XVI
BELTI-SHAR-UZZUR
Eight days after the fall of Sippar, the army of the Elamite king layencamped before Babylon. Not so vast an army, after all, this that hadcome out of lower Chaldea, after a series of astounding victories, totake the Great City from her king. Less than half a mile from where thegigantic height of Nimitti-Bel shut off the northeast horizon, the tentsof Cyrus' army lay scattered over the parched plain. The largest ofthese, over which hung the royal standard, stood in the centre of thefirst line of the encampment, where it was most prominent to the eyefrom the city walls, and in the place of greatest danger in case of asortie from the city.
Inside of Cyrus' tent, on this third day of the inactive siege, sat theroyal commander himself, hard at work. The weather, even to a Babylonianborn and bred, was nearly unendurable. To one who had been reared in thehills and had ruled over mountain-built Susa, with her fresh northerlywinds and cold torrent streams, the temperature of a Chaldean summer wassomething to be marvelled at. To-day the conqueror half sat, half layupon the couch in his tent, dictating letters to three scribes, who bentover their bricks in a steaming row in the door of the tent. Both themanner and the voice of the Achaemenian betrayed his intense fatigue.Nevertheless he kept steadily on, formulating various curious plans forthe prosecution of his siege.
A short, rather stocky man, this Cyrus, with thick, curling hair, abeard more golden-brown than black, and eyes so piercingly brilliantthat it was difficult to determine their shade. His face had been tannedto a leathery brown by years of exposure in various climes; but hishands were smooth, shapely, and well-kept. In dress, there was no hintof either soldier or ruler. His head was bound round with a red filletembroidered in black and gold. His body was clothed in the lightest andsimplest of yellowish cotton tunics, narrowly bordered with red. On hisfeet he wore sandals, and his ankles and calves were bare. Only by hiseyes and by the quick decisiveness of his manner could one have guessedthat his station was high. And yet, with these two things to go by, fewwould have failed to select this man out of a hundred others as beingindeed Kurush, the king.
Besides the king and his three scribes, there was one other person inthe royal tent on this blazing afternoon of the twenty-second of themonth Duzu. This was a young man, tall and meagre in body, with apeculiarly long head, a face not wholly devoid of beauty, but with anexpression lurking about the lips and eyes that one who loved him wouldnot have cared to analyze. Richly dressed was this youth, much belted,chained, and braceleted with silver and gold, his tunic elaboratelyembroidered, the very thongs of his sandals wrought with lapis-lazuliand crystals. It was Cambyses, eldest son and heir of the great Cyrus,who thus lay in the presence of his father, sighing out his wearinesswith the heat, with the campaign, with the lack of fighting, with thelength of days--with anything and everything that it came into his headto say, and with that everything twisted into a complaint.
Cyrus, long accustomed to this monotone as an accompaniment to hisafternoons of labor, listened to it abstractedly as he continued hisletters. The train of thought that could not be disturbed by words,however, was presently broken by a shadow passing the door-way of thetent; and he suddenly looked up, staring at the second scribe, trying toreturn to his sentence, but able to think of nothing but the lastimprecation uttered by his son.
"In the name of Ahura the blessed, Cambyses, get you from my presencetill these labors are at an end! Follow Bardiya into the camp, go whereyou will, but leave me to the letters that must be despatched to-nightif there be no word from Gobryas this afternoon."
"May he soon come!" muttered the first scribe; and the second and third,hearing, sighed in unison and wiped the sweat from their dripping brows.
Cambyses had risen and was doubtfully contemplating the prospect of thecamp. Cyrus had come back to the subject of his epistle, and the scribesat with his cuneiform iron poised in the air, when the scene was brokenup. A horse, carrying a rider who clung to its bare back like a monkey,one hand twisted in the mane for guidance, came dashing up over theplain from the northwest and stopped at the tent door. The rider leapedto the ground, bending his head slightly before the king, and shouting,in a clear, fresh voice:
"News, my father! News at last! Gobryas with his army is three milesaway. He will reach us by nightfall!"
Cyrus sprang to his feet. "How know you this, Bardiya?"
"I have seen them all, spoken with the general, and return to thee ashis messenger."
Cyrus quickly waved his hand to the scribes. "Get you to your tents. Donot return to me till I shall command."
He waited while the three men picked up their stools in sober joy, and,saluting the royal master with a single accord, departed in an orderlyfile. When they were out of hearing, and Cyrus and his two sons werequite alone, the king let fall the crimson flap over the tent door, andthen turned to Bardiya with his face very eager. "The king, Bar--"
"Gobryas brings with him Nabu-Nahid, the king of Babylon, a prisoner, todeliver him up to you."
Cyrus nodded, with less satisfaction than the boy had expected, and thenthoughtfully bent his head. There was a short silence, which neither ofthe sons dared break. They saw an expression of trouble creep into theirfather's face. They saw him frown, and they heard him sigh. Thensuddenly he crossed to a small coffer in the lent, and drew from it along, white streamer.
"Bardiya, fasten this to the head of the spear on top of the tent. Putit there thyself, and at once."
The boy, in extreme surprise, received the pennant from his father'shand and went outside with it. Fifteen minutes later it was floating inthe hot afternoon wind from the top of the royal tent; and ten minutesafter that a white-robed acolyte had left the summit of Nimitti-Bel andwas speeding through the fields on his way to a certain house in thecentre of the city.
The afternoon passed. It came to be the hour of day's death, and in thathour the final junction of the two invading armies was to be effected.Seven months before, in the hills of Elam, they had separated, Gobryasmarching to the north, Cyrus to the south. And now, each of them havingfulfilled to the letter his plan of campaign, there remained only onething more to do, the taking of that city which, six years ago, Cyrushad found impregnable to arms, and which he was now to assault in a lesshonorable and surer way.
The lamps in the royal tent were already swinging from their chains in aglow of fire, and the full moon was rising from the east over the city,though the sky was still too white for stars, when Cyrus, with Cambyseson his right hand and Bardiya on his left, stood in the door-way of histent, waiting. Over the plain, at no great distance, could be seen aslow-moving line of horses and men. In front of this line, advancing atfull gallop, came a single chariot, drawn by three white horsesharnessed abreast, and carrying three men--the driver and two others.This vehicle hurried along straight in the direction of the royal tent,until presently Cyrus stepped eagerly forward, while his sons cried inone voice, "Gobryas!"
The chariot came to a halt, and from it leaped a tall, bearded fellow,whom Cyrus seized in his arms and clasped delightedly. "Welcome, lord ofSippar. Welcome, O conqueror!" he cried, in the Aramaic language,generally used in his camp, and understood by Babylonian, Jew, andElamite alike.
Having been embraced, Gobryas saw fit to bend the knee before hismaster, saying: "I bring the king my lord his royal prisoner. He is fullof years and weary with the length of day. Let him, I pray, be removedto some tent that befits his rank, where refreshment may be given him."
Three pairs of eyes looked quickly up to the chariot, but Nabonidus'back was turned to them. He stood there alone, his chained arms at hissides, looking off upon the walls of Babylon. His face was invisible;but Cyrus, seeing it, would not have known the expression. As it was,when the conqueror stepped up to the chariot and spoke a word ofcourteous greeting, the old man turned to him a dull and gentlecountenance.
"O king, Nabu-Nahid of the Great City, let thy body find rest andrefreshment here in my frail dwelling-place! In the name of the blessedAhura-Mazda,
I, Kurush, bid thee welcome. Descend from the hot chariotand enter my tent."
Nabonidus acknowledged the courtesy with old-accustomed graciousness. Inalighting from the vehicle he stumbled a little in his great exhaustion.Instantly Bardiya and Gobryas started to his side, and, each taking anarm, assisted the fallen king gently inside the tent, prepared for himthe couch on which Cambyses had spent the afternoon, and made himcomfortable upon it while Cyrus called to a slave to bring food and wineto all.
The five of them partook together of the evening meal, whileconversation ran upon general topics. Nabonidus did not speak; nor,though the others did not guess it, did he listen to what was said.Cyrus and his general might have discussed their most secret planswithout risk of being overheard or understood, for Nabonidus' heart wasbeyond them, in Babylon, and his thoughts were of his world, not oftheirs.
After the meal was over, however, Gobryas leaned across to the king andwhispered, just audibly: "I must go forth now, for a time, to overseethe encampment that you have commanded. While I am gone, were it notwell that Nabonidus be put in a tent of his own, under guard, that whenI return we may talk freely of many things?"
"Nabu-Nahid--" Cyrus hesitated a little in his reply. "Nabu-Nahid will,I think, not sleep in this camp to-night. He is to be delivered intoother hands, to which, many weeks ago, I promised to intrust him."
"Whose are they?" demanded Gobryas, roughly, without any of the respectdue to his lord.
Cyrus failed to resent the breach. His expression betokened regret as heopened his lips to reply. But before a word left his mouth two figuresappeared suddenly in the door-way--two white-robed figures, only one ofwhom wore the goat-skin on his shoulder. Before Cyrus could turn tothem, the prisoner on the couch sprang suddenly to his feet, and a cryrang out into the night:
"Amraphel--thou dog!"
Then silence ensued. Gobryas, whose back had turned to the door, movedslowly round. Catching sight of the new-comers, he suddenly realizedwhat Cyrus had meant: suddenly knew why Nabonidus would not sleep thatnight safely guarded in the camp. The high-priest of Babylon, and theleader of the Jews, in response to a prearranged signal, had come toclaim their own--part of their payment for the betrayal of the city.
As he looked and understood yet more, Gobryas' face darkened withdisgust. He could imagine well enough what was to follow, and his spiritrevolted against taking any part in it.
"Let my lord give me permission to retire!" he demanded gruffly ofCyrus.
The king nodded to him, and the general forthwith, with a curl of thelip and a flash of disdain at the Babylonians, brushed his way by themand hurriedly left the tent. His departure removed the singledisinterested element in the scene--and those that remained to enact itdrew mental breath. For a moment or two no one moved. Priest and Jewstood facing the conqueror, the three of them eying one another in fullunderstanding of this consummation of their plot. The conqueror's sons,more than half cognizant of the whole significance of the affair,shifted their glances from one figure to another with a vague sense offoreboding. Lastly, Nabonidus, the central figure in the scene, stiffand faint in his unutterable desertion, hair and face far whiter thanhis stained garments, confronted, with an air of supreme accusation, thetwo betrayers of his people. The silence was long, and nearlyunendurable. Amraphel would not speak; Cyrus could not; the young mendid not dare. It remained for Belti-shar-uzzur, evading that burningglance of Nabu-Nahid's, to address himself to the conqueror:
"We have seen the signal, Kurush, and have answered it. We are come toreceive our own."
For the shadow of an instant Cyrus dropped his eyes. He said, anxiously:"Leave the prisoner here. I swear to his safety. He shall come to noharm!"
Amraphel stepped forward with menace in his eyes. "The promise! Rememberthe promise! Remember, or we fail you. Babylon to thee--Nabu-Nahid tous!"
At these words two cries rang out through the tent. The one was fromNabu-Nahid, the other from Cyrus' youngest son. The boy stepped forwardquickly, his feeling plainly written in his young face. "My father!" wasall he said; but before the words, and the unutterable things they told,the head of the great warrior fell and his heart smote him.
"Give us our tribute, Kurush!" sneered the Jew, scorning the scene.
"Take what was promised you," answered the conqueror, slowly.
Belti-shar-uzzur stepped forward exultantly and would have put out hishand to touch Nabonidus' arm, when the old man quickly turned from himand cast himself at Cyrus' feet.
"Thou wearest, there at thy waist, a knife, O conqueror! Let it by thyhand rest in my heart!" he cried out. "Send me not forth, great king, inthe power of these two, or I die terribly! I die alone, in the night,with none to close my eyes!"
Cyrus turned his head away. "Take the prisoner from my sight, ye dogs,or I will hold ye both here also! Take him from me!"
At this Daniel, starting forward, threw himself on the kneeling king,caught him about the meagre body, swung him up to shoulder, and wouldhave started out of the tent when Amraphel stopped him.
"The gag," he muttered, sharply.
Bardiya started forward, his hand on his sword; but his father, catchinghim by the girdle, held him in a grasp of iron till the operation wasover and the piece of wood lay in Nabu-Nahid's mouth, fastened therewith a white bandage. His hands and feet were also bound with leathernthongs, and after this the body, now as helpless as a log, was borne outinto the night in the arms of the Jew. Then Cyrus and his sons were leftalone, nor, during the remainder of that unhappy night, did they speakone to another.
In the mean time Daniel had carried the king to where, some yards fromthe entrance of the royal tent, there stood a closed litter, such as wasused by women of rank. Beside it, as it rested on the ground, were itsfour bearers, stalwart men, muffled from head to foot in white--slavesof the house of Amraphel. None of these mute, dark-faced creaturesstirred as their master returned to them with his companion and hiscompanion's burden. Only, as they came close, the foremost fellowsilently threw back the curtain from one side of the basket-like couch.Daniel stooped and laid the body of the king on his back on the cushionsinside. The king closed his eyes. The curtain was lowered and Amraphelgave the signal. The four slaves seized the poles and, softly singingtheir working-chorus, raised their burden waist-high and began theirwalk back to the gate of Sand.
It was a twenty-minute walk, and was accomplished without adventure.When they came to a halt outside the gate, Nabonidus, anxiouslylistening, could hear nothing but a suggestion of whispering betweenAmraphel and some one whom he believed to be the captain of the gate.Presently their way was resumed, and the company passed into the city. Alittle distance inside, the litter stopped again and was set down on theground. The curtains were thrown back, Daniel bent again over the king,took him about the body, and, lifting him, laid him in one of twochariots that stood waiting. In his single fleeting glance Nabonidusrecognized both of these as belonging to Amraphel's house. The king layin the one that Daniel entered. From the other, where Amraphel stood,came presently the long, peculiar cry for the starting of the horses.Daniel's driver echoed it. The animals sprang forward, and the longdrive through the city began.
In spite of the jolting misery of that ride, Nabonidus preferred it tothe litter. Air came freely to his lips, and now he could see a littleof what they passed. The moon was well up in the unclouded sky, lightingthe fields and streets of the Great City for the last passage of herlast native king. Nabonidus' heart was full, but he did not weep. Theend to which he was going was unknown. Yet this, for him, was, as heknew well, the last sight of his beloved city. Still, even as he went,the moonlight fell athwart the sapphire charm that hung upon his neck,and sent forth a thin gleam of the blue light of hope--a hope that couldnot be brought to fulfilment by anything short of a miracle.
The horses on both the chariots were swift, and it took scarcely ahalf-hour to reach the second gate of Sand in Imgur-Bel. Through thisthey passed without parley, and the journey across the inner city wasbegun.
They had entered Babylon at the extreme west, a little to thenorth of the canal of the New Year, which, as they drove, could be seenin the distance, shining clear as silver frost in the moonlight,reflecting in its placid surface the shadowy black buildings near it oneither side. Ribata's house was too far distant to be seen; and thetenement of Ut rose tall and gaunt a long way to the south. Ten minuteslater the hurrying vehicles clattered into the A-Ibur-Sabu. Theycontinued along the famous way for little more than a quarter of a mile,and then turned to the east again, till, at something near eleveno'clock, they came to a halt beside a small, neglected building on thebank of the river Euphrates: mighty Euphrates whose Chaldaic waves wereof tears to-night. Here, evidently, was their destination. Nabonidus,aching in every joint, groaning wretchedly in his heart, was liftedagain in Daniel's arms. He had one glance at the river and the group ofroyal buildings clustered thereon but a little distance away. For oneinstant the three famous palaces and the mound of the hanging gardensmet his eyes. Then they were lost to him, for the world swam and grewblack, and he fainted.
Two minutes later, when he returned into a dim consciousness, he was ina place that he soon came to recognize. It was the temporary abode ofhis strange gods. The interior, lighted by two torches, that burned blueand ghostlike on the bare brick walls, was utterly forlorn. The walls,floors, and ceiling were of crumbling gray brick, unrelieved by a singlecolor or attempt at ornament; and the usually open door-way was nowclosed by a black curtain. So much he saw in the first moment ofarrival. In the next he realized that the gag had been taken from hismouth and that his arms were being unbound. In the third the voice ofAmraphel was heard, bidding him rise. Obediently he made the attempt,got, with much effort, to his feet, reeled blindly, and was saved fromfalling again by Daniel. Amraphel's lip curled. Nevertheless he helpedthe old man to sit down with his back to the wall. Then, when Nabonidushad blinked a little and grown steadier as to his head, the high-prieststood over him and spoke:
"Thou, O weak one, hast been king of the Great City. King of her shaltthou be nevermore. Here thou art, alone, unheard, unseen, in my powerand the power of the captive Jew. Death hangs over thy head; yet by onemeans thou mayst save thyself. Wilt thou hear?"
Nabonidus, looking at him steadily, nodded.
Amraphel continued: "No man, Nabonidus, either fears or loves thee. Thypower over the people of the Great City does not by one-twentieth equalmine. But at thy passing there are two--two whom I hate--and, I say it,fear--that will struggle for the crown thou hast borne. One of thesethou hast seen to-night--the Achaemenian. The other is the child of thyflesh, not of thy spirit--Belshazzar the prince. Nabu-Nahid, if thouto-night wilt swear, on penalty of the curse of all the gods, to removethy son and thy son's wives, and thyself and thy wives, and all thyhousehold, from the royal palace, and wilt swear that thou and he willgo forth in peace out of the Great City, to return no more to itforever, if thou wilt do this--"
"Thou fool!"
Amraphel faced round. "What sayest thou, Jew?"
"Thou fool! Wilt thou put faith in the word of a man in the death fear?Wilt thou play me false? There was to be no choice here to-night. Mineeyes were to behold the blood of the enemy of my race. He shall find nomercy--or, if he finds it, then thou shalt not!"
Amraphel grew white with anger; but, before he spoke again, Nabonidushad struggled to his feet and stood supporting himself against the wall,gazing with fiery eyes at his enemy.
"I also say it:--thou fool!" he said. "Think you, indeed, that because Iam old and feeble, and in the power of traitors, I would sell thebirthright of my son? Thou fool!"
At these words Daniel turned to the old man and looked thoughtfully athim. But Amraphel, with a sneer, advanced a step or two, and said, in asoft and menacing voice: "The hour is come, Nabu-Nahid. Preparethyself!"
"O Bel! Receive my spirit into the silver sky!"
Slowly Daniel drew his knife, but Amraphel was before him. Nabonidus sawthe weapon of his enemy flash in the torch-light. The gleam of it passedover his deathly face. Just at the moment of the blow, a faint cry lefthis lips. Then a long spurt of heart's blood shot from the body. Therewas a sickening gasp--a fall--and the flesh only was there with themurderers. Nabu-Nahid had gone. Belshazzar was king in Babylon.
The Jew had gone rather sick, and Amraphel himself was white to thelips. "Let us go forth," he muttered, unsteadily.
"Fool!" said Daniel, for the second time. "Wilt thou leave here the bodyof the king, that all Babylon may look on it at dawn? Shall thycharioteer and mine say who it was that brought Nabonidus here? Thouhast struck the blow. Hast thou lost strength to finish the work?"
Amraphel caught at his nerves and said: "What is there to be done?"
Daniel's lip curled, but he did not reply in words. Passing into a farcorner of the temple, he took up two fallen bricks that lay there andbrought them over to the body. At the sight Amraphel came to his senses.
"I will make fast this one to his feet if thou takest the hands," hesaid, quietly.
Accordingly Daniel drew from his girdle two more leathern thongs, andwith them the weights were bound upon the body. Then the two stood backand looked at their work. Amraphel was satisfied. Not so the Jew. Onemore brick he fetched from the little heap in the corner and fastened iton Nabonidus' neck, never noticing that in the operation he loosened anddislodged something that had been around the throat of the king. Thelast task finished, he stood back once more, carefully examining thebloody corpse.
"Take out thy dagger," he said, finally, to his companion.
Amraphel shrank back. "I cannot!" he whispered.
Beltishazzar bent over and drew it from the wound. Blood followed it ina thick stream. The Jew wiped the weapon off on the skirt of Nabonidus'robe and silently handed it to his companion. "Now--take thou the feet,"he commanded, himself lifting the shoulders of the light body.
Revolting as it all was, Amraphel could not but obey the word of theJew. Together they bore the body out of the temple, into the stillmoonlight, down to the edge of the quietly flowing river. For an instantthey held it over the brink. Then, at a whisper from the Jew, they letgo together. There was a splash, an eddy in the water, a little redstain on the clear stream, and then only a widening circle of ripplesremained to mark the resting-place of Babylon's last king.
* * * * *
Late on the afternoon of the next day, Belitsum, the low-born secondwife of Nabonidus, sat, as usual, in the court-yard of her part of theseraglio, in her usual canopied idleness. Morning prayers and exorcismshad been said; the daily omens looked to; all the endless details ofsuperstition finished; and now the queen of Babylon was free to dreamaway the rest of the day in comparative quiet. Beside her lay a piece ofunfinished embroidery, badly done; for her plebeian fingers had nevertaken kindly to this work of the gentle-born. Two eunuchs waved over herhuge feather fans, of which the extreme size denoted her rank. Besideher sat a pretty slave with a lute in her hand, though Belitsum waspaying no attention to the sweet monotony of the tune she played. Thequeen was lost in one of those vacant reveries in which long years ofidleness and neglect had taught her to remain for hours.
Suddenly there came an interruption upon this quiet scene. A eunuch ofthe outer palace hurriedly entered the court, and, prostrating himselfprofoundly before Belitsum, asked permission to speak.
The queen was a moment or two coming out of her dreams, but shepresently recovered enough to find her curiosity, and to say with someeagerness: "Speak, slave! Deliver thy message. Is it from the king?"
"May it be pleasing to the queen my lady! No word hath come fromNabu-Nahid. It is a soothsayer that comes in royal state, beseeching theears of the queen to incline to him."
"A soothsayer?" Belitsum relapsed into tranquillity. "Let him be takeninto the shrine. But also cause him to know that for this day the godshave been propitiated."
As the eunuch departed, Belitsum, who had long since lost claim to youthand the slenderness thereof, rose with an e
ffort to her feet. "Kudua,"she said to the slave, who had also scrambled up, "wait thou my return.I am going to the shrine."
Kudua fell back willingly enough, while the queen, followed by herfan-bearers, waddled slowly across the court-yard towards the speciallyconsecrated room in which any member of the royal harem might holdconference with men of the outer world. In spite of her slow pace, thequeen reached the dimly lighted apartment in advance of the soothsayer;and she occupied her time till his arrival in offering up a quick prayerto Nindar, her especial deity. The Amanu had hardly been reached whentwo figures appeared in the door-way, one the attendant eunuch, theother a magnificently robed and coroneted man, in whom one accustomed tohis usual slovenly appearance would have had great difficulty inrecognizing Beltishazzar the Jew.
Belitsum, entirely ignorant of his race and station, judging him only byhis dress and bearing, came forward with hasty respect, leaving herfan-bearers on either side of the small altar. At the same time Daniel,accustomed of old to the rigorous etiquette of the court, made a properand graceful obeisance.
"Art thou indeed but a soothsayer?" inquired Belitsum, admiringly.
"No soothsayer I, lady queen of Babylon, but a prophet and a dreamer ofdreams. And it is by reason of a dream sent me by the Lord of my racethat I come to you, seeking audience. Open my lips, O queen, that I maytell this dream!"
"Wilt thou have gold? Wilt thou have gems and silver? How shall I openthy lips?"
"Bid me only to speak. Grant me the favor. Let me tell the dream, andrestrain thy tears till its truth be known."
At these last words Belitsum nervously clasped and unclasped her hands."Speak!" she said, quickly. "Tell thy dream! Speak!"
"In the evening of yesterday I lay down and slept. And in my sleep theLord appeared to me in a vision, saying: 'Go thou down to the temple ofstrange gods by the side of the river, and there shalt thou find him whowas king in Babylon.' And thereat, in my dream, I arose and went downthrough the city to the river-bank and the deserted temple thereon. Andthere I beheld Nabu-Nahid, the king, in mortal combat with two men thatsought to kill him. And in my sleep I was withheld from giving him aid.I saw him fall by the blow from a golden dagger, and when he was deadthe assassins, whose faces remained black to me, lifted him in theirarms and cast him into the river, and he sank from my sight. Then saidthe Lord unto me again: 'Having beheld this thing, hasten to her who wasthe wife of him that is dead and relate it to her.' And behold, when Iawoke I obeyed the word of the Lord; and, obeying, I now go forth fromthy presence." Whereupon Daniel, with a delightfully dramatic effect,turned short on his heel, leaving the shrine, and in three minutes wasoutside the palace gates.
Through his recital Belitsum and her eunuchs had remained open-mouthed,rooted where they stood. It was not till the Jew had actuallydisappeared from her sight that the queen's amazement was overcome byher dismay, and, with a long-drawn, preliminary howl, she fell flat uponthe floor in an agony of despair. Nabonidus, her husband, was dead.Never for one instant did her devout soul doubt the word of the prophet.Nabonidus was dead, and she was a widow. The shrine echoed to the soundsof shrieks, of groans, of wailing, finally of hysterical laughter. Nowand then an attendant, drawn thither by the sounds of woe, appeared inthe door-way, looked at her, at the bewildered eunuchs behind her, andscurried away again in empty-headed wonder. Finally one, wiser than therest, went to the room where Belshazzar sat in council, and informed himthat his step-mother was dying in the harem shrine. The prince wasforced to believe the frightened and excited manner of the slave, and,hastily excusing himself to his lords, he strode through the palace tothe shrine. In the door-way he halted. Belitsum was kneeling on thefloor, beating her breast and wailing out prayers for the dead. She didnot even notice the appearance of the prince.
"Belitsum--lady--what is thy grief?" he asked, gently.
No response. Ejaculations and redoubled wails.
Then Belshazzar, perceiving that she was bordering on frenzy, wentforward and took her by the shoulders. "Art thou stricken with asickness?" he demanded, loudly.
"Thy father--Nabu-Nahid--the king!" was all the answer he could get.
Belshazzar grew a shade paler. "My father!" He looked about him, andcaught the eye of one of the eunuchs in the corner. This man headdressed. "What is the cause of this weeping? Knowest thou whereforeshe cries?"
The man nodded solemnly.
"Speak, then!"
Forthwith the slave began an intelligent recital of the occurrences ofthe last half-hour, including a repetition of the dream in Daniel's ownwords. Belitsum quieted enough during this speech to listen again to thedream; but, after it was finished, the look on Belshazzar's face somehowwithheld her from recommencing her lamentations.
"Who was this man? Didst thou know him?" demanded the prince of theslave.
"O prince, live forever! He was a strange prophet. Never before havemine eyes beheld him."
Belshazzar bit his lip. His face was very grave. After a short pause hetook Belitsum by the arm and lifted her up. Then, turning again to theeunuch, he said, quietly:
"Go thou and command my chariot to be brought, and let the driver bealone in it."
Then, having almost tenderly returned Belitsum to the harem, and biddingher restrain her weeping till his return, Belshazzar went forth todismiss his council for the morning, retaining Ribata alone out of allthe councillors. Fifteen minutes later he and Bit-Shumukin togethermounted the chariot and set forth for the little temple of strange godson the bank of the Euphrates. During the drive Belshazzar related toRibata the substance of what he knew; and, like himself, Ribata's firstquestion was as to the identity of the prophet.
"There is one whom it might be," suggested the nobleman, when Belshazzarhad confessed himself at fault. "It may, perhaps, be Daniel the Jew."
"So at first I thought. Yet when has any man ever beheld Daniel in suchraiment as this prophet wore? The Jew is poor."
Ribata demurred a little, yet could not but admit that Belshazzar hadall the evidence on his side. Then, as they neared the temple, silencefell between them.
The little building stood before them utterly deserted. Not a humanbeing was in sight. It was a lonely spot--too far south of the bridgeand too far north of the ferry to be frequented by any one. The princedismounted from the chariot first, but in the curtained door-way of thetemple he paused.
"Ribata," said he, softly, "I am afraid."
Bit-Shumukin's reply was to lay a brother's hand on his shoulder. ThenBelshazzar lifted back the curtain and entered the room. There came agreat cry from his lips, and the hideous sight was once more veiled ingloom.
"There is blood, Ribata! It is blood!" whispered the prince, hoarsely.
"I saw it, Belshazzar. Yet it may be the blood of an animal, or of someother man. I cannot think that thy father was yester-night in Babylon.Come, let us look, my prince. Within we may find some trace--someevidence of what has happened."
The prince shrank. "Wilt thou do it, Ribata?" he asked.
Accordingly, while Belshazzar held aside the curtain that some lightmight enter by the door-way, Ribata, sick at heart, hunted over theblood-splashed floor for some clew to the identity of what it was thathad died here. Belshazzar presently turned his back and stood staringinto the street, refusing to look, yet listening with every sense for adreaded exclamation from his friend. It came. As Bit-Shumukin bent overthe corner where Nabonidus had fallen, he found something that wrungfrom him a low cry.
Belshazzar turned deathly white. "What is it?" he said, quietly.
Ribata came to him with something in his hand. It was a small, shining,blue stone, that showed itself in the sunshine to be an Egyptian-cutsapphire of great value, attached to a wire of twisted gold.
Belshazzar took it dully from his hand. "My father wore it always on hisneck. Let us return to the palace," he said.
"But the body--it may surely be found!"
"The river hath it. Let her keep her own."
And so the two remounted the vehi
cle and started on their way backthrough the city of which Belshazzar was king.
Istar of Babylon: A Phantasy Page 26
