On the assembled court the effect was varied and most strange. The women raised their brows in outward scorn of this stranger and her garb, yet in their secret hearts they knew a rival who outstripped them far; therefore they hated her and yearned that some swift calamity befall; but their husbands looked with a kindlier gaze. The warriors, the statesmen, aye, even the priests themselves, for a moment stood in silent awe, each face revealing what each soul would hide--wonder, worship, base desire--for the passions of men are tuned to divers keys when beauty strikes the chords.
To Menon the woman came as a fevered dream from which he longed to wake and know that she was safe in Ascalon; yet the dog was there--and Huzim--Huzim who looked into his master's eyes and dropped his own. It was true! She had come into the lion's very lair, and the voice of Fear cried out aloud that Folly had claimed its own.
"_Shammuramat!_" breathed Menon, leaning limp and white on the shoulder of Boabdul. "May the gods lend aid, where I may give her none!"
"Courage, friend!" the Arab whispered, "for in this, as in all things, my scimitar is brother to thy sword."
The King leaned back upon his throne, with folded arms, with eyelids narrowed into slits beneath his frown, with fingers that combed his beard, while the heart of him rejoiced. At last it was she! The red-haired devil who had perched in a citron tree and mocked him as he fled before a wounded lion. Ah, now should she pay the price of laughter in the coin of tears!
A hush had fallen on the company, each waiting with bated breath for the King to speak; but the King spoke not. At length Semiramis, wearying of the pause, stepped forward without the royal word of sufferance.
"My lord," said she, and pointed to her servant and the gift he bore, "I bring a lion's skin from the thickets of the Euphrates. A mighty one-eyed lion which--"
"Hold!" cried Ninus, leaping to his feet, his hard hands clenched, his neck veins standing out to a wrathful rush of blood. For a moment he stood, regarding the woman with a dark, malignant frown, then he turned to a man-at-arms beside his throne: "Go down with this wench to the keep below and let her taste the lash!"