She went her way and took up her song again, but paused to reason with a small brown toad that hopped across her path.
"Little beast," said she, "thou comest as a warning of some ugly chance, the which, I confess, hath filled me with the juice of fear. Therefore will I hasten out of Syria in time."
She walked around the toad with care, and, singing, journeyed on till she reached the house where the old dove Simmas dwelt in days gone by. At the door she lingered, ere she raised the latch, for one last argument in the cause of a heart's desire.
"Now Dagon," she reflected, grieving at the thought, "is in truth a careless god in the matter of his signs. Had Ishtar cursed me with a simple mind, I might have misinterpreted, alas!"
Semiramis then slept, to dream of Menon till the shades of night wore on, and in her dreams found weightier reasons which she laid on the fish-god's judgment scale.
"Huzim," she asked, when the Indian had brought the evening meal, "did I seek escape from Ascalon, what course would thy duty run?"
"Mistress," he answered her, "like an arrow in my heart is the thought of force with one whose happiness is held above my hopes of peace; yet the master's will is the master's will, and a servant must obey."
"Ah," she nodded thoughtfully. "Ah, I see! Yet if, by chance, I slipped away in the gloom of night, as I did at Azapah--what then?"
The Indian cast a troubled gaze upon the floor, and heaved a sigh.
"I would follow, mistress, as before I followed, till I fell because of weariness."
"Then follow!" said Semiramis, "for I go to join my lord at Nineveh--and to tickle the lion's nose with straws."
King Ninus, lord of all Assyria, lay cursing in his royal litter, while slaves and attendants bore him northward on the banks of the Euphrates. Presently they left their course, struck eastward till they reached the Tigris and again turned north, whence, with many rests and long, forced marches in the cool of night, the stricken King at length was placed upon his couch at Nineveh.
Full many a grievous matter rode upon the monarch's mind, and the pale attending leech wrought vainly to quell his patient's fever, one augmented by a sleepless, boiling rage within. By day the King would fret; by night he rioted throughout his dreams and found no rest.