The Syrian started, sat upright on the earth, and stared at the stream in wide-eyed unbelief. Where, before, a torrent rushed along its way, leaping the stones with a foaming, boisterous swirl, now ran a trickling rivulet. Its song was stilled; black rocks protruded from its bed, and a stranded fish flapped clumsily upon the sand. For a moment longer stared Semiramis, then leaped to her feet and shook the sleeping Indian.
"Awake!" she cried. "As Ishtar liveth, I have spoken with the stream--and the stream hath answered me!"
For a space she whispered eagerly, pointing to the north, till Huzim rose and brushed the slumber from his eyes. They bound the jaws of Habal with a leathern thong, lest the dog give tongue and sound alarm; then they crept in silence up the water-course. Northward it ran, yet suddenly it sheared away toward the east where the hills bent inward, forming a mighty pocket in the mountainside, and here the hunters paused, for faintly down the wind came the calls of men, the bellow of a burden-beast, and the sound of many hammer-strokes.
"Ah," breathed Semiramis, "'tis there the riddle hath its root, hanging like grapes till we come to strip the vine."
They left the stream and clambered upward, with an aim of spying from above, the Indian creeping on ahead, while Semiramis came after him, her dog in leash. The steeps grew difficult, but the seekers spared their strength, mounting slowly till they came upon a sentry seated in a narrow pass and singing softly to himself.
"How white is his throat," smiled Huzim, as he notched a shaft and knelt among the rocks; but Semiramis laid a restraining hand upon his arm.
"Nay, spare him; for see, he looketh upon the stars, and, all unknowing, giveth praise to Ishtar. To slay him were to bring us evil. Come!"
To the right they crept, in a circuit which brought them far above the watcher's post, then turned and bent upon their course again; and thus they journeyed stealthily, as in days of old they had stalked their game in Syria, coming at last to the lip of a precipice. Prostrate they lay and peeped below, yet naught could be seen because of gloom, and the trailing mists which eddied to and fro at the chase of a fickle breeze. Strange sounds came floating up to them, an oath, a sharp command, the crack of a lash, and the jumbled echoes of haste and toil; and now the moon slid out from behind a crag, bathing the slopes in a wave of light, while the call of sentries echoed far and wide, and the din in the valley ceased.