas.

"The embassy of my lord spoke indeed of defiance," replied Sethos; "but his servant was accompanied by scarce a score of horsemen. The hosts of Egypt swarmed like locusts in a south wind. Had the city of refuge stood but one furlong farther off, our bones had lain bleaching in the desert, or we had been again brought into the terrible presence of Pharaoh ere now."

"Then you have seen Pharaoh?" interrupted Ninyas. "What is he like?"

The cup-bearer looked surprised.

"I have indeed stood before him," he answered, "and spoken with Pharaoh face to face. His throne is of beaten gold, studded with jewels; his garments shine and glisten so that he seems clad in light; but the man himself is of low stature and puny frame, lean, sallow, undignified. It is only the line of Ashur who are princes in bearing as in blood."

"The princes of Ashur go out to war with their hosts," responded Ninyas, accepting the compliment greedily enough. "Pharaoh lay soft in his palace beyond the river many a night while I was watching with bow and spear."

"Pharaoh lives for ever," said the other. "So proclaim his captains and officials from rise to set of sun. Perhaps it is that he cares not to front death in battle or the chase. Nevertheless, he entertained me with all the honour due to him who carried the message of my lord the king."

"And what message had my lord the king for one with whom he might have made his own terms at his very gate?" asked the prince.

Once more the puzzled look crossed his face, while Sethos pondered ere he replied. The path he trod seemed very dangerous; he must look well to his balance at every step. Taking courage, he answered frankly, yet with a certain caution,

"What am I, that I should stand in the light of the king's countenance? The reed withers in the furnace and is consumed, the bar of iron doth but bend and obey. On such a matter it was not fitting that the lowest of his servants should speak with the king face to face. I received my instructions from him who stood on the king's right hand. Shall I repeat them to my lord?"

Ninyas watched him keenly.

"Why not?" he asked.

"I was commanded to make all speed through the desert, until I came into the presence of Pharaoh himself," said the cup-bearer; "to speak out boldly, as befitted him who represented the glory of Nimrod; to demand the body of a son of Ashur, lying captive in the land of Egypt; and if aught but good had befallen him, to warn Pharaoh that Assyria would come down with her chariots and horsemen to take a life for every hair of Sarchedon's head."

The prince started as if he was stung.

"Sarchedon!" he exclaimed. "Was it even so? And you brought him back with you to Ascalon?"

"It seemed but my duty," answered Sethos, "to shelter in a city of refuge one on whose head the king set so high a price, rather than suffer him to fall a second time into the hand of the false Egyptian."

Ninyas seemed much disturbed, betraying his vexation, as the other could not but perceive, in the unnatural composure of his demeanour.

"And these instructions?" said he, after a pause. "They must have been given by one in authority, standing at the right hand of my lord the king."

"They were given by Assarac, high-priest of Baal," answered the cup-bearer. "Surely my lord is but proving his servant with empty words. What am I, that I should seek to show aught but the truth in the sight of my lord."

"Assarac, high-priest of Baal!" repeated Ninyas. "And at the right hand of the Great King! Beware, my friend; beware! There is yet a morsel of bread and a cruse of water in that dungeon where you passed the day. When a son of Ashur speaks to his lord with a lie in his mouth, surely his face is already covered, and his blood lies on his own head."

Hurt, alarmed, and in the utmost perplexity, the tears rising to his eyes, Sethos could but answer in a broken voice: "The Great King is gone to the gods! If my lord should slay his servant, he can only speak of that which he hath seen and knows."

In spite of all his self-control, Ninyas turned deadly pale, rocking and tottering where he stood, like a man stricken sore in fight. Then he called for another cup of wine, and turning to Sethos, with a smile said only:

"Leave me now; I am wearied, and the sun smote fierce to-day on the desert sand. See that they water not my horse till he is cool; and, Sethos, let not man nor woman come near me till I clap my hands."

With these words Ninyas retired to his chamber, and was seen no more, leaving the cup-bearer at his wits' end with astonishment, a state which was shared more or less by all the household; for was not the banquet spread, the hall lighted, the wine poured out, yet the prince absent? Such an event had never yet come to pass in the memory of his servants; and Rekamat, who hoped to-night she would regain some of the footing she had lost in his favour, was loud in protestations of astonishment and vexation.

She was yet more dismayed, however, on the morrow to learn that a troop of horsemen had passed out of the gate at sunrise, and disappeared in the desert towards the north; the watchman farther reporting, that in their centre, on the prince's favourite steed, rode a woman closely veiled. Rekamat bit her lip in sore vexation, to keep back the tears of spite and shame that rose brimming to her eyes.