Istar of Babylon: A Phantasy

by Margaret Horton Potter

  XX

  PESTILENCE

  It was thus that, on the night of July 3d, in the year 538 B.C., Persianrule began in Babylon, and native rule in the Great City was endedforever.

  Historically this was true. In actual fact, on the morning of July4th--ay, and for many weeks thereafter--no man knew the real ruler ofthe city, and no man greatly cared to know him. Every soul within thewalls was occupied with a far more terrible and more engrossing matter,and officer and priest alike obeyed orders of Cyrus that passed throughthe lips of Amraphel, without caring whence they were issued or why.Cyrus the king, his sons, and the most of his army remained encampedwithout the walls. Gobryas had returned to the governorship of Sippar.Amraphel, unable to find any loop-hole for escape, remained shut up inhis palace, miserably afraid, not even venturing to sacrifice in thetemple for dread of the curse that hung over the city. Every place ofworship, indeed, was deserted. In the middle of the temple of Bel-Mardukthe hideous pile of dead still lay behind their barricade, just as theyhad fallen on the night of the massacre. Men not cowards at other timesfled that building and the square and all the neighborhood, as a placeof the damned. The air around was thick with the stench of death; and nocommand of Cyrus could force one of his men near enough to the spot towall up the open space between the shattered doors.

  Plague reigned supreme in Babylon. The black death, that horror ofhorrors that occasionally swept upon the great nations of the East, likethe scourge of God smiting every man in its path, leaving behind it awake of dead, dying, and miserable bereft, had entered into thebeleaguered city. It was for this that Amraphel stopped ears and eyesand remained a prisoner behind the thick, white walls of his palace,where the chorus of woe could not penetrate to him. And day by dayDaniel the Jew interpreted, to those that would hear, the meaning ofthis further wrath of God against them that had so long allowedthemselves to be governed by such a one as Nabonidus, descendant ofNebuchadrezzar. Indefatigably Daniel, plague-marked and immune longyears ago, preached the wrathful word of his death-bearing Lord; andsuch was his success among these pagans that it became a not uncommonthing to behold some woman, swollen and spotted, inexpressibly repulsiveand pitiable to look at, with the final frenzy upon her, kneeling instreet or hovel before the wooden image of a demon, and franticallycalling upon the god of the Jews to remove from her both the curse oflife and the after-terrors of hell, and to plunge her into thelonged-for peace of utter annihilation.

  By the middle of the month bodies could not be buried, but lay piled instreets and houses, till Babylon became the true city of Mulge, Queen ofthe Dead. Those that knew, those that had gone through the visitation ofthirty years before, felt their hearts fail them as they thought of whatwas still to come. Many, indeed, tried to leave the city; but Cyrus'soldiers patrolled every gate, and any having about them the mark ofdeath were not allowed to pass.

  Charmides the Greek was not among those that attempted an escape. Byevery tie that he held sacred he was bound to his adopted city, and itwas his one desire to do what little he might to help the sufferers ofthe plague.

  At dawn on the fourth of Ab, the morning after the fall of the city,Ramua and Beltani sat together in their tenement, waiting, watching,more than all wondering at the strange sounds that had come to them asfaint echoes of the great happenings of the night. Neither of them hadgone to celebrate the feast in any temple. Plead or storm as Beltaniwould, she found Charmides fixed in his wishes on this point, and intears and bitterness of spirit she found it necessary to move forwardfor an entire year all her dreams of three days of unlimited wine andmeat. The Greek, who had gone back to temple-service almost immediatelyafter his meeting with Belshazzar on the day of Daniel's attemptedassassination of the king, knew enough of what was likely to happen inthe first night of the feast to forbid his family to participate in it.And while Beltani had raged, and even Ramua had shed a few submissivetears when Charmides departed for the temple of Sin, the two of themwatched quietly through the night and eagerly awaited the promised earlyreturn of the master of the household.

  Very early in the evening came vague mutterings of distant, gatheringmobs. Much later were the still more indeterminate but more ominoussounds of battle, shouts and cries, with the underlying murmur grownmore fierce. Afterwards fell the great silence--a silence in which noman could sleep, something more terrible than sound, something thatforeboded direful things--carnage, murder, merciless death. At this timethe name of Baba first passed the lips of the waiting women. Baba was inRibata's train at the temple of Bel-Marduk. Baba, a slave, stood nochance of salvation if any were to be lost. Had she lived or had shedied that night? Through the silence that lasted till dawn this unspokenquestion lay in the hearts of the watchers. And then, with the firststreaks of day, their thoughts were turned again by something else,another cry more awful than any battle-shout, that rose like a mist fromevery hovel in the tenement quarter.

  "The plague--the plague! Woe unto us! It is the plague!"

  It was as if every soul in the city was become a leper, and each wascrying his disease. At the first sound of it Ramua's heart turned sickwithin her, and Beltani became as white as the dawn. For Beltani couldremember the last plague in Babylon.

  "Charmides! Why does he stay?" whispered Ramua to her mother, over andover again; and it was the only word that passed between them till, withthe first beams of the sun, the Greek was seen coming into the square infront of the tenement. At sight of him Ramua gave a little cry:

  "He is not alone!"

  "It is not Baba," added Beltani, quickly.

  Then the two of them watched in silence while Charmides advanced withhis companion, a tall, slender woman covered with the silver-woven veil,who faltered as she moved, till Charmides was nearly carrying her. Atthe first glance Ramua perceived that the Greek was weary, so weary thatevery step was an effort to him. Thus, when he finally reached the doorof the dwelling, she ran quickly forward to give him aid.

  "The night has been very long. Thou must rest," she whispered,disregarding the stranger, who drooped as they halted at the door.

  "Nay, Ramua. Nay. I am not weary," returned the Greek, monotonously."Behold, I bring home to you Istar, the great lady of Babylon. In thisnight she, and all in the Great City, have terribly suffered. Babylon isfallen to Kurush the king, and Belshazzar, the mighty prince, and allthat were with him in the temple of Bel, are slain."

  Istar gave a quick, convulsive shudder, but Ramua hardly noticed her."Baba!" she cried, in terror. "Baba was in the temple of Bel!"

  Charmides turned very white, and Istar suddenly threw back the veil fromher face. "And Baba--Baba, too!" she said, mournfully, her voice ringinglike a knell.

  But seeing the woman, Ramua and her mother forgot what they said. Thetwo of them stood transfixed by her undreamed-of, supernatural beauty.Her pallor was something incredible, and the unearthly purity of it, thelight in the great eyes, the bluish shadows that lay on the skin, wereenough for the moment to make one forget death itself. As she looked,Beltani perceived something that caused her to start. She took animpulsive step forward, and then halted again as Istar's eyes cameslowly to the level of hers.

  "What seest thou?" asked the woman.

  Beltani went forward again and laid a finger upon Istar's neck, and asshe draw it away Istar shuddered convulsively.

  "What is it?" demanded Charmides, in a thick voice.

  "The plague."

  There was a momentary silence as the four that stood there gave thewords time to penetrate. Then Istar, quivering again, started suddenlytowards the door. Charmides barred her way.

  "Where goest thou?" he asked, gently.

  "Out! Out into the Great City! Let me go, Charmides! Let me go!"

  With what little strength she had Istar threw herself upon the Greek,that he might give way and let her escape from his house. But Charmideswas firm, and his strength infinitely greater than hers. After astruggle of a few seconds Istar gave way and would have fallen upon thefloor had not the young man caught her
about the body, lifted her in hisarms, and carried her, lifeless and unresisting, into the little-usedinner room where, at this moment, Bazuzu lay asleep. The black slave wasquickly roused and Istar was placed upon a hurriedly arranged bed. ThenCharmides returned again to his wife and sternly commanded her to retireto her room up-stairs, forbidding her to enter the lower rooms of theirdwelling while Istar should be there. Both Bazuzu and Beltani had hadthe plague, and were in no danger from it. But Charmides himself, likeRamua, was relegated to the upper rooms and to the roof.

  The moment that her body rested upon a bed, poor as it was, Istar fellasleep, and there, in the great weight of her sickness and her grief,lay for many hours insensible to all things. As the heat of the day cameon, and the atmosphere of the small and ill-ventilated room became moreand more stifling, Bazuzu took his place at her side, and minute byminute, hour by hour, fanned to her lips what air there was, while hisown face streamed with perspiration and his breath came in gasps. Hiseyes, the eyes that had so tenderly watched the childlike slumbers ofRamua and Baba, now looked upon her whose face had been the wonder ofthe East, whom he himself once had seen clothed in blinding radiance,seated upon her golden car in a procession of the great gods and who nowlay here, alone and friendless, shorn of her divinity, stricken withdisease, to die a pauper's death or to live on to a hideous old age.

  Istar suffered in her sleep. Whether it was the memory of the horror ofthe past night or the pain of disease racking her body could not betold. But Bazuzu heard her moans with heartfelt pity. Over and overagain she spoke two names, one of which the slave could scarcelyunderstand, the other that of the dead prince of Babylon. They were thenames of her baby and of her husband, all that world of happiness thathad gone, and that was calling to her out of the shadowy past.

  Like every one in the clutch of the dread sickness, Istar thirstedcontinually, yet shrank, nauseated, at the mere sight of water or milk.Continually Beltani brought and held to her lips the refreshment thatshe craved, as often to have it thrust away with a gesture of pitiablerepulsion. At length, seeing there was no other way, Bazuzu held thesick woman fast pinioned on the ground, while Beltani poured down herthroat a pint of freshly cooled water. Over the first swallow Istar'sstruggles were convulsive, but after that she drank eagerly all that wasgiven her, and when the last in the cup was gone she opened her burningeyes in a mute appeal for more. This was refused, of necessity; but, inpity for the heat of her fever and the closeness of the room, Beltanihad her carried out and laid down near the door-way of the living-room,where presently she sank into a sleep that changed gradually to a heavystupor.

  Noon passed and left the city streets quivering with heat. From theburning desert in the west came a faint breath of wind, that twinkledblue and white in the air till the eyes were blinded and the brainreeled under its intensity. Charmides and Ramua were sitting together onthe gallery outside their room in an upper story of the tenement,looking off to the shining strip of canal beyond which rose the patch ofshrivelled green where, two months before, Ribata's garden had blossomedwith many a fragrant rose and fragile lily. Charmides was mentallypreparing himself for another journey across the desolate city to thetemple of Bel, that vast tomb in which so many tangled bodies lay. Hehad not yet voiced his intention to Ramua, though he knew that she wouldnot oppose it.

  Suddenly round the corner of the tenement, into the open square, came astrange thing: a human being, crawling upon hands and knees along thebrick pavement, halting now and then in visible exhaustion, butdisplaying also a nervous eagerness in its movements; and all the waybehind it as it came was left a deep, red trail. A mere heap of bloodyrags at first it seemed; but presently, as he watched, Charmides couldsee a mop of long, black hair that fell to the ground upon one side.

  "That is a woman, Ramua," he whispered.

  Ramua, white to the lips, grasped his arm. "Go! Go to her, Charmides!"she responded, a breathless fear coming on her.

  "What is it, Ramua? What is thy thought?" questioned the Greek.

  "I do not know. Go thou, Charmides! Haste! Haste! She falls!"

  Thereupon Charmides went, slowly at first, still staring in ahalf-puzzled way at the little heap of bruised flesh that now lay inertupon the bricks below. Then his pace quickened, for he realized thewoman's need. Along the gallery and down the stairs he ran, and then, atbreakneck pace, crossed the space between the wounded creature and thedoor-way of the tenement. Ramua, straining her eyes after him, saw himbend over the fallen one, and then thought that a cry came from hislips.

  Hardly a cry, more a groan of utter horror it was. Charmides' heart wasin his throat. For a second the blue eyes closed to shut out thepitiable sight, and then opened again upon Baba. It was Baba that laythere before him: Baba who, mangled as she was, had, in the gray dawn,crawled out from the bodies among which she lay in the temple, and sincethen had come upon her hands and knees, inch by inch, foot by foot, allacross the Great City, to her old home, to him that stood over her now.She had allowed herself the untold luxury of unconsciousness only whenthe journey's end was reached, when at last she was at the door-way ofthe place of her early poverty, her great happiness, her life-sorrow.

  Charmides knelt beside her, and, with a little quiver in which pity andfear for her were evenly mingled, lifted her in his arms. She stainedhis tunic with blood; but presently he perceived that this blood was notall Baba's own. It was caked in clots upon her torn garments; it smearedher rich sandals; it matted her hair. Yet on her body there was, so faras he could yet determine, only one wound--a deep stab in the back ofher left shoulder. From this the blood had almost ceased to flow, comingonly in a little trickle when she drew a longer breath than usual.

  Charmides bore the light form, face downward, towards the stairs of thetenement, thinking rapidly as he went. A horrible sight, truly, to laybefore Ramua. Yet Ramua must see it. Carry her into those rooms whereIstar lay in the delirium of the plague, he dared not. Nowhereelse--yes, there was one other place. There was the home of Baba'smaster. Should he take her there before Ramua guessed her identity?Ribata's house would be open to her. And yet--and yet--it was here thatBaba herself had chosen to come, as she might well believe, in death.That mute appeal could not be withstood. Here, because she had asked it,she must remain.

  Step by step up the stairs to the gallery he bore the pathetic burden.At the top of the flight stood Ramua, face colorless, eyes wide with afear that she would not admit to herself. Charmides, looking up, met thelook, answered it, and saw his wife's hands go up to her head.

  "Charmides! It is not--" she stopped.

  "It is Baba, my beloved. Baba is alive. She has come home to us, Ramua,to be cared for. Be thou brave, then. Go down and bring water wherewithto wash her, and a clean tunic of thine own to put upon her; and thentogether we will bind her wound."

  A little while and the sunset came, and Babylon was aureoled again incrimson. Not till then did Ribata's slave come back to consciousness inher sister's arms. The horror of the past night had stamped itself asindelibly upon her mind as on her body. Between fits of trembling shepoured out to Ramua the story of the fight in the temple and themassacre of the women. Charmides, standing outside the door on thegallery, listened to the tale as he looked off across the quiet city.

  "And Istar, Istar, our divine lady, I did not behold at the side ofBelitsum the queen, nor with the women of the royal house who lietogether now in the centre of the dead. May the great gods grant thatshe and her lord, Belshazzar, together escaped death and arefree--somewhere--in the city."

  "Baba, the Lady Istar is here--below--sick of the plague; and our motherand Bazuzu are at her side."

  "The Lady Istar! Here!" Baba struggled to sit up, but Ramua kept herfirmly down while she told her the story of Istar's coming; howCharmides brought her to them crazed with her grief and with her longwandering.

  Baba listened closely, and at the end of the recital her tears flowedfast. "Belshazzar, then, is dead!" she whispered more than once. "Themighty prince is dead, and Is
tar is alone--alone--even as I."

  But now, while Ramua wiped her tears away, Charmides came in to them,saying: "Across the square from the canal come two men in the livery ofthe house of Ribata. I go forth to meet them. If it is for thee theycome, Baba, what word shall I give to them?"

  Baba gave a long sigh, and her eyes closed. "I am here. Seeks my lordfor me? I am my lord's. I will return to him when I may."

  And with this reply Charmides went forth to meet the messengers.

  Ribata's men halted at the foot of the steps, waiting his descent; andthe Greek found that he had guessed aright when he surmised the objectof their coming. My Lord Ribata, terribly wounded, stricken with greatgrief at the downfall of the city and the massacre of all his women, haddespatched messengers to the only place where news of his favorite slavecould be had, if mayhap she had by a miracle escaped the generalcarnage. Charmides dutifully gave them Baba's message, saw their faceslight up with amazement and pleasure, and bade them, if they would carryBaba to their lord, go fetch the easiest of litters, that she might notsuffer more than necessary on the way.

  This was done. In less than an hour two litters halted in front of thetenement of Ut, and in one of them was Ribata himself, his head, breast,arms, and one limb wrapped in heavy bandages, so weak that his voice wasbut a whisper, yet a whisper of joy that one little creature out of allthe multitude had escaped death in the temple. Baba was carried down tohim, and their meeting had in it much of pathos. Ribata's career wasruined, his position gone, his lord dead, his house in disorder; yet onething was left to him, and her, in great joy, he took to his heart.Charmides and Ramua, side by side, stood listening as Ribata whisperedto his slave the two words that changed the lives of them all.

  "Baba--my wife," said he. And then presently, together, they werecarried away into the evening.

  While Charmides and Ramua went back to their room to talk over the greatthing that had come to Baba, Beltani, below, was preparing for thedoleful night. She had kindled a little fire, cooked food for herselfand Bazuzu, and was now on her knees offering up incantations to Namtar,the demon of the plague. Bazuzu, from his place beside Istar, joined atintervals in the prayers, which the sick woman, now in the violentdelirium of fever, broke in upon continually with appeals for help andwails of grief over Belshazzar, who never left her thoughts.

  In many a house and hovel in the Great City a similar scene was enactedto-night. Yet there could not be one more deplorable than this. She whoraved upon the bed of straw in the heart of the most poverty-strickenquarter of Babylon--from what things was she descended? One by one shehad lost everything that had made her life wonderful. Now the last, thatattribute that she had left uncounted because it seemed to herindestructible, was going from her. In the next five days of thishorrible sickness her beauty fled away, and she was left a thingdreadful for mankind to look upon.

  By the second day of her attack, the mental disturbance had increasedtill the intervals of her sanity entirely disappeared. On the morning ofthe third day began those violent constrictions of the heart that causedunspeakable agony and brought her to the brink of the black abyss. Bythis time, also, the enlargement of glands, or buboes, the dominatingsymptom of the plague, had become frightful to see. Her eyes weresuffused with a thick, white matter. Upon her body came forth greatcarbuncles. On the fourth day dark spots, patches like black bruises,and long, livid stripes, appeared upon her fair skin. The fever, now atits height, burned itself out in a day, and Istar fell into a cold andquiet stupor, the first stage of death. Her lips were black. Her eyeshad closed. Her body had become something from which Beltani shrank atsight, and old Bazuzu touched only because of his great pity for thewoman. Also at this time Istar's veil of hair, which had been wont toconceal her under its silken meshes, fell out in great masses and wasburned by Beltani as a sacrifice before the demon of the plague.

  Beltani's prayers to Namtar, however, had lost their sincerity, for theold woman could not in her heart wish Istar to live in her terribledisfigurement. Istar herself did not yet know what she had become. Butunless, as seemed most probable, she died, there must soon come a timewhen she would discover, when she would see people shrink away fromcontact with her, yet turn to stare after in that fascination that adreadful sight draws forth. Out of pure reverence for what Istar hadbeen, Beltani attended her faithfully. Every herb and medicine and charmwithin her means and known to her she used to mitigate the sores, and tomake the after-scars less terrible. Yet she, and Bazuzu also, felt thatdeath were now the greatest boon for the woman.

  Death did not come. In spite of her stupor and her low temperature, thefatal eighth day passed, and on the morning of the ninth Istar lived andwas better. She regained a dim consciousness, and the strength to askfor food, which was given her in minute quantities, as also milk andwine. For forty-eight hours she hovered on the brink of reawakening; andthen, finally, she found herself.

  On the morning of the fifteenth of the month Istar opened her eyes inthe early dawn. She was alone. On the other side of the room, upon herpallet, Beltani lay in a heavy sleep. Bazuzu was outside in the square.Istar moved her hand and sighed. She felt life coursing through herveins, and remembered the past week with only a vague, nightmarish senseof oppression. The air of the morning, hot as it was, had in it thegathered sweetness of the long, starry hours. She breathed it with joy;and for a moment forgot the sorrow that must be hers perpetually.Presently, with an old and habitual gesture, she lifted her hand to herhead to push away her hair. And her hand touched the head. There was nohair upon it. Rather, two or three thin strands hung about her ears.Otherwise she was bald.

  The heart of Istar gave a peculiar throb. She held up both hands beforeher eyes; and, as she saw them, she herself shrank. The hands, thosefragile hands, the fair, white wrists, the arms, were spotted andstreaked and swollen and hideously scabbed. She touched her cheek andfound raw flesh upon it. She tore the covering from her neck. It was thesame. Everywhere--everywhere, from head to foot, over her wholebody--she was accursed. It was the plague--the plague! Istar tottered toher feet and uplifted her eyes. Poor, weak eyes! Yea, she was all butblind. With one low, wailing cry the afflicted one let herself slowlydown, till she lay prone upon the kindly floor that did not hesitate toreceive her. And there, through time and the day-dawn, she wept out theburden of her soul. But of the future and its inevitable suffering shecould not think. As yet the way was too dark, too incomprehensible toher.

  There upon the floor, motionless, Bazuzu found her two hours later. Forlong minutes he stood over her, helpless, pitying, knowing that therewas no comfort to bring. But his heart was full as he felt the abandonof her attitude. Presently, kneeling at her side, he laid a horny handgently upon one of her shoulders. And from his fingers a message of mutesympathy went forth to her. When she could bear that he should look uponher she lifted her head and opened her half-closed eyes to him. Then shespake, quietly, but with authority:

  "Let my veil be brought, that I may put it upon me."

  From the corner where it had lain, carefully folded by Beltani, Bazuzubrought it to her--the soft, black, silver-shot covering of herhappiness. In silence he watched the woman put it on, wrapping it abouther so that her head, her face, her arms, her form, were completelyshrouded. Then, from behind the veil, she spoke:

  "Let no man evermore seek to behold me in my disfigurement. Behold, nolonger am I Istar, but a wanderer over the face of the earth. I go forthfrom this house of friendliness. The voice of the great God bids mefollow out my life in desert places, in the lands of my enemies."

  Bazuzu, from her words still believing her more than mortal, bent hishead in silent acceptance of her desires. She took two or three quietsteps to the door, and then, when he had thought her gone, turned again,and softly said:

  "Thou, Bazuzu, and thy mistress, and the young Greek whose house thisis, take what thanks I have to give thee, and the blessing of All-Fatherfor thy mercy to me, an outcast. Gold have I none, nor riches of anysort in payment for your labor. Bu
t from my heart I bless thee for thycompassion."

  Then, like a shadow, she glided out at the door, across the desertedsquare, down to the canal of the New Year, and along its bank, out intothe city. Through the long morning she moved through the streets,accosting no one, stared at by the multitude, but unaddressed. Hermiserable body burned and ached. The sun poured down its blue-hot raysupon her head. Muffled as she was in the veil, she was like to suffocatefor air to breathe, yet she would not expose herself to the gaze ofhuman beings. It was noon when she entered the square of the great godsand passed the door of the temple of Nergal, looking with weary eyesinto its vast and cool interior. At some distance within was a group ofpriests, Sangu, Enu, and Baru, men of importance in their severalstations. These the plague-stricken eyes of the woman failed in the dimlight to see. But she was startled suddenly by the appearance in thedoor-way of one of them, who, catching a sight of her, had run quicklyforward, and now stood eagerly staring at her form. She did not drawback from the look, and presently the priest spoke:

  "Thou that standest shadow-like before me--art thou she whom they calledIstar of Babylon?"

  "I was Istar of Babylon," came the gentle voice.

  "_Was!_ Comest thou from Ninkigal?" The priest started back from her,turning a little pale.

  "Nay. Still I live; yet now am nameless."

  "Thou hast dwelt as a goddess in the temple of Istar? Thou hast lived inthe palace of the king as the wife of Belshazzar?"

  Istar bent her head.

  "Enter, then, into the temple, that I may speak with the others herebefore you." He motioned her to pass into the building, and, obediently,Istar entered it. She stood at a little distance, while he that hadaccosted her returned to the group of his companions and spoke withthem. In a few moments they summoned Istar to their midst. She camequite close, and they eyed her in silence for a little while. Then onesaid:

  "Ay. It is Istar of Babylon. I saw her thus from afar on the night ofthe feast of Tammuz."

  "She is well found. Istar, for eight days hast thou been soughtthroughout the Great City. Kurush, the conqueror, demands thy presencebefore him. He has heard of thee and thy beauty, and the strange thingsthou art said to know; and he would have beheld thee on the day afterthe taking of the city. But we have searched for thee in vain. Wherehast thou hidden?"

  "I fulfilled my days. I will go now, if he wills, before the greatconqueror. Haste were best, for the time to the end is not now long."

  The priests looked at each other uncertainly. Her words had in them aring of prophecy. They consulted for a little among themselves, tillIstar herself made all things easy for them:

  "Let a swift runner be sent to the camp of Cyrus, and let the great kingbe told that, one hour after the departure of the messenger, I come tohim. In that hour I will rest here in the temple, for I am weak in body.Then ye may lead me out by the gate of Bel to the camp of the conqueror,and there shall ye leave me. From that camp let no man follow me forth.Now have I spoken."

  And the priests heard the words of Istar and found them to be good; andthat which she had commanded was done.