She had fixed her eyes upon his, and the painfully strained look in her face showed him that she strove to read his mind: his purpose in coming to her. As he approached nearer still she rose suddenly to her feet, for one instant held the protecting veil close around her figure, and then, still without taking her fear-stricken eyes from his face, let it drop, and stood there revealed before him, clothed from head to heel in a scant, straight tunic of white wool.
For an instant Belshazzar saw her stupidly. His eyes travelled over her and suddenly he saw, and his self-control broke down. With a great, hoarse cry of pity and of love, he rushed to her and caught her close in both of his strong, protecting arms.
"Istar! Istar! Thou untrusting one! My beloved! Thou hast suffered alone and told me nothing! Where was thy faith? Hast thou for an hour doubted my love? Know you not how, in my heart, I have mourned thee, have yearned for thee, day by day? Yea, the anger of Bel alone has kept us apart one from the other. The very gods are jealous that I should have thee, thou lotus-flower of the world! Speak to me, O my beloved!"
"Belshazzar! Belshazzar!" she whispered, once, twice, thrice. Then, seeming to gain courage from the syllables of his name, she went on, half fearfully still: "I have hardly loved thee until now. God hath heard me, I think. But, oh! the long, rainy months! The endless days!
The eternal nights! How have I prayed to die in them, prayed with my heart and with my lips to die."
He caught her the more convulsively in his arms. "And now?" he asked.
"Ah, now! Now is my strength restored within me! I have new courage. I shall bear my trial now. Thou needst not fear. Suffering will be sweet, for I no longer dread the anger of Bel--of the one God."
"Istar, are we not now as God? Together shall we not defy all? The eleven great gods, and--high Istar herself?"
Istar of Babylon looked dazedly into his eyes. "Do you not believe on me?" she asked, faintly.
"I believe in thy love. That is all my belief."
"But the divinity that was mine?"
He caught her a little closer. "Istar, art thou not a woman?" he asked, gently, but inexorably.
There was a silence. Istar was making her last struggle against fate. At the defeat her head fell heavily forward upon his breast. "Yea, I am a woman," she muttered, faintly.
Belshazzar's lips were pressed upon her forehead. Then suddenly he lifted her in his arms and carried her over to the couch that stood at one end of the room. On this he laid her, and covered her over with one of the heavy, silken shawls used for that purpose. Then he stood off and inspected her, to see that she was comfortable.
"Lie thou there," he said, "till I return within the hour with a litter borne by my household slaves. In thy trial I will be beside thee; thou shalt be in my house, protected by my name, lodged as my princess. But one hour more, and then, for all time, we shall be together!"
He spoke with perfect confidence, and, having finished his explanation, would have departed had not Istar risen quickly from her couch and moved towards him again.
"Gratitude be to my lord!" she said, with a faint smile. "Yet I may not leave this temple till the hour comes. There will be a day when Bel shall cast me forth alone into the city. But, of myself, I may not leave the house to which the All-Father intrusted me. Nor shall mine eyes again behold thee here. Go forth in peace, Belshazzar. My great love is thine; and before many days I think that I must come to thee. But we must patiently abide apart until the time. Now must thou leave me.
Farewell!"
"Istar! What is this folly that you speak! You are mine--mine to care for, to cherish. Your suffering is also mine. I go now, but to return again for you. Or shall I despatch one of your eunuchs to the palace with my message? Yea, that will I do, and remain at your side till the litter comes."
The impatient tone was such as he might have used to one of his wives, to Khamma, to any woman who by law belonged to him. Istar heard him, but felt no anger at the words. Her manner showed only dispassionate self-possession.
"Belshazzar, I have spoken. Shall I say the words again? Go thou forth in peace. When my hour comes I will turn to thee. But we must wait that hour, for it is the will of the great Bel."
The prince royal was taken aback. This was not a woman's way, yet neither was it after the manner of men. He tried her again, this time more gently, with reason, with persuasion, finally with undisguised entreaty. She did not change. The dependent Istar, Istar the supplicator, the woman, was gone. In her place was come the oracle of the mercy-seat. Belshazzar dared not be angered by her unchanging assurance. In the end he acknowledged himself defeated. He could only kneel and implore that the hour of her home-coming be soon. Then, having held her for one moment more in his arms, he left her, wrapping the mantle closely about him as he stepped forth again into the hot sunshine of his new and mysterious world.
As for Istar, with the answering of her prayer she entered the land of heart's peace. God in high heaven had not forgotten her. Belshazzar, on earth below, waited her coming. She could feel that the day of her suffering was close at hand, and she was fortifying herself to endure it. Thus ten days--ten days of the fair spring--passed by. Istar's black-veiled form was seen morning and evening on the temple platform, and she sat in the temple regularly at the mercy-hour, but did not ascend the ziggurat. During this time she knew but ten uneasy moments.
These were when, once each day, always, as it were, by chance, she encountered the lean and bent figure of Daniel the Jew, who lurked, morning and evening, about this spot. His thin, vulture-like face, with its scrawny, gray-streaked beard, and his small, beady, piercing eyes, haunted Istar's thoughts, and remained with her as an omen of evil; and she shrank from him even less for herself than for some unreasonable ill that he seemed to promise to Belshazzar, her earth-lover. Daniel never addressed her, never failed profoundly to salute her, never remained longer than a bare second within her sight. And she strove to put him from her mind, and to give all of her days and nights to careful preparation for the approaching hours of her trial.
On the morning of April 21st her attendants found her lying in a swoon on her bed. She was quickly revived, and awoke to the world with a look of such happiness in her face that her women wondered silently, and went back to their duties rejoicing. Istar attended the morning sacrifice--a thing that she had not done for three months past. She drank a cupful of milk, watched the goat's flesh roasted on the altar, heard the prayers for the morning, and extended the mercy-hour far into the afternoon. The sun hung just above the horizon when she re-entered the court-yard of her dwelling and called for her evening meal. With unquestioning surprise it was brought her, and she ate of it. Then, in the mellow evening, she said her farewell to the consecrated home where she had dwelt so long.
As Istar left her dwelling and walked slowly towards the foot of the ziggurat, she saw that the whole city lay in a flood of gold. Her steps were slow and fraught with pain. As she halted at the foot of the high tower to look upward, wondering how she should reach its top, a voice from another sphere spoke to her and bade her hasten her steps. It was almost seven months ago that her feet had last touched this pavement.
Then she had not been physically weak, but mentally--! She sighed as she remembered her terror of herself and of all her surroundings. At last, with a deep breath, she began her ascent. Up, up, and up, step by step, while the glorified light of day's death swam before her vision and the evening wind fanned her cheeks, while the sweet scent of the flowers that covered the desert was borne to her by the breeze, she went, a prayer in her heart, a resolute determination to endure bravely holding her thoughts. Up and up she mounted, till at last the empty summit of the tower was gained, and she stood again at the door of the room that had seen her incarnation.
Here, on the height, Istar stopped to look out over Babylon. It stretched around and below her like a mirage, like the vision of a holier city, wrapped all in clouds of blinding fire. A little to the east, near enough so that the white designs on the shining turquoise ground-work were fairly distinct, rose, from the tufty green of the surrounding park, the new palace built by Nabonidus, in which Belshazzar lived. Along the east side of this building ran the bright Euphrates, passing here the most imposing point in all its mighty course. Opposite the new palace, on the other bank, were the two huge structures once inhabited by Nabopollassar and his son, that greatest of Babylonish rulers. Across from Nebuchadrezzar's former home, connected with it by the great bridge, itself a triumph of engineering, was the palace-crowned mound of the great one's Median queen, called by subsequent generations "the hanging gardens." This alone of all the unused royal dwellings was kept in repair by the present ruler. And now, at the time of the day's highest glory, Istar's eyes eagerly sought its fresh verdure, the tier on tier of leafy foliage that hid such fragrances and such blossoms as she rarely saw. And while she gazed upon the monument of a king's devotion, the lonely woman found it in her heart to wish that she might have been that queen whose sorrows and whose earthly joys were now so comfortably ended, whose mortality had come to dust, whose soul enjoyed its just rewards.
Istar's eyes moved on down the river to the lower part of the city, which consisted of acre upon acre of low, brick buildings, hardly relieved by a single tower or raised roof, stretching in gray monotony off to where Imgur-Bel suddenly reared its gigantic height skyward. Over this wall and the top of its still loftier brother, Nimitti-Bel, Istar, high as she stood, could not see. Her brick-weary eyes yearned for some glimpse of the quiet palm-groves that lined the river-bank beyond Babylon. Indeed, their fragrant freshness was borne up to her by the evening wind. Closing her eyes, she saw them as, nine months before, she had watched them from her barge on the way to Erech. And thus, while she contemplated many things, the sunset light began to fade, the shadows mingled together over the gray roofs and bright towers of the city.
Twilight deepened; and the moon was not yet risen. So at last Istar turned from the far-stretching scene and lifted up the curtain of her long-unused shrine.
She was greeted by darkness. Evidently it was many weeks since any one had entered the little room. A fine, white dust lay sifted over the rugs, the table, the golden chair, the couch where Charmides last had lain. Istar looked round with a sob in her heart--a sob of pitiable weakness and pain. It was impossible now for her to summon any attendant. Neither had she strength to descend the ziggurat again.
Leaving the curtain pulled wide open, that she might feel some communication with the world beyond, she went to the couch, removed the top rug with all its dust, then let fall her veil, and offered up one last prayer for pity and for strength before she lay down resignedly in the night.
Twilight slowly passed across the earth and trailed away into the beyond. Thereupon came terror of the dark, together with the first stabs of sharp pain. She had one swift, torturing moment, and a low cry at the strangeness of it escaped her. Then calmness returned. She was prepared, she thought, for the rest. One moment, two, three, passed, in strained expectation. The darkness hung around her like a covering, but the suffering did not return. Her lips moved continually, but her brain refused to work. It seemed to her that the night must be passing. Soon, perhaps, she might sleep. Her eyes were closed; her mind was slipping away into freedom, when--she started up again. It was once more upon her, this dreaded thing; and now she knew that there was no escape. When it had passed this time she waited, stiff and strong, hands clenched, breath coming and going rapidly, for the return.
It came once again, and yet again, more and more swiftly, more and more terribly. She made no sound now. Her eyes stared straight into the blackness with the gaze of one that does not see. Here was something that, with all her months of preparation, she was not prepared for. No imagination could have painted this; and her loneliness but added to her terror. From the night a thousand malignant eyes seemed fixed upon her with the look of Daniel the Jew. Yet presently she discovered that these eyes were stars--fair, silver stars that shone, far away, through the open door-way. A little later the night grew luminous, and the hideous darkness was softened and smoothed away. Pale, yellow rays shot up the sky, dimming the stars' white radiance, banishing their gaze. It was the moon, the blessed moon, Istar's father, who, entering the heavens, put her tormentors to flight. The woman's thoughts were growing incoherent.
She was a little delirious. Her body was racked and torn and bruised.
The agony, too great to be realized and endured, drove her into numb unconsciousness--an unconsciousness that was hideous with subconscious understanding. The one thought to which she clung through all the hours of anguish was of the morning--the merciless daylight, when the searching sun, the discerning, prying sun, must come upon her here, must see, must know--must disclose all to the wondering world.
The fair moonlight sickened her now. Her eyes swam and her head reeled with its bluish light. She prayed for clouds--and rain. Rain! Water! The thought reached her suddenly, out of the aching void. If there were only some one--one only creature, to put water to her dying lips! She burned, she parched, she scorched with thirst. Ah, if some one were at hand! She tried to think of a name to call. And presently one recurred to her. She did not stop to think over it. The syllables hung ready on her lips--were said in a voice so faint and weak that one standing in the door-way could not have heard them. It was a liquid word, one easy to hear, and the only one that her mind, in its strange plight, retained.
"Allaraine!" she whispered.
A breath of cool air poured into the little room, and borne upon it was a rosy beam that gradually suffused the bed in a delicate radiance. With the first shedding of this light, Istar's pain suddenly ceased. Her spirit was uplifted with the mighty relief. Her fast-shut eyes opened again. Above and about her was open space. The roof of the shrine was gone, and its walls also. All around there floated a vast concourse of dimly outlined forms--millions of archetypes, borne on their outspread wings. A chord of distant music rang down the shaft of light, and Istar knew from whom it came. Gravely the goddess greeted her companions; yet none returned the greeting, or seemed to recognize her presence. She tried to go to them, but the bed remained beneath her. She was still a prisoner. After some moments of waiting in the midst of this familiar scene, the rainbow path into her room palpitated with fresh, living light. The bells rang louder in her ears. One form had separated itself from the confused mass, and became distinct to her eyes. Allaraine dropped out of the high space, and was presently standing at her bedside. The room closed in again. The pink light disappeared. Once more the moonlight stole upon her. The night was sweet with the perfume of the lotus, and Istar wept with delight. She was there alone with Allaraine, her brother of the skies.
Through the long hours he ministered to her, holding the cup of water to her lips, plaiting up the heavy masses of hair that swept the floor at her side. And when the last agony came upon her, his voice held her fast to the thread of her strange existence. Finally, at the night's end, it was he who put into her arms the living one whom she had brought into the world.
Bending over them both, the god blessed the child and kissed the mother's brows before he went his way out into space, leaving behind him a trail of song that was sweeter than the perfume of the jasmine. There, from the spot into which he flew, the day broke, and the moon fainted on the western horizon. Istar's heart throbbed with a great, new peace and a human love. Life was no longer strange to her. The bringing of it forth brought her understanding of its richness. And, as the child on her breast lay sleeping, so at last her own eyes closed, until, while the light brightened and the great city woke again, the soul of Istar was at peace.
At sunrise a flood of yellow beams poured into the little room, illuminating everything in it, throwing a halo over the motionless figures of the mother and child on their well-ordered couch. Suddenly the smooth light was broken by a shadow that darkened the door-way. A man stood there on the threshold, peering into the room. His bright, black eyes travelled swiftly over the scene, resting last on the bed. He gave then a sudden, swift start. Glancing quickly behind him to make sure that he was alone, he took a single noiseless step inside, and, inch by inch, moved to the couch, bending over it till the end of his grizzled beard all but touched the cheek of Istar.
As if the glance of the intruder could be felt through the unconsciousness of sleep, Istar stirred restlessly. The infant on her breast gave forth a faint cry and opened its deep eyes upon the morning world. Thereat the Jew, in timely fright, turned and scurried hastily from the room, escaping Istar's glance by no more than three seconds.
And as Istar, deeply disturbed, looked out upon the world, she suddenly caught her little one close to her in her protecting arms, murmuring gently:
"O God! O God! I give Thee praise! Spare me this inestimable gift! Leave me for my joy this little life of mine--and take all that Thou hast given else, great Father!"
XI
FROM THE HOUSE OF HEAVEN
When Daniel was far beyond the range of Istar's vision he did not lessen the rapidity of his gait. Rather, he increased it, till the last five yards of his descent of the ziggurat were done in a quick run; and the few people already abroad in the square of Istar looked up in amazement to see the unkempt figure of the slinking Jew advancing at an eager trot across the open space and into the a-Ibur-Sabu.
Beltishazzar, however, had at that time little thought for the opinions of the people whom he passed. The one thing that he desired above all others, the thing that had assumed a place paramount to his disinterested historical desires--the downfall of Babylon and the freeing of his race--had come to pass. Moreover, the accomplishment of it was, apparently, by the will of God alone. Surely no man earnestly wishful of attaining to a certain end ever arrived at it by simpler or more thorough process. It was a miracle. It required no explanation, no twisting of facts, no blustering denunciations. Who would ask stronger proof of the mortality of this impostor than the sight of her child, and her own weakness? Reverence for the mother-love, for its beauty, for heart's peace, did not occur to the prophet. He felt that Istar's great sin, her tremendous fraud, her immense daring, were things that a statesman might secretly marvel at, possibly admire, in a way. But naturally these feelings would never be expressed.
In such a course wound Daniel's triumphant thoughts as he hurried with them down the wide street towards the palace of the high-priest of Bel.
It was unusually early in the day for an interview with Amraphel; and of this the Jew had scarcely stopped to think when he halted before the outer gate of the ecclesiastical dwelling. The night-guards had not yet made way for the more gorgeously attired eunuchs of the day; but the Jew was too familiar a figure to all Amraphel's household to be denied admittance by any of his servants. There was some little doubt expressed as to their lord's having risen. But the doubts were couched in reverent terms, and shortly the lean and ill-kempt Jew was ushered through the vast, empty courts and halls, to the little dining-room of the high-priest's private suite.
Only two slaves, servitors, were in this room when the visitor entered it; and these were busy preparing for the arrival of the master. The wrought ivory and ebony couch had already been drawn up before the table on which various fruits were laid out. And shortly after Daniel made his appearance; a place was added to the table and an arm-chair drawn to it, evidently for him. He would have seated himself, when there came a sound of steps in the passage-way, and Amraphel, white-robed and whiter-bearded, came in, followed by two cringing slaves bearing the long-handled feather fans in use even at this early season. Beltishazzar read the priestly mood at sight. It bore small relation to that benign and fatherly manner assumed for the morning sacrifice, and coming on naturally of an evening, after the long day of adulation and worship.
Daniel almost prostrated himself on the old man's entrance, and got in return a slight acknowledgment of his presence, and the words: