True, Menon might have wedded both Sozana and Semiramis, together with a score of other wives, yet the mate of a daughter of the King must cherish one wife alone. And still again, that man who would divide his love betwixt some other and Semiramis had best go down at once amid the raging fires of Gibil to seek his peace of soul. So Menon, as he rode, was wont to ponder upon these things, and was troubled because of fear.
Semiramis fretted in the absence of her lord, till her heart was rife with a clamorous unrest. She loved him as a tigress loves its mate, and knew no peace till he came to her side again.
Huzim, too, was left behind for a watch-dog in the Governor's house, a servant who vied with Habal as a sentinel against alarm. If the Indian loved his master, to the mistress he gave idolatry, and naught was there which he would not do to bring her happiness. In the chase which she loved he taught her arts of the jungle-hunt, when the tracker's hand is brother to his eye, and the eye must sweat because of its constant roving to and fro. He taught her to use her bow, not in the manner of Syrian archers who sight along the shaft, but to shoot from the hip, with vision fixed upon the mark alone, thus giving a quickness following hard upon the heels of thought. Above all other arms he schooled her in the use of a heavy-headed spear on which to receive the body of a pouncing beast; and for his patience Huzim found good cause to thank his gods.
On a certain morning they trailed across the hills, the Indian and Semiramis, while Habal snuffled joyously for any breed of mischief that he chanced to find. Long they hunted, but without a kill, till at mid-day, of a sudden, the dog set up a furious barking in a deep ravine. Semiramis, who chanced to be in the valley's neck while Huzim hunted far above, came first to the point whence the angry uproar told of game. At first there was naught to see, save Habal dancing in his rage, his lips rolled back, his thick hair bristling; yet, presently, through a tangled screen of thorn and vine, she spied a lion crouched upon the body of a goat, the blood of his victim dripping from his jaws. A mighty beast was he, ill pleased at being thus disturbed; and now, at the sight of Semiramis, he roared his wrath and leaped upon his enemies.