High over her head, in the unclouded sky, a vast web of shimmering silver was spreading out and out, like a broad, firmly woven veil. It scintillated with dazzling light into Istar's upraised and half-blind eyes, yet it struck them with no pain. It was the silver sky of Babylonish dreams opening above her, while the celestial voices sang ever more softly, but ever more beautifully, the pure, swaying harmonies of the great hymn of freedom. God's presence lived in the beauty of the earthly evening scarcely less than in the splendor of that heavenly one.
In the midst of the scene of supernatural wonder, Istar sank to her knees, and there remained transfixed before the miracle that came to be enacted before her.
From out of the silver-spun cloud two figures, at first merely dense, opaque bodies of mist, began to descend from the heights, growing gradually more and more distinct in form as they came, leaving behind them a silver trail that moved and swayed, fine and threadlike, in the air, above them. As they approached her, Istar, in her ecstasy, quickly recognized them both; the one, his floating locks of deepest auburn star-crowned, his trailing garments of changing blue, carrying in his hand the sunset lyre, was Allaraine, the archetype of song. The second was more spiritual still, a storm-eyed being with thick, black locks uncrowned, clothed in misty white, girdled in silver, bearing in his hand a palm-branch of the same shimmering white metal, his face, hands, and feet showing transparently pure, while in his back, upon the left side, was a mark of brilliant light, glowing with ruby fire, and resembling a hallowed wound--the releasing dagger-stroke that had freed Belshazzar from Babylon--Belshazzar, beloved of the woman to whom he came again.
Slowly, slowly, to that infinite, sweet chorus, these two descended till their celestial feet touched earth, and Istar, with joyful greeting, rose up and went to meet them. As she held forth both maimed, mortal hands, the eyes of Allaraine glowed with sorrow, but Belshazzar's face was alight with the fulness of great joy.
"We come to thee, O woman honored of God; and thou shalt choose between us.
"I, Allaraine, thy brother, would lead thee back among thy fellows in thy great purification to the perfection of rest, of insensibility to all creation except God and His word."
"Istar, beloved, through suffering a soul, an immortal soul, hath been born in thee; and thou mayst come forth now to rest a little on the long pilgrimage that will lead thee finally back into the God whence all souls are sprung."
"Choose, Istar. Choose."
Istar turned her eyes to Allaraine and looked upon him long and earnestly, and her face grew radiant. Then, most slowly, she moved her gaze till it met with that of the great storm-orbs of Belshazzar. And in that look the worn-out body dropped from off her soul, which, clothed in garments of translucent light, began its ascent between the two messengers that had come for her. They passed, all three, above the shadowy turf, above the line of waving palms, above the glowing river which ran its threadlike course from distant Karchemish into the sunset gulf; above, finally, the towering black walls of the Great City, and so into the clouds of the silver sky, to which no mortal eye may follow them.
Through this last hour and the period of her transfiguration, Charmides, still standing at the edge of the grove of palms, had watched the figure of Istar upon the river-bank. Rejoicing in the great beauty of the evening, he waited peacefully, believing her wrapped in prayer. Nothing saw he of the celestial world that had opened to her, nothing knew of the heavenly messengers that had come. But when her body fell back upon the earth, he, thinking that she had fainted from exhaustion, ran quickly to the spot where his eyes had last beheld her. When he came to the place there was nothing there--no trace of the plague-marked form of her that had dwelt in the temple of Istar in the Great City. Long he searched there alone in the evening, till, out of the far, blue space a voice, the voice of the woman he had so worshipped, spoke to him:
"Thou faithful and true, seek for me no more; for that of me which was not is not now. But my spirit shalt thou know to be watching near thee always. Behold, I am returned unto our Father."
So, knowing all things dumbly in his heart, the young Greek obeyed her voice, and, turning slowly away, went forth from the grove of palms, and returned that night alone to his young wife in Babylon.
THE END
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Jowett's translation of Plato's _Statesman_, vol. iii., pp. 562, 571.
[2] Jowett's translation of Plato's _Phaedo_, vol. i., pp. 407, 408.
[3] 541 B.C.
[4] Herodotus gives it as higher than this, a few writers less, the greatest estimate being three hundred and seventy-five feet, the least seventy-five.
[5] "_Bit_"--tribe, or family. A general prefix to the surname.
[6] The worship of the goddess Istar began originally in the city of Erech.
[7] Her archetypal name, Istar being only a cognomen, the name given her by the people.
[8] According to the calculations of Babylonish historians.
[9] The fish-god.
[10] The incident of Nabu-Nahid's strange gods is an historical fact.
[11] Fourteen miles.
[12] An historical fact.