"And I am Istar, a woman, sent of God to be punished on earth."
"Unveil thyself, woman. Let me behold that face that the world has worshipped."
Istar rose. She was trembling slightly in her great shame. Yet there was no hesitation in her movements. With a dexterous twist she flung off her veil and stood revealed before the conqueror in all her unspeakable ugliness.
Cyrus let a cry escape him. "Thou! Thou art not Istar of Babylon!"
She folded both hands across her breast and her dim eyes closed. "I am Istar of Babylon," she said, softly.
After the shock of first seeing her, the king had looked away. Now, as she stood there before him, mute and motionless, he struggled with himself to let his eyes return to her without outward betrayal of his feeling. When finally he looked again his brown orbs were clear and calm, and he showed no sign of repulsion. For one, two, three minutes he looked upon her face till, in spite of the frightful complexion, he began to perceive its fundamental beauty. Of her eyes, only, he could not judge. They were swollen, red, matterated, nearly closed. Otherwise he knew from what he saw that she had once been rarely beautiful.
Only--always--she was hideous now--hideous beyond belief.
Knowing well his mind, how she revolted him, how strong was his desire to leave her presence, Istar still stood before the great king. It was her final mortification, and even her going forth from the temple of Bel under Amraphel's lash had not been so terrible to her as this. Yet now, by degrees, as if a magnetic current passed between them, some understanding of what she underwent came home to the warrior. Compassion and pity took the place of horror. His face grew very gentle, and, moving to Istar's side, he laid one hand on her cotton-clad shoulder.
"Istar, thou hast greatly suffered. Is it not so?"
She shrank back from his touch as if she knew all that the move had cost him. But the question she answered freely, without hesitation.
"I have suffered, yea, by day and by night, for many months. I doubted the wisdom of the Lord, and I am punished. I became mortal. I loved; and that that I loved more than myself death hath taken from me. Fame, honor, riches, purity, love, and beauty are gone. Nothing now remains.
The end draws near. From afar I hear the voice of my beloved calling me.
"Thou, O king, great king, lord of the gate of God, art at the zenith of thy glory. Thy greatest victory is won. Thy time here is not much longer. After thee come two that shall dispute the throne, and they shall fare forth from the world in the bloodshed of murder and self-murder. After them cometh one greater than either, that shall enter Babylon from another country. For him the sun grows golden. He shall put down usurpers from his seat; and for a little while shall hold and rule the kingdom with a strong and mighty hand. And then--I see the city slowly sink--under the weight of time. One more conqueror she shall know: a youth of iron from a land of gold. And he shall set the world aghast with his conquests; but he shall find his tomb there within the Great City of his conquering. After him the East grows black. The rose shall wither unseen upon her tree. Even to the banks of the great river blow thick the desert sands. Walls and palaces shall crumble away. And upon the broken stairs of the tower of Bel a jewel of great price lies for many centuries unheeded in the universal desolation. And for centuries, Achaemenian, thou shalt sleep, ere thou art known again as king of Babylon--the city of my lord."
With the ending of her vision Istar smiled slowly upon him that watched her with troubled eyes. As the spell passed she trembled, and, stooping, picked up the veil that lay about her feet. Cyrus moved forward as if he would have stopped her.
"Speak on! Let me hear again that that thou hast foretold. Such prophecy as this no seer of my court hath ever made."
But Istar's fire was gone. The light in her face died away, and in its death Cyrus read her answer to his plea. Then she wrapped herself again in the covering that hid her plight, and from it, as from behind a mask, she spoke again:
"Thou, O Cyrus, who hast beheld me in mine ugliness, must carry with thee the memory of it forever. Yet know that Istar of Babylon hath humbled herself before thee as before no living man. My king is dead. In his place, by reason of thy gentleness and justice, I hail thee lord of Chaldea and of Babylon." And thereupon, before Cyrus understood what she did or could prevent the act, Istar knelt at his feet and touched them, the right and the left, with her forehead, in the manner of the day.
With a quick exclamation Cyrus lifted her up; but she spoke gently to him, saying:
"That that was written have I done. Censure me not. I but obeyed my law.
Now fare thee well, O king. The end cometh, and I go forth to meet it."
"Nay, Istar--hold! One question more! Thou, his wife, art accused of the murder of the king of Babylon, whom I commanded to be brought before me living and unhurt from the feast in the temple. How dost thou answer this accusation?"
"Who hath accused me of the deed?"
"The priest of Bel."
"Amraphel?"
"Yea."
"Then I ask thee only why I should have killed him that my soul loves as it loved not God?"
"Knowest thou, then, the murderer?"
"He that accused me shall, in God's time, answer to that charge. But thou, Cyrus, see that thou punish him not. Thy hands are red with the blood of many slain in battle; and shall the slayer accuse the slayer?
Now speak no more to me. I return again to the city."
In spite of her last bidding, Cyrus, slightly angered by her perfect assurance, would have spoken again, had he not found it to be a physical impossibility. It was in his heart to accuse her of his own accord of the death of Belshazzar. Yet he could not voice the thought. As she left the tent he moved after her to the door-way, whence he could look over the plain to the walls of the city. He saw the black-robed figure glide unaccosted through the camp and beyond it, in the direction that Amraphel had taken more than an hour before. And as he watched her Cyrus felt a great reverence spring up in his heart, and in the after-wonder at her bearing and her words he forgot how she had looked. And presently, as he stood there lost in thought, Bardiya came to his shoulder, asking, softly:
"My father, is she all that men have said?"
Cyrus hesitated in his reply. Finally, after a long pause, he answered of his own will: "More wonderful than any have said. She is a woman sent of God."
XXII
AT THE GATE
Istar went quietly over the plain towards the gate of Bel, by which she purposed re-entering Babylon, intending to pass the night in some one of the temples, those refuges for all the outcast paupers of the Great City. As she went, she thought upon Cyrus the king and her talk with him, and also of the prophecy that had been put into her mouth.
When she left the conqueror's tent her mind had been at rest. She had neither fear nor desire. But now, as she drew near the city gate, and could hear, as from a great distance, sounds of life coming from the rebit, or market, held outside Nimitti-Bel, she quickened with uneasiness and excitement. Coming nearer, she perceived that there was a great gathering in the mart, and it seemed to her that, over the general murmur of buyers and venders, one single voice was speaking. She did not recognize the tall, white-robed figure standing in the very centre of the throng, gesticulating as he spoke; nor could her ears distinguish any of his words. Quietly enough she came along her way, instinctively knowing that danger threatened her; while, in the square, Amraphel of Bel spoke to the gathering crowd of Babylonians and Jews, some of whom he himself had brought, some of whom had been here in any case, all of whom were now waiting for the inevitable return of Istar to the city.
It was in this wise that Amraphel addressed them:
"Hear ye, men and women! Listen, and heed the word!" He paused, while the noise in the market-place grew gradually less. "Listen and heed, and obey my word!
"Now comes there among you one from the camp of Kurush the conqueror, who, in shame of guilt, hath not been equalled in the Great City. The woman of Babylon, the witch, the disciple of Namtar the plague-demon; she by whose hand Nabonidus and Belshazzar both have fallen; she who for so long polluted the holy sanctuary of Istar; she who, in her nameless wrath, visits the city with the great death; she who hath lain for days in the camp of the conqueror, vainly weaving her spells about his dauntless heart; she who hath, in sacrilege, been called Istar of Babylon, would now come once more among ye.
"My people, will ye let her in among your dead in the city? Will ye again receive her that hath wrought this infinite woe? Will ye not, rather, in the names of the great gods, drive her forth from the city gates with stones and scourges, as from your hearths by night you exorcise Namtar her companion?
"Behold, there comes she among you, even now, black-veiled. In the name of Bel, our god, I bid ye drive her from your presence here in Babilu!"
Hardly comprehending at first the violent words of the high-priest, the people had listened open-mouthed. When, however, they understood that she whom he had designated as the incarnation of all evil was coming among them from the camp of the Elamite, there was a quick struggle to reach the front rank of the crowd. As yet the Babylonians were moved by curiosity rather than by wrath, for they were a slow people and not unreasonable. The Jews, however, as many as were there, were of a different temperament, and it was they that began, little by little, to raise that ominous, angry murmur that will quicken a mob to violence sooner than any speech of a professional anarch.
Among the throng was Charmides the Greek, come out an hour before to buy barley for his house, and remaining to chat for a time with the cheery countrymen that were unaffected by the depression of the city. Charmides had heard the words of Amraphel with a natural sense of horror, and now turned to look incredulously over the plain. There, fifty yards away, was she for whom he and Bazuzu had vainly sought since morning. There indeed was she, the tall, slight, black-clothed figure, advancing slowly towards the gate. In obedience to a quick impulse, Charmides ran hastily forth from the square and placed himself before her in her path. The ominous shouts of the mob behind him came clearly to his ears, but he paid no heed to them. He was within five feet of her before Istar recognized him from behind her heavy veil. Then immediately she spoke to him, in the poor, cracked voice that contained not a trace of its former melody.
"Comest thou from the city to meet me, O Greek? Among so many, yet I shall not lose my way."
"Lady Istar, turn thou back. Turn away from the gate! Amraphel there incites the mob to take thy life. Therefore be warned. Come thou with me. I will support you. We will enter the city later by another way."
Istar stopped and hesitated a little. She lifted her eyes to look at the great throng in the rebit, and she could read their intent from the attitude they took. Then she turned again to Charmides, who would have taken her about the body to help her on in her weakness.
"Nay, Greek!" She started back from him. "Lay not thy hand upon me! My very flesh is accursed! Thou givest timely warning, yet I go up to meet them that hate me. Have I not said the end is near? Seek not to hold the blessed freedom from me. Let us go up to meet them at the gate."
Startled by the calm determination of her manner, Charmides could find no fitting remonstrance for her. Indeed, he knew at once that it were useless to attempt to combat her will. More, he felt it to be irreverent. Keeping, then, close at her side, hoping to shield her with his own body from those in the market-place, he walked with her up the gradual ascent to the gate. At first their approach was watched with murmurs of disapproval. The angry prejudice of the Jews was beginning to extend to the Babylonians also, and momentarily Charmides expected the first stone. But as she approached something in the bearing of the veiled woman stilled the voice of the mob. She was coming among them apparently without either fear or hesitation. It was perhaps her fearlessness that sent the little tremor of shame into the minds of most of the company. Amraphel saw this almost instantly, and quickly set to work. There was a slight movement along the face of the mob, and when Istar stood within fifteen feet of them she found herself confronted by a solid line of Jews that looked upon her with a cold impassivity that foreboded an evil ending to this strange hour.
Seeing that her way was barred, and by what immovable men, Istar finally halted. She looked about her from side to side, betraying for the first time a little uncertainty of manner. It was as if the guiding spirit that had so far led her was suddenly gone; as if at last she was alone, unprotected, mentally and physically, before an inimical world. With a little gesture of bewilderment she turned to the Greek at her side.
"Charmides," she said, faintly, "what do they here? Why do they oppose my coming?"