“Shoot!” he cried, between his teeth; “shoot!” Darius’s hand drew the arrow to its head. The auroch shook his horns, bellowed for the last time, and looked from Darius to Belshazzar, from Belshazzar to Darius. Which should feel his charge? The bull fixed his eyes on the king, gave a snort, a bound. “Shoot!” cried Belshazzar again. As if in echo came a voice out of the thicket, “Back, Nergal! Woe! The king! Do not leap! Too late! Woe!” And Darius swung himself in the saddle just in time to see the tawny body of Nergal, the royal lion, launching itself—not on the auroch, but on him. The arrow flew to meet the lion. It was Ahura the Great who shed on Darius the power that sent the startled charger with a wide bound to one side by the mighty press of a knee. The lion leaped. His flying claws tore the leather on the Persian’s sleeve. A mighty snarl—the beast dashed upon the turf. The saving of Ruth had been no shot like this. The deed was done too swiftly for thought or fear, while all around the woods were ringing with a fiercer conflict. The auroch had sought his prey the moment Nergal had leaped on his. The king had striven desperately to master his steed, but vainly. The monster caught the horse under his horns and tossed mount and rider in the air. Halting in full charge, he shook his great head and looked about. The horse was disembowelled—dying. The king, cast upon the greensward, was struggling to rise. He had lost his sword. The auroch lowered his head again. Still a foe? He would trample it out instantly! “Help, in Marduk’s name, help!” the king was calling. Out from the thicket whence sprang the lion sped a man, Idina, master of the hounds, and leaped beside Belshazzar. A brave deed, but foolish. In his hand was only his whip of office. [Illustration: “All the Persian’s skill could not save his horse.”] “Help! the king is in peril!” was his shout to the distant beaters. But Belshazzar might have fared to the “World-Mountain” that day had it not been for another. Right at the raging bull rode the Persian, and a second shaft flew, not at the arrow-proof hide, but into one flaming eye. The loudest bellow of all shook the forest when the monster charged Darius. All the Persian’s skill could not save his horse. One horn hooked in the belly—the scream of a dying charger, that was all. But Darius was on foot before the bull could turn from his triumph. His short sword was in his hand. He met the charge of the bull on the side where the shaft had blinded. Belshazzar saw him shun the sweep of the terrible horns, and the onrush of the bull drove the steel clean to the hilt in the shoulder. Another snort, a bellow that made the high boughs quiver, and the auroch tore away. They heard him dash down a small tree in his charge, a second, a third; then there was a crashing fall, and silence.