"Too long we have worshipped her as Istar to banish her now from Istar's place. Let her be carried to the greater temple, and placed there in the inner shrine on the golden couch of the false goddess. Eh? Say you that I speak well?"
At these ruthless words, spoken in jest though they were, Charmides halted. The blood poured into his brain. He clenched his hands. There was a moment of wild impulse to rush forward and throw himself bodily on the Zicari that spoke. But the two figures moved on through the darkness, and he lost the next words. Much as the priests had shocked him, Charmides felt the greatest anxiety to hear more of their talk. He stumbled forward again as fast as he could, and presently caught up with them, realizing their nearness by the distinctness of their voices; for the moon was now under a cloud, and the night was black and thick. When he was again able to distinguish words, Bel-Dur was speaking; and the topic had evidently shifted a long way from its previous point.
Charmides was puzzled at the first sentences.
"I do not know. Amraphel only admits the Patesu, Sangu, and Enu to their councils; these, and, of course, the three Jewish leaders: Daniel and the sons of egibi. The men of Judea--captives, they call themselves--will be a strong force in the uprising."
"Will this come in winter?"
"I do not know. Nothing is commonly known. Yet, in the rainy season, the army of the Elamite could not move northward without great difficulty.
It is whispered through the temple that there are to be two armies--one that of Kurush himself; another that of Gobryas, the governor of Gutium.
Have you heard it?"
"Whispered, yes. But nothing is sure. If this uprising were to be a matter of three months hence, surely more would be known of it than is known now. Everything is rumored; nothing is definite--"
"Save that Amraphel covets Nabonidus' high place--and will have it.
Belshazzar, look you, will never sit upon the golden throne of his fathers."
"Istar being no woman--maybe Belshazzar will be proved no man."
"Then is he a demon. Nabonidus, indeed, may be a woman in man's garb, O Kaiya. But thou wilt find Belshazzar no sluggard in war."
"Verily I believe it. Here is my house. Wilt come in to us, Bel-Dur?"
"Nay, I keep my way to the temple. There is but a short time for purification before the auguries of dawn."
"Farewell. Amraphel be with you!"
Bel-Dur laughed at the bold sacrilege and departed towards the temple of Sin, while the Zicari entered into the little house of which he was a member. Charmides was left alone in the narrow street, too weary to go as far as the tenement, undecided as to where to turn his lagging steps for a sorely needed shelter.
Even while he stood, fagged and drooping with sleep, at the door of the monastery, the dawn broke. Night melted and swam before his eyes in rivulets of misty gray. Shadowy buildings reared out of the dim light.
From the far-away came the faint howls of waking dogs. There was the gay crow of a cock from some distant field. Then the world was still again.
The sky grew eerily clear. Charmides saw the white stars and the fallen moon sink away into the bright heavens. Still the morning was not one of sunlight. It was only a luminous fog that poured down from the sky in swirls. In the midst of it the Greek shuddered with cold, and longed for his lost cloak. Somewhere--somewhere he must go, and quickly. Somewhere he must find shelter from the coming rain. His head throbbed. He was wretchedly nauseated. The night that was past stretched behind him hideously, like the tail of a loathsome reptile. All things were distorted in his mind. He cursed Hodo for making possible for him the night that he had secretly desired. Finally, he put away every thought save that of physical distress, and moved forward at a crawling pace down the narrow street, till he came to the square of the true Istar, whose temple loomed up before him like a cloud-shadow.
The temple gates were open. As Charmides entered the grateful refuge he found more than one wanderer asleep in the silent twilight of the holy house, where sacrificial lights burned by day and by night. Here Charmides also should have laid him down; but, for some inexplicable reason, he was not satisfied with the place. His mind groped for something else. Istar was not here; and he wished to be near her, to feel her presence closer than it was. Following his instinct, he hurried out of the temple and crossed the platform to the foot of the ziggurat, on top of which, in her shrine, Istar had begun to pass her nights; though of this fact the Greek, in his right mind, was quite unaware. He made his way upward, round and round the thick tower, along the inclined plane, till he had reached the top. There was the door to the sanctuary.
Across it the leathern curtain was closely pulled. Charmides went to stand beside it, listening intently for the sound of weeping. Had not Bel-Dur said that she wept? No sound came from within. Still, Charmides was quite sure that his goddess was there. With a long, shivering sigh he laid himself down protectively across the door-way, pillowed his bare head upon the bricks, and then, all numb and drowsy with fatigue and cold, he sank into a heavy sleep.
X
THE ANGER OF BEL
Charmides was roused by an exclamation. His eyes fell open, and he found himself gazing up into a face that for months had baffled alike his dreams and his actual vision, and that now stood out clearly above him.
He sat hastily up, and immediately a pair of gentle hands were laid upon his shoulders, and the most wonderful of voices said to him, sorrowfully and in amazement:
"Rhapsode! Rhapsode! How came you here? Rise quickly from that place!"
The Greek obediently tried to scramble to his feet, but relinquishing the attempt, he put his hands to his burning head and dizzily closed his eyes.
"'Tis the cold!" he gasped, wretchedly.
Istar looked around her. Far below, in the square, many people moved.
But the things that took place on the ziggurat were invisible to them.
"Come thou within--into the shrine. Here wilt thou find warmth," she said, drawing him with her own strength to his feet, and pushing back the curtain before the door.
Charmides went with her blindly, and blindly obeyed her whispered behests. He lay down upon her own couch, was covered over with the costly rugs that she herself had used, and felt the human warmth of the little place with a sense of peace and comfort.
"Oh, goddess--forgive--this profanation--of--thy--high--pla--" The murmur ceased, and before the last word had been completed he had sunk away to sleep, this time in a manner to recuperate his strength.
Istar of Babylon drew a stool to the side of the couch and seated herself thereon, almost without moving her look from the face of the youth before her. Again and again her great eyes traversed his features, the delicate, straight brows, the white eyelids, the long, golden-brown lashes, the short, straight nose, and that perfect mouth which, on a woman, might well have caused another Trojan war. A face as beautiful as ever man possessed was this, and as she watched it a great sigh, that was like a sob, broke from her lips.
"Thou, too--thou, too, perhaps, hast been immortal!" she whispered over him.
Charmides did not hear her. He lay like a statue, his sleep made dreamless and perfect by the presence of her whom he worshipped. And the face of the Greek bore the marks of a peace and content that were not on hers. Istar the goddess, the superb, the omniscient, was no more.
Instead--Ah! There was a question that lay eternally at Istar's heart, that she could not answer, that burned her with its insistence. Now she bent closely and more close over her charge, seeking to forget herself in contemplation of his beauty. The eager suppression of herself was pitiable, for the power of her self-control showed how great was its necessity. It was while her lashes almost touched the cheek of the Sicilian that from beyond the curtain came the voice of a ministering eunuch, raised in his regular morning formula:
"Belit Istar, the sacrifice is made: the meats have known the fire. A sweet savor ascends from the consecrated flesh, inviting the goddess to her morning repast. Let Belit Istar command her slave."
"Bring to me goat's flesh, and milk, and cakes of sesame. Let these things be placed outside my sanctuary door. Let no one enter my shrine this day, on penalty of my wrath."
"Belit Istar is obeyed."
Istar sat up, straight and stiff, for full five minutes after this dialogue had taken place. She was pale with the momentary danger, the remote possibility that the slave, contrary to custom, might have lifted the curtain of the shrine, and, looking in, have beheld Charmides there.
And now that the eunuch had safely gone, a trembling seized her, and she leaned forward, burying her face in her hands. The rumors that had spread through the city concerning her were in so much true, that she was in a state of great suffering. The world had become her wilderness.
It enclosed her now as a prison from which she could not escape, yet in which her liberty was appalling. Her sense of omniscience, of companionship with the infinite, was quite gone. Nothing was left except--except what she feared as a woman, except what, as a goddess, she cried aloud to the high God and his archetypes mercifully to spare her. Things to which she would give no definite place in her thoughts crushed her by day and by night with their indeterminate weight. That the worst had not come, that a great and terrifying cataclysm, which would rend her spirit in twain, drew day by day nearer to her, she knew too well. And as these days, these miserable, pain-filled days, crawled one by one away, she would fain have held them to her forever; for, wretched as they were, they were almost happy in comparison to that that must finally come upon her. At this moment as she leaned again over the young rhapsode, Istar scanned his face carefully, minutely, to find a trace of human unhappiness. And, finding none, a great envy of him and of the life that he had found in Babylon came over her. Was it possible that so much of joy might belong to any of God's creatures? And was she, then, utterly forgotten? She pulled herself up with a start. _This_ was human, this question of hers. For a moment or two she saw truly what she had become, and a fresh wave of fear swept over her. It passed, however.
The supernatural perception was rarely with her now, and then only in quick, reminiscent flashes. She was indeed one of those whom she had so profoundly pitied from her dim abode; for whom she had broken the law of her order; in whose name God had driven her forth from the realm of high indifference into the sentient world, the world of pain.
This vague and unhappy reverie was broken in upon by the return of the eunuch with food, which he set down outside her door. The proceeding was unusual, and after the man's departure Istar was seized with a new fear.
What would the slave think, that she had bidden him not enter the shrine? Would he suspect? Of all things now, she dreaded suspicion; she dreaded being watched; she dreaded beyond measure the exposure that must inevitably come--but not yet! Not yet for a little while! Stealthily now she drew aside the curtain and looked out upon the narrow platform of the ziggurat. No one was there. Upon the door-sill were two dishes of chased gold, the one filled with steaming goat's flesh and roasted pigeons, the other heaped with barley cakes; and the two of them were flanked by a tall silver jar of warm goat's milk. These Istar lifted one by one, carried them into the shrine, and set them upon the table where her shew-bread was usually placed. Then, when the meal was safe within and ready, she went over to where Charmides still lay motionless, and laid her hand gently upon his forehead.
"Rise thou, Charmides," she said.
"Ramua!" muttered the Greek. He stirred slightly. His eyes opened. Then, suddenly realizing where he was, he leaped to his feet, stared about him irresponsibly for an instant, and finally threw himself on his face before Istar.
"Forgive me, my goddess! I knew not what I did!" he whispered, terror-stricken.
Istar smiled mournfully. "You ask forgiveness for that that I bade you do. Rise, my Greek. Eat of the food that is here. I command it."
Charmides looked quickly up. He could not deny that he was ravenously hungry. The smell of the meats caused his nostrils to quiver, and the sight of them did away with his reverent wish to refuse. Istar watched him closely as he sat down to her morning meal. She herself could have taken not one mouthful of food, but she had already had a draught of milk; and now, urging the Greek to eat his fill, she turned aside and sat down near the door-way, waiting in silence till the young fellow, after a final cup of the mild beverage, wiped his dagger on his tunic, muttered a line of grace to the gods of Greece, and rose a little shamefacedly.
"Thou hast eaten and art filled, Charmides?" Istar asked, turning to him quietly, with the shadow of a smile.
For answer the Greek bent his knee and bowed his head.
"And now thou goest forth again into the city?"