He broke off suddenly, displeased with himself for having spoken in such a manner here. Two eunuchs were entering from the lower end of the room, and they seated themselves on either side of the door-way, with zithers on their knees. Behind them appeared a woman, or, more properly, a girl, lithe and slender, with pretty, vacant face and floating black hair twisted with golden ribbons. Her feet were sandalled in red and gold.
Her dress was of flying, yellow gauze, with a girdle of crimson. Scarlet poppies were bound about her head, and a crimson scarf was in her hands.
She halted in the door-way with an air of grave modesty, performed a humble obeisance before the two men, never lifting her eyes to the face of either; and then, as the zither-players began their music, she, Khamma, began the dance. Certainly she was a graceful creature, and, in her dreamy way, possessed of a perfect sense of rhythm. Belshazzar watched her with half-closed eyes. Ribata's attitude was that of polite weariness. While the dance progressed, both men replenished their wine-cups, and occasionally addressed each other in an undertone. Khamma did not look at them. Nevertheless her whole body was cold with emotion, and as she continued the dance she trembled, and her very teeth chattered with terror and delight at the near presence of Belshazzar.
Ordinarily she had remarkable powers of endurance, and often danced for half an hour at a time before Ribata. But to-day was different. At the end of fifteen minutes she was in a state of utter exhaustion; and, as the eunuchs, noting her condition, mercifully began their closing harmonies, she advanced up the room to the foot of the das, and presently sank, half swooning, in the last prostration before her master.
Ribata glanced at his friend. "Wilt thou have her?" he muttered, too softly for the girl to hear.
Belshazzar considered, and a different expression came over his face.
"Nay," he said.
"What sayest thou!" cried Ribata, in astonishment. "Since when dost thou refuse my gifts? Is she so unlovely?"
At this last phrase, which she had heard, Khamma looked up, straight into Belshazzar's eyes. Instantly a sharp sigh, like a groan, escaped her lips, and in spite of himself the prince softened.
"She is fair--enough. Let her be conveyed to my house. Thy gift could not be unwelcome, Ribata, thou knowest it. Accept this, my brother, in place of her."
Belshazzar took from his shoulder a pin of beautifully wrought gold and fastened it upon his friend's sleeve. Ribata's little displeasure was dispelled, and, after returning affectionate thanks, he signalled the eunuchs to come forward and lead the girl away. Before going she knelt before Belshazzar, and left upon his feet the hot imprint of her lips.
This act affected the recipient in a curious way. His color suddenly fled. The storm-eyes opened wide, and flashed with a new fire. He drew a gasping breath, and then, while his face grew crimson, the veins in his neck and in his temples swelled out in bright, purplish blue. His muscles twitched with emotion. Ribata, watching him with a smile of sympathy, looked to see his comrade rise and run after the dancer. But, to Bit-Shumukin's vast amazement, he perceived that, for the first time in all his life, Belshazzar was fighting fiercely with himself. The animal in him was a very lion in strength, but the opposing force was this time stronger. What this force was Ribata had yet to learn.
Belshazzar, tight-lipped, lay back again upon the cushions, his two fists hard-clenched. Ribata bent over him and laid a hand upon his shoulder.
"What is this, Belshazzar?" he asked, softly.
Belshazzar looked into his face with an inscrutable smile. "It is Istar, Ribata, Istar my goddess." Then, with a long-drawn cry, all the strange, warped, blasphemous emotion in him burst forth: "Istar! Istar! Istar!
Beloved! Lift me up! Make me divine, or cause my mind to lose the thought of thee! Istar! The iron sears my soul!"
"Belshazzar!" exclaimed Ribata, in horror. And then, in an undertone, he muttered: "By Nebo and Bel, our sins overtake us! He is going mad!"
V
THE JEW
On that July afternoon Amraphel, the high-priest, left the presence of the king, bearing with him not only the discomfiture of a defeat at the hands of Belshazzar. He had lost much that it had been his hope to obtain, but he had also gained something that might prove more valuable than what he had lost. Even if this something were a mere suspicion, unfounded, not to be proved, yet it was what might, by adroit management, be built up into a successful rumor which, spread through the city, would form the first step in the long flight from the top of which Istar, now the greatest menace to Amraphel's power, might some day be hurled, in broken radiance, to her doom.
Up to this time, for hundreds, perhaps thousands--nay, as the nave Berossus has it, hundreds of thousands--of years, the Babylonians had worshipped, nominally, their gods and spirits: virtually, they had bowed before the priesthood and its orders. The priests themselves, knowing no gods, had, from all time, held in their hands unlimited power. For many centuries the king himself had been a patesi of Anu--high-priest of the sky-god. Then, when the temporal ruler became a man apart, when the office was secular, and when Babylon had writhed under the lash of Nineveh, the people had always their religion. The high-priest and his seers became more than ever absolute; ruling king and slave by means of unreasoning superstition; while in the houses of the priesthood the gods were regarded as an amusing myth. But now--_now_--for two years past, all Babylonia, from Agade to the gulf, had been in a state of feverish religiosity, for the reason that there was a goddess in Babylon: a goddess--a living, baffling, radiant presence, whose origin none knew.
Amraphel was baffled by her at every point; but, trained from his birth up to a creed of absolute materialism, he still refused to believe in her divinity, because he had lost the power to rise to a conception of divinity.
To-day, as his carriage rolled slowly across the great bridge to the east side of the city, the high-priest pondered again over this problem of problems, though now less than ever seemed there any way of solving it. Down the Mutaqutu, the second boulevard of Babylon, and from there to the great temple of Marduk, the largest building in the city, but second in size to that of Bel in Borsip, he went. By now the sacrifice and heave-offerings for the afternoon would be ended, but it was Amraphel's self-appointed task daily to inspect the temple, the shrine, and the priests' rooms, before he retired to the college of Zicaru for the evening meal and a talk with his under-priests.
The monster temple and the great square of Marduk were aglow with the sunset as Amraphel's chariot drew rein at the platform steps. The old man alighted with his customary assurance. He had not reached the platform itself when his eye was caught by a figure in front of him moving slowly towards the temple door. It was a lean and sorry figure, ill-clothed, and hardly clean: that of a man hook-nosed and hawk-eyed, who leaned wearily on his staff and muttered to himself as he went. Him Amraphel overtook and familiarly accosted.
"Surely, Daniel, thou goest not into the house of a 'false god'?"
The Jew turned on him with a sour smile. "Yea, I go for my haunch of the day's heave-offering. God pardons a poor man the acceptance of unsanctified food."
"A _poor_ man--ay, verily. But since when art thou poor, Jew?"
Daniel turned an ugly look upon the high-priest, who, having motives for policy, suddenly changed his tone and said, in a low voice:
"Come thou and talk with me. The heave-offering, or something better, shall be sent to thine abode. There is a near matter that waits discussion."
The Jew consented silently to the proposal and followed the high-priest into the temple, across its vast hall, and back into one of the small rooms used only by priests. The little place was empty, and Amraphel seated himself in it with an affectation of feebleness. His back was to the light, and he motioned his companion to a seat whereon the last gleams of dying sunlight would fall direct from the small window behind the priest. Daniel sat down, drew his garments together, laid his staff across his knees, and caused his face to fall into an expression of vacancy that betokened the utmost alertness of mind. Amraphel had, however, not the least intention of trying deceit with his companion.
Rather, he was about to risk a very daring piece of frankness upon this ruler of captive Judea.
"Daniel," said the old man, speaking in Hebrew, "you have told me that your people worship one only God. In your holy scriptures is there any word of another--a goddess--that is divine?"
"No!" was the quick answer.
"Hast thou--" Amraphel bent towards him--"hast thou beheld, closely, her whom they call Istar?"
"Yea."
"Hast thou spoken with her?"
"Perhaps."
"Nay, be not cautious with me, Jew. I speak from my heart. I ask as one that knows nothing, what is the idea of thy mind concerning the woman that dwells in the holy temple of the goddess? Is she divine?"
"Divine! Say rather that she is the incarnation of Satan! Her heart is full of evil."
"Yet you see in her a supernatural power?"
Amraphel asked the question with unmistakable anxiety; and Daniel, raising his eyes, glanced for an instant into those of the priest. It was the only answer that he gave, yet it was the one that Amraphel had most feared. So, then, Daniel himself did not know the secret of Istar's existence. It was well enough to call her an incarnation of evil. That, according to Amraphel's way of thinking, did not at all lessen her power. It was a rather discouraging silence that fell between the two; a silence that Daniel finally broke.
"Why, O Amraphel, dost thou question me about the woman of Babylon? What would you with her?"
The high-priest hesitated for a bare second. Then he answered, openly: "I would have her driven from Babylon! Driven hence, because--because she menaces the state. Because she takes our power from us. Because with her the Elamite may find himself powerless against the city."
Daniel drew a sharp breath. "Cyrus, too!"
"Sh! Be silent! That name spells death. But consider what I have said.
The people of the city worship their 'goddess' as they no longer worship the great gods of the silver sky. Should there come a time when Bel and Marduk commanded the surrender of the city to the Elamite, if Istar held not to us, if she raised her voice in behalf of the old dynasty, in behalf of the tyrant, then indeed our lives might well be forfeited. For when she commands, the people obey. And hark you, Daniel, I fear that Istar of Babylon will not have the blood of Belshazzar redden the streets of the Great City."
"Nay; for she _loves_ the tyrant Belshazzar!"
"Ah! You say it!" Amraphel, in high excitement, half rose from his place. Here were his suspicions most unexpectedly confirmed.
Daniel, the imprudent words having escaped him, sank apathetically back in his place, giving the high-priest to understand by his attitude that nothing further was to be expected from him on that subject. And Amraphel had the tact to waive the point. He felt it to be too broad for discussion; for, in spite of himself, Istar roused in him unmistakable feelings of awe. But now there was at least a strong bond of sympathy between himself and Daniel. Amraphel realized that, and began at last upon the real object of his conversation--a description of the proposed festival at Erech, the three days that Istar was to spend in that holy house.
"And why," queried Daniel, quietly, "should she not remain in Erech, the seat of her ancient worship? Surely that were well for all Chaldea?"
"Ang!--all Chaldea--not for Belshazzar, the king's son," was the reply.
Daniel looked at his companion with a twinkle in his eye. "If they were but married!" he muttered to himself, not quite daring to speak the words. But aloud he said, softly, with stress on every syllable: "Yet, Amraphel, if Istar of Babylon leaves the Great City, who is there to say that she shall enter it again?"
"None! As I am priest of Babylon, there is none that may say it!
Yet--yet--I do not perhaps understand thy words."