Charmides looked at her to read the answer that she wished him to make.
But the words on his lips were never spoken.
Istar was standing before him a little to the left of the door-way, from which the curtain was half pulled aside. The daylight fell relentlessly over her face and her form. It was upon her face that the Greek's eyes rested: rested in wonder, in amazement, finally with something more than either of those things. Was this last expression one of horror? Istar saw the look and read it; and before its piercing inquiry she quivered.
Involuntarily she began to shrink away from him, but escape him now she could not. Knowledge was his. There was no concealment. Then, at length, she accepted the situation, as it was necessary that she should.
"I am a woman," she said, with a gentleness and an unconscious dignity that nonplussed him anew. "Thou mayst not kneel to a woman, Greek. Rise up."
"I kneel to thee, O Istar!" was his reply.
Then, indeed, her lips quivered, but with a little effort she regained her self-control. "Go then, Charmides. Thou knowest me--now."
Charmides got to his feet, but he made no move towards departure.
Instead, after an instant's hesitation, he went a little closer to her, and spoke as he might have spoken to Baba--Baba as she was now.
"Istar--art thou indeed the Istar whom first I beheld in Babylon?"
"Yea, Charmides. I am that Istar; yet I am not the same. Then was I more than human. Now--less."
"Who decreed it? Who defiled thee?" he asked, as much of the air around him as of her.
"That thou must not ask. It is what none shall ever know. Depart from me and go thy way. Tell whom thou wilt what I am become. Not long--Ah! It is not long when all the world must know me--as I am."
"Not from the words of my mouth, Belit," Charmides said, sadly. Then, for a little, silence fell between them. He knew that she waited for him to go, and yet, before he went, he felt that he must warn her of the danger that she ran--that danger that he had learned by night. Twist it as he might, the facts were too brutal to be made plain to her. He flushed as he connected, even in thought, the scene of the past night with the grave and grandly beautiful creature before him. Woman she might be, but the mark of her godhead was on her still, could never leave her; for no living woman, of his race or of any other, was comparable to her. And while he thought these things she also stood regarding him, and finally, having read half his mind, opened her mouth and spake:
"Charmides, tell me thy thoughts. I will bear with them."
He grasped the opportunity eagerly: "O Belit, I must warn thee--warn thee against all the priesthood, those of every temple and house in the city. They threaten thee with untellable disaster. Watch them, lady, and take heed to thyself. Beware whither thy steps lead thee, what things thou turnest thy hands unto. They watch thee with numberless and unholy eyes. They mean great wrong."
"If they will bring me death, I welcome it gladly."
He shot a glance at her that caused her suddenly to drop her eyes. Then he said, quietly: "It is not death. Ah, Istar, do not ask its horror. I myself would deal thee death with my right hand to save thee from it."
Istar shuddered.
"Belit, know this. When comes the day of thy trial, if thou wouldst seek shelter from the pursuers, ask to be taken to the palace of Lord Ribata Bit-Shumukin, on the canal of the New Year. There, at the gate, demand the presence of the Lady Baba. Baba will conduct thee to the home I live in. It is very lowly, but in it thou shalt find safety. Thou wilt remember this?"
"Truly, Charmides, thou deservest all happiness!" she said, impulsively, coming nearer to him.
He bowed his head. "For thee I came to Babylon. Through thee my heart has found its home. Therefore, when thou shalt ask it of me, my life it is thine."
With this, then, and a last puzzled look at her, he went forth to his much-belated temple duties.
Istar, once more left alone, turned slowly back into her shrine. The little interlude that had broken in upon her loneliness made her shrink from the pall that waited to overwhelm her again. Thereafter the one hour of Charmides' presence remained like a little golden disk in the memory of her solitary months. But now the momentary sense of companionship was too terribly contrasted with the melancholy of her solitude. Hurriedly covering herself with a great, silver-woven, heavy-meshed veil, she left her retreat in the upper morning and left the ziggurat for her dwelling-place behind the temple.
She did not see her sanctuary again for seven months. It was not that she felt any reluctance about entering it. Simply, her apathy had become such that she was incapable of the physical effort necessary for the ascent of the tower. Once a day she took her place in the mercy-seat in the temple. All the remaining time she spent in the inmost court of her particular suite of rooms, or in the miniature apartment where she was accustomed to sleep. She reclined generally at full length, doing no work of any kind, her eyes shut, the heavy veil shrouding her figure but thrown back from her face, her body perfectly motionless, her very thoughts apparently at rest. Her attendants watched her, wondering at the great change that was working upon that formerly magnificent personality. And through these same temple-slaves, eunuchs, and hierodules, strange rumors concerning the once universally worshipped goddess continued to fly abroad through the city. Certainly there appeared to be little enough of the divine about this weak, ill woman; though why the change had come none of those connected with her had the faintest idea.
These were the days of Istar's wandering in the wilderness. Pain, mental and physical, she learned in every stage, from slight discomfort to nerveless agony. Each morning she woke with the prayer in her heart that night might bring the end of it all, yet knowing well that her end was far away. Her old, archetypal world became gradually more and more indistinct to her memory, till she had all but forgotten it. Her one wish, that she dared not utter, was for annihilation. Yet this would involve a sin that she could not but recognize as unpardonable; for Istar of Babylon bore within her another life, a life that was, as yet, part of her, that by natural law was hers to cherish, that she could not love, that she dared not hate. And it was the day when this new life should take unto itself individuality that she lay dreading through all those dreary months, from the death of summer to Airu, when the new spring came to Babylon.
The fall of Istar was accomplished. This, by day and by night, she cried to herself, in her agony of self-mortification. It seemed to her that the wheel of the law was the most merciless of all ordained things. The former dead-alive existence of her godhead seemed holy, now that she could know it no more. The very present, indeed, unendurable as it was, was infinitely better than what was to come. As a matter of fact, her extreme dread of the future was very near to turning her brain, for at every hour she lived the moment of discovery, till, at times, she was like to go mad with it, and to disclose it all, then and there, and so have done with it.
There were two or three of her priestesses who realized, through many of her symptoms, her mortal state; and these were very tender to her in this time of her trial. From their lips no word of her condition reached the outside world. The underlings, only, talked; and it was from underling to Zicari, Zicari to Pasisu, Pasisu to Sangi, and so to the Patesi at last, that distorted accounts of Istar's life and suffering passed rapidly in the late autumn. And these rumors quickly reached the ears of the three people who had the strongest personal interest in Istar of Babylon. Two of them were her enemies, bitter, unscrupulous, and powerful. These two were also closely connected. But, while one knew perfectly the mind of the other, and each knew that the greatest desire of the other's political life was Istar's ruin, yet, while matters slowly ripened and daily grew more absorbing, the subject of the approaching disgrace of the whilom goddess was never once opened between them. Amraphel of Bel, from his palace on the a-Ibur-Sabu, and Daniel of Judea, from his humble house south of the canal of the Prophet, in the Jews' quarter, watched, planned, listened, read each other's hearts, and bided their time, in the way peculiar to those that know well their world. The time for action would come, and without any planning on the part of either of them. But when it did arrive there must be no bungling of the affair.
Only one little thing in the case, as these two considered it, failed to assume its proper proportion in the perspective of their reasoning. The cause of Istar's undoing was as much a mystery to them as it was to the lowliest kali in Istar's temple. Both Amraphel and Daniel had long ago ceased to reckon Belshazzar as a factor in this affair. The old suspicion had been a mistake--an incomprehensible mistake. The prince royal went no more to the temple of the goddess, never spoke of or to her, gave rather all his time to affairs of state; which at this moment sorely needed the firm will and the strong hand that he alone, of all his house, possessed.
It was well enough that Amraphel could not read Belshazzar's heart.
There was indelibly written what would have startled that reverent man out of all his omniscient composure. For if Istar mourned unceasingly the loss of her godhead, Belshazzar, of the house of the Sun, mourned the loss of her to his life as he would hardly have mourned the fall of that kingdom that was dearer to him than his life. After the strange return from Erech, he had gone daily for two months to Istar's temple, and had sought by entreaty, threat, prayer, and imprecation, to be admitted to her. And again and again, and yet again, had he been refused, till finally he turned his thoughts to the life of his city.
But by this means she was not taken from his heart. By night he dreamed of her, and by day, when she was as far from him as the sun, as near as his children, as unapproachable as the silver sky, she was forever a sub-consciousness in his thoughts.
Thus passed, unhappily and uneventfully, the long winter months of the last year of Nebuchadrezzar's Babylon. In the first week of Airu (April), Belshazzar determined finally to reach Istar's presence. The stories of her condition had of late become alarming, and in the depths of his heart he had begun to dread what had never occurred to him before--the possibility of her death. The mere thought left him agonized, and he felt himself unable to keep away from her longer.
It was late in the morning--a glowing morning in Babylon's fairest month--when he left the palace on foot, clad in a dark mantle that completely covered his head and his figure, rendering him unrecognizable to any but his closest companions. He chose this hour for going because he knew that now Istar's vitality would be strongest, and he dared not give her the shock of seeing him at a time when she would be especially weak. The matter of his admission to her dwelling had been arranged by Ribata the week before, through hirelings whom he had kept in the temple precincts for some months past. Unnoticed by any one, then, the prince arrived at the bronze door of the building behind the temple. It was instantly opened, wide enough to permit of his passing through; and inside stood a veiled woman, who, after a silent acknowledgment of his rank, led the way through the succession of courts and passages to a closely curtained door-way.
"Belit Istar is within," she whispered. Then on the instant she turned and glided swiftly away.
For the moment Belshazzar stood trembling upon the threshold. His dread was evenly matched with his fever. The throbbing of his heart sent the blood pounding through all his arteries. His hands grew cold and useless. The effect on him of the mere thought of beholding this woman again was something that he did not pretend to understand. Women, ordinarily, were little enough to him. But _this_ woman--she who was hidden from him by the single fold of an embroidered curtain--this woman made his earth and his heaven, his soul, his brain, his body, and his blood. Go to her it seemed he could not, for very desire. Once his hand moved forth to lift the curtain, but it fell again to his side. His head whirled. Long as it was since he had seen Istar, yet the picture of her as she had lain unconscious in his arms on the morning of the fall at Erech, came again before him to the smallest detail--perfect, finished, immutable. He felt her weight, he beheld the living pallor of her flesh, he saw the heavy-fringed eyelids close over the eyes that lighted his world. She would live so in his mind forever. Now--he was about to turn away, to leave her alone in peace.
So far there had been no sound in the room beyond. But just as he was about to depart there came to his ears some words spoken in her voice--her low, exquisite voice, now so weary and so much weaker than it had been of old. The words reached him distinctly; and instantly they caught his attention. The spell of his reluctance was broken, and all the fire of his eagerness blazed up at the first syllable spoken by her.
Quickly he lifted the curtain and stepped out of the sun-flooded court over the threshold of the dimly lighted room. Istar was on her knees before him, her back turned to the door, her head bowed, her long, black veil trailing on the floor around her. Her voice was lifted in prayer, the first words of which had caught his attention, and held him spellbound by means of the sweet, forlorn monotony of her tone, the ring of yearning, of pathos, of utter hopelessness indescribably felt through all the rhythmical cadences, till Belshazzar bent his head in helpless pity over her incomprehensible plight.
Thus, in the unmusical Babylonish syllables, ran her psalm:
"_God of all gods, of men and of ages, of time and of tears: Creator of rivers, Divider of seas, accept of the homage I proffer at noon._
"_The winds Thou hast hushed for my peace have obeyed Thee. The sun's golden glory of mid-day is Thine._
"_Father of lowliness, High-priest of sorrow, mighty and powerful; Lover of children, in mercy merciless, piteous in justice; raise me from flesh, above wrong, to communion with spirits of heaven._
"_My body before Thee is bended. My face is uplifted in prayer that is pure._
"_Love all unholy by night I admitted. Yea, I have loved love for Sin's sake, rejoicing in earth-begot passion. Godhead I lost; and desire for goodness departed. Now in the hour of trial, homeward I come to my Father at noon; no more in fear to approach Him, believing His mercy omniscient. Home come I, washed in my tears._
"_Lord of the noon, my Begetter, absolve me!_
"_Lord of the sun, of the well-flowing river, receive me that offer Thee praise._
"_Lord of the world and of children and angels, bequeath me forgiveness of sin._
"_Lord of all lords, from Thy home grant me peace everlasting. O Amanu, Thou on High._"
"Amanu," came the soft echo of a masculine voice from behind her.
With a gasp that resembled a sob, Istar faced about, still on her knees.
In turning, she drew the heavy veil that had hung around her close over her face, so that, to any one but him who looked at her, she would have been unrecognizable. Belshazzar, indeed, confronted by the black mask, felt his speech suddenly suppressed within him. His cloak had fallen to his feet, and he stood revealed in all the splendor of his strength and royal beauty. But before her he was powerless to act. He left the situation helplessly to her.
Istar herself, for the moment, was stunned. In that first minute that she looked upon him again, the world around her grew gray and indistinct. Her cold body trembled. In her dry throat a sob struggled to come forth. But in her heart--ah, who would have believed it!--was rising a great, overweening joy. God had heard her! God sent the answer to her prayer--such an answer as she had not dreamed of. Yet she knew that the Comforter was come. In this thought Istar loosened the veil again and took it from her head, so that her face, white, thin, great-eyed, mournful, and still divinely perfect, was revealed to him.
"Istar!" he cried, half in sudden woe at her too apparent illness, half still in passionate admiration. He had seen her before with the silver aureole gone, but now her very face, in its shining purity, was of refined silver. "Istar!" He spoke the word tenderly, and went a little nearer to her.