Istar of Babylon Part 21

BABA

Next morning, just as the sun rose over the city, Charmides opened his eyes. If ever Charmides could be said to be lighter of heart, brighter of face, and cheerier of spirit at one time than another, it was in the very early day. The smell of the dawn, its peculiar, charming freshness, that penetrates to the very heart of the most crowded city, was as life to his soul. To-day, when he went forth for his solitary stroll by the edge of the ca.n.a.l, the air, unbreathed and dewy as it was, brought him as usual a sense of undimmed delight.

As he walked, scarcely heeding the rows of ungainly flat-boats drawn up along the edge of the ca.n.a.l, or the small army of scavenger-dogs that slept the sleep of the hungry near them, Charmides dreamed. This, indeed, was a matter of course. The morning and the sunlight would have lost half their beauty had not the thought of Ramua been in his heart.

To-day his pure pleasure in her was a little tainted by the impression that last night's revelation had made upon him, in the not very clear sense of right and wrong that it betrayed in her whom he loved. Yet he had absolute confidence in his influence over her; and, as he returned to the house, no premonition of the new trouble disturbed his happy tranquillity.

Upon recrossing the threshold of the outer room an unwonted sight met his eyes. It was still early: so early that neither the girls nor Beltani would, ordinarily, have been about. Yet here was Bazuzu, sitting near the door-way, bare-shouldered, while Baba bent over him, deftly applying a paste of bruised onions and sesame to the two blood-incrusted wounds in the slave's back. Bazuzu sat dumb and patient beneath the gentle hands; but Baba's face was drawn, and the tears rained from her eyes as she worked. Beholding them, Charmides uttered an exclamation:

"Apollo! What is it, Bazuzu? What has happened?"

There was no answer. Bazuzu did not even look up. Baba gave the Greek a wretched little glance, compressed her lips, and bent over her task again with a stifled sob.

"Baba! Bazuzu! Tell me!"

Still they were silent. But as the rhapsode, more and more bewildered, was about to question them more intelligently, the slave, lifting his eyes for an instant, muttered, indistinctly:

"To him that sleeps too well by night Nebo grants little knowledge."

"Stop, Bazuzu! I will not have thee speak so!" cried Baba, instantly resenting the suggestion.

"What is this that you say?" And Charmides, who had but half caught the slave's words, moved closer to him. Then, suddenly, a new idea struck the rhapsode. His heart shot downward for one sickening instant.

Speaking very slowly, out of his dread, he asked: "Ramua--where is she?"

Baba sobbed again; and Charmides, with a great cry, sprang to her side and laid a fierce hand on the child's shoulder. "Ramua!--Ramua! Where is she?"

Baba raised her eyes and made a sidelong gesture towards the door of the other room. Charmides followed the look, and he almost laughed with relief to see Ramua standing there in the door-way, looking at him. She was just as usual: her hair smoothly coiled and bound about her head with strips of bright cloth; her feet shod with wooden sandals; her ragged tunic fitting her slender figure closely. But Ramua's eyes were red--far more red than Baba's. She was not, however, weeping now.

Charmides thought her tears for Bazuzu, and he went to her with sympathetic phrases on his tongue and comforting tenderness in his heart. It was a shock, then, when she shrank from his approach and turned her head away. Baba, watching them both, read both their hearts; but her tightened lips let no sound escape them.

By the time that Bazuzu's shoulder was bandaged and bound up, and Charmides, stung to silence, had seated himself on his bed and bowed his head, Beltani bustled forth from her chamber, her face beaming, her whole manner breathing busy cheerfulness. As she called a loud greeting to Charmides, the youth started up in hopeful astonishment. Beltani was on her way up-stairs to the roof, however, to begin preparations for breakfast; and no one spoke as she left the room. Ramua seated herself listlessly on Bazuzu's bed, and Baba presently went to her and sat down at her side. Bazuzu, after moving vaguely about for a few minutes, crossed suddenly to the far corner and drew out the basket of flowers, now arranged in small nosegays, and sprinkled, as usual, with fresh water. At sight of them Ramua gave a faint groan, and Charmides, hearing it, jumped suddenly to his feet, strode across the floor, and confronted the two girls in a manner that showed his temper:

"Baba--Ramua--I know not my fault. Before I leave you, then, you shall tell me what it has been. Speak to me!"

Ramua's only reply was to droop her head a little lower; but Baba answered and said: "There is no fault in you, Charmides. Our trouble is not yours."

"What, then, is your trouble? Why is it not mine? Your mother smiles to-day. Is it Bazuzu, then?"

"Nay."

"Then what? What? Will you never tell me?"

"If thou wouldst know--Ramua is to be sold to-day--at a goodly price.

Therefore our mother smiles."

Baba spoke in a stupid, matter-of-fact tone, and Charmides heard her stupidly. "Ramua to be sold!" he repeated. "Ramua to--be----RAMuA!" he shouted. "RAMuA! Speak to me! Apollo! My lord! Tell me what this thing is! Tell me that this woman speaks lies to me! Apollo!"

As understanding finally came home to him, he broke into his own tongue.

Ramua's gentle, dog-like eyes were lifted for an instant only to his. In her glance Baba's words were corroborated. Charmides knew from her look that the thing was true. Then he suddenly went forward and took her into his arms.

"Ramua," he said, brightly, "I love thee. Thou shalt be my wife."

Then at last her resignation was broken through, and she caught him wildly about the neck. Clinging to him, she gave forth a long, wailing sob that seemed to have no end. Baba, white and choked, moved from her place and aimlessly crossed the room to where Bazuzu crouched, nervously twisting a rosebud in his hand. Tight and yet more tightly Charmides held her whom he loved; and in that close embrace peace came upon them both. It would take more strength than my Lord Ribata had to part these two now.

At this juncture some one came upon the scene--not Ribata, but Beltani.

At the sight that met her eyes her harsh face lost its light, and Charmides was made aware of her presence by a stinging blow on the back of the neck. With the strength of a strong man she tore him away from Ramua's close embrace, thrust the girl back upon Bazuzu's pallet, and lifted her hand again to strike the Greek in the face. Charmides caught her by the wrist. Then they confronted each other, the wide, blue eyes blazing into the small, glittering, black ones. The woman's look did not falter. She seemed to have in her no sense of shame. Then Charmides, suddenly flinging her off from him, spoke two words in such a tone as he never again used towards a woman:

"Thou fiend!"

For a second Beltani cringed; but she recovered herself. With an unconcern that to the rhapsode was incomprehensible, she presently said, addressing the room generally:

"The food is ready. If any would eat, let him come up-stairs." Then, turning on her heel again, she retreated to the roof.

Not a single one of the four left behind her, disregarded the summons.

Such was Beltani's peculiar power. Baba, Bazuzu, and Ramua, went from fear. Charmides followed them, out of a sense of prudence--the prudence which told him that Ramua could only be protected if he were permitted to remain in the household. He knew also that her one chance of escape was through him; as perhaps her single desire to escape was on his account. Therefore, with a superhuman effort, he forced himself to bland attention to Beltani throughout the meal, during which the entire story of the adventures of the past night was recounted at length. Charmides'

horror at what Ramua had been through was equalled by his shame and self-reproach at having slept while she, with Bazuzu and Baniya, had stood almost at his side. He made no comments on the tale. Only, when Beltani concluded her recital with the information that at sunset on this very day Ribata would come in person to bring the gold and to take Ramua away, Charmides, seeing the girl's shiver of dread, met her look with a smile that sent the first glow of hope back to her heart. The Greek had made a very simple and feasible plan, as it seemed to him.

Ramua would go forth that morning as usual with her flowers, while he would set out towards the temple of Sin. But at nightfall, when Ribata arrived at the tenement Ut, with his manehs of gold to exchange for a soul, Ramua, for the first evening of her life, would not be under her mother's roof. Rather he, Charmides, her husband, would keep her out in the city, wherever he chose to lodge, rightfully and lawfully, and with her full consent; for there was no doubt that the priest of Sin would be quite willing to tie the marriage-cord about their wrists for such a sum as the Greek could afford to pay out of the still unemptied bag of his father.

Truly it was a pretty scheme, and an easy--so obviously easy, indeed, that it happened to occur to Beltani also, and she so arranged matters that Baba was detailed to sell the flowers on the steps of the temple of Istar, while Ramua remained at home under her mother's eye. When, at the usual hour for the departure of the workers, this forethought was displayed, Charmides began to realize his helplessness. There seemed nothing to do but to go forth as usual to the temple, to do his work there, to fill out the day as he might, and to trust to the love of Apollo to preserve her whom he loved from the fate that hung over her.

Between now and sunset were ten round hours. Cities had been taken in less time than that, did one but know how to set about it. But there was the rub. The only thing that seemed left to do--go to Ribata himself with an appeal--was a manifest absurdity. Charmides knew enough of Babylonish character for that. And even had Ribata's reputation as a roue and a roisterer not been what it was, still, the notion that he could be prevented by a mere n.o.body from acquiring a beautiful slave in such a simple manner, was something that a man of Charmides' own race would never have thought of. Ramua knew this as well as Charmides. She said good-bye to him in the door-way of the tenement Ut, her mother beside her, and Baba just behind. There was no more than a long look and his miserable whisper:

"At sunset I will be here."

He knew that she quivered at the mere mention of that hour. Then he turned abruptly away, and she could only watch him go.

Charmides went straight from the bank of the ca.n.a.l to the temple of Sin, by a much shorter way than that that held so many happy memories for him. He must accustom himself now to take his walk in solitude. Never before, however, had he realized what a dreary distance it was. The city lay about him, spread out in all its filth, ill-kept, teeming with naked, half-starved children, noisy with mongrel dogs, rattling with buffalo-carts. He saw to-day only the wretchedest and ugliest sights.

His own heart responded to the wails of every child throughout the endless walk; but he reached the temple a half-hour before his usual time.

The mercy-hour had not yet come. A sacrifice, however, was in progress, and the officiating priest called to him to play while the augurs began their work. He saw the goat quartered and its flesh cooked, while the entrails, which had been removed, were carefully examined for any special omen of good or of evil for him who offered the sacrifice. When this was over the Greek retired alone to the sanctuary, where, from the sacred image, he was to listen to the plaints of those that came to seek aid in trouble. How vain that quest was he knew too well. Yet, because this was a consecrated place, the Greek knelt to his own fair G.o.d, and prayed as a man prays once in his life, for Ramua, her honor, and his happiness.

When finally a priest came to him and opened the door in the back of the statue, Charmides' heart was a little lighter. He ascended quickly into his place, where he could look through the eyes of the G.o.d and speak through its mouth to those who knelt before it. Presently came a woman with a sick child in her arms. No conjurer had been able to help her, no G.o.d would take pity on her. Charmides told her a charm that could not fail, mentioned the price of the information, and sent her away. Then followed in rapid succession a stream of men and women, each with a tale of misery. By this time the Greek knew the types by heart, and, while he pitied, he was wearied by them. Which of them all had a heart as sore as his to-day? Alas! Could they have known that their G.o.d himself stood in the shadow of despair's black wings, would they have departed from him serene in faith, and so confident in their new-found wisdom?

However, when half the allotted mercy-time was over, there came one suppliant who, for a moment, took the Greek's thought from himself. A man, entirely m.u.f.fled in a dark mantle, his head covered with such a cloth as desert-travellers wear, entered the secluded place before the statue, prostrated himself thrice before it, finally lifted his head, and, throwing the embroidered cloth back from his face, clasped his hands in the att.i.tude of abject supplication. Charmides started to find himself gazing into the deep-blue eyes of Belshazzar, the prince royal.

"May Sin look mercifully upon me from the high place," began the suppliant, according to the ritual.

"Mercifully looks Sin upon them that approach him with humble hearts."

"Father Sin, bring peace to my heart!"

"Child of Sin, peace is to thee."

"Hear thou the woe of my spirit. Heal me, and guard me from pain."

"I hear thee. Speak."

Here the suppliant began in his own words, and Charmides listened eagerly to him; for Belshazzar, priest as he was by birthright, was not often to be found at the mercy-seat of a G.o.d in whom, in his own heart, he could have no faith. How far he had been initiated into the monstrous deceits of the church, however, the Greek could not tell. And he now spoke with a humility of which Charmides had not deemed him capable.

"Great Sin, lord of men, father of Ishtar the divine, hear and pity me!