Istar of Babylon Part 31

"Yea."

"Oho! Then I give thee this, to be"--the boy put a mysterious finger to one side of his nose and whispered so softly that the woman bent over to catch his words--"to be delivered to Amraphel, my lord, in council--if thou knowest the place." And he held up a neat little brick, covered with exquisitely minute writing and elaborately sealed.

Bunanitum, growing rather large over the affair, took the epistle with a nod. "I know," she whispered, in return, and the boy, with an answering look, turned as if to go away.

The woman, hasty with her new importance, did not stay to watch his departure. She turned about and started for the back part of the house, leaving the outer room quite empty for the s.p.a.ce of three minutes. And during that three minutes Baba brought her plan to a successful issue.

No one saw the little letter-carrier enter the shop. Still less did any one know when he darted out of it and back into the maze of corridors and rooms behind. Here, in a well-chosen corner, very dimly lighted, Baba huddled herself up, to await the return of Bunanitu to her post of duty, which would leave the whole rear of the house open to inspection.

Shortly the Jewess could be seen pa.s.sing quickly along an adjoining hall-way, on her way back to the shop, whither she had been hastily sent by her son. And when she was gone, Baba, with a long breath, left her hiding-place. The most uncertain and perhaps the most dangerous part of her work was over; but the important half of it remained still to be done. She was confident of the efficacy of her disguise; and she was free to move rapidly in her scant tunic with her black-stained, bare limbs, and her flowing hair crammed under a woolly, black wig.

Nevertheless her heart beat violently as she left her corner and began to search for the room where the secret council would sit, or for some hiding-place where the sound of voices would come to her ears. She had proceeded nearly to the back wall of the house, and was beginning to fear that the council-room was too well concealed for discovery, when a faint murmur of talking reached her ears. It came, apparently, from somewhere below, and, with the first murmurous sound, Baba stopped short to look about.

The room where she stood was large, almost dark, and scantily furnished.

Its walls, however, were hung with elaborate draperies, and its floors covered with costly rugs. Save for two or three inlaid chairs, with embroidered cushions and carven feet, the room was empty of furniture.

But from somewhere, and somewhere below, came that unceasing murmur of conversation. The intruder examined her surroundings from floor to ceiling. Then she looked all round the walls, and finally back again to the floor. Here, on a certain spot, her eyes stopped. It was where the corner of a great crimson rug was turned up, as if it had been hastily laid. And by this upturned corner was a black spot that was not shadow.

In the dim light Baba could distinguish nothing very clearly; but she moved noiselessly across to this place, and found when she came to it that the voices had become definite, and she could hear what was being said. There was a square opening in the floor, all but four or five inches of which was quite concealed by the rug.

Without any hesitation Baba threw herself flat down, and then, realizing to the full the risk that she ran, pushed the rug yet farther away from the opening, put her face close to it, and looked down.

Below was a good-sized vault, made, probably, in the brick platform on which the house stood. It was well lighted with torches and lamps, hung with richly embroidered tapestry, and ceiled with glazed bricks of bright colors. Its furniture consisted of piles of rugs and cushions on which, seated in an orderly circle, sat, not nine, but fourteen men, all but four of whom wore the goat-skin. Baba did not know them all, even by sight; but half were familiar figures, and the other half--well, Ribata should tell her their names to-night, after her description. Those that she knew were Amraphel, Vul-Raman of Nebo and Nergal, Larissib-Sin of Marduk, Zir-Iddin of Shamash at Sippar, Siatu-Sin, Itti-Bel, and Gula-Zir, together with Beltishazzar the Jew and his fellows Kalnea and young Kabtiya of the house of egibi; and the rest were one more hawk-eyed fellow of the tribe of Judah, and five priests, none of them above the rank of elder.

In her first downward glance Baba perceived that Amraphel had in his hand the brick letter that she herself had sent him; and evidently its contents had been surprising enough to displace the former topic of discussion and to raise a storm of talk. Amraphel and Beltishazzar were silent, waiting, with more or less patience, for a chance of being heard. After a little time this opportunity came, for the majority of those present were too ignorant of their subject to be particularly instructive; and at last they quieted, one by one, and turned to the place where their leaders sat.

Amraphel spoke the first words that Baba was able to catch definitely, and from that time on there was nothing that she did not hear and remember.

"Now that ye take council with silence, men of emptiness, learn of me that there is little enough danger in the fact, even if it be true, that Belshazzar has taken the woman of Babylon to wife. Answer me severally one by one, if there has been in any of your temples a rumor of such a marriage made by any of its priests. Siatu-Sin--dost thou remember?"

"Nay, Lord Amraphel."

This answer was repeated by every priest present. Then, in the little pause that followed before Amraphel went on, Daniel, with a faint smile, observed:

"Yesterday, at four hours after noon, Kasmani, second sacrificial priest of the temple of Sin, entered the gates of Nabu-Nahid's palace, and drove away again in an hour in the golden chariot of Prince Belshazzar."

Every one looked to Amraphel for his idea of this information. The high-priest only smiled, in slow indifference, and continued: "The woman of Babylon desires, then, to be queen in the Great City. A queen is not a G.o.ddess; and yet I say unto you that she shall never be queen. She whom I drove forth yesterday from the temple is fallen ill under her disgrace. This morning at dawn came to me Nergal-Yukin, rab-mag of the king's household, for a charm to ward off a fever from a divine lady."

Here Amraphel hesitated for the fraction of a second, while a thin smile spread over Daniel's keen face. "That charm--" he urged.

"That charm," said Amraphel, carefully, "was what the great Elamite would have desired."

"The sword?" demanded Vul-Raman, bluntly.

"Ten drops of the liquor from an adder's fang, to be rubbed upon a p.r.i.c.k in the left wrist at sunset to-day."

Baba gasped; but from the men a.s.sembled below there was only a quick round of applause.

"By dawn to-morrow there will be no more of 'Istar of Babylon,'"

observed Daniel, satisfaction oiling his tone.

"And the Great City is open to its savior," concluded Siatu-Sin.

Now Baba was in a sudden agony to escape, for she felt that the life of Istar rested in her hands. Yet sunset was still many hours away, and the talk that was beginning gave signs of proving exactly what Ribata had told her to hear. Therefore from minute to minute she lingered on in her place, while the story of treachery and blood-guiltiness was made clear to her, and it seemed as if, with the evidence in her hands, it must soon be possible to have these men put to death without imprisonment and with a mere form of trial. And had it been two centuries earlier this might perhaps have been arranged. But Babylon was not Nineveh, and the power of Nabonidus was not that of the old monarchs of Chaldea; neither was the king by nature a tyrant, or even a strict ruler. And possibly because of these things, and only because of them, these councils were ventured at all.

"What is the last word from Kurush?" demanded Salathiel the Jew, of Amraphel.

There was a general little murmur of interest, and a settling down upon the cushions as if for a lengthy talk.

"Kurush," said Amraphel, with all the authority of Cyrus himself, "is now in the marsh country south of Teredou, and from there he despatches a letter to us. Ye shall hear it."

Amraphel drew from the pocket of his broad girdle a clay tablet, slightly larger than those in general use for letters, and covered with neatly pressed cuneiform characters. This, with the aid of a small, round magnifying-gla.s.s, always used in correspondence, he read aloud to those a.s.sembled--and to Baba above:

"'Unto Amraphel, high servant of the ancient G.o.ds of Babylon, and to those that are with him, thus saith Kurush the Achaemenian: With me it is well. With thee and thy houses may it be exceeding well. Now I, the king, lie secretly in the country to the south of the city of Teredou, not far from the gulf of the setting sun. And here, from the east and from the north, the army will a.s.semble about me. The people in the land are poor and ill-content. Little grain have they to eat, and short measure of milk to drink. The king their lord knows them not. To me they turn, in their extremity. Soon shall ye learn of revolts among the dwellers in the lowlands: know, then, that it will be by my hand. After this we will march northward, towards the gates of the Great City.

"'Gobryas, my general, the governor of Gutium, is in the north. Before him, in the month of Duzu (June), Sippar and its works shall fall.

"'Look to it only that ye hold Babylon estranged from its king. She whom we have feared--doth she bear herself yet divinely? The captive Jews that are in the city, greet them well for me. Tell them that, after my coming, those that open to me the Great City shall know again the land of their fathers and their fathers' fathers. And those of the Babylonians that shall acclaim me master, to each of these shall be given out of the public moneys thirty shekels of silver; but to the great that bow before shall be given high offices, honor, and much wealth. And in the month of Ab, Queen of the Bow, shall Babylon know me.'"

The seal of Cyrus was affixed to the end of the epistle; and the brick was pa.s.sed round the circle, that each man present might be sure that it was genuine.

Now began a discussion that proved tedious and scarcely comprehensible to Baba. It was about numbers and divisions of men, and was accompanied by the reading of endless lists of names, and the checking of each as true or untrue to the cause of rebellion. And after listening to this talk until she found that it would be utterly hopeless for her to attempt to remember anything valuable in it, Baba rose, pulled the rug carefully back to its original place, listened for a moment to make sure that she was undiscovered, and then, with the utmost caution, made her way to the rear door of the house, which she unfastened, and through which she safely pa.s.sed. Once outside, in the glare of day, her heart afire with anxiety for Istar, she started away, in a light-running pace, up through the city that she knew so well. Through the Traders' square, across the ca.n.a.l of the Prophet, along the river-bank for an endless distance she ran, till she came to the great bridge, across which loomed the high, blue walls of the new palace.

The sun was swinging down towards the horizon now, and the life of Istar swung with it in its balance, when the dishevelled figure of Ribata's slave halted at the palace gates and demanded the admission that her disguise gained for her.

XIII

THE RAB-MAG

Through the whole of the day following her expulsion from the temple, Istar, wife of Belshazzar the prince royal, lay in her newly a.s.signed bedroom in the far wing of the palace, in a profound stupor. She was unconscious, apparently, of everything around her--of Belshazzar, sitting at her bedside; of the child that lay wailing on her arm; of the peace and the orderly quiet of this new home. The spell of her mighty shame and woe was over her. She had broken under it like the reed in the storm. Everything that had pa.s.sed since she was driven by the blows of the ox-goad out into the day-glare on top of the ziggurat, had been but a dim vision to her. Physically, she was very ill. This was not wonderful. But Belshazzar, mad with rage at the whole of the priesthood, and overwhelmed with pity for the woman he loved as only he would have dared to love, was beside himself with anxiety. All night the rab-mag of his father's household, the most renowned charm-doctor in Babylonia, had watched beside him in her room; had repeated prayers and formulae without number; and had burned beans, leeks, barley, cakes, b.u.t.ter, frankincense, and liquor, till the room smelled indescribably, and Belshazzar himself, resorting to common-sense, ordered a dozen slaves to clear the atmosphere with fans and with pungent strong-waters. In the new air Istar seemed to breathe more easily, and had even moved her lips, though no sound issued from them. Then Belshazzar commanded the rab-mag to depart until daylight, when he should return with new wisdom.

Thereupon Nergal-Yukin, half angry, half ashamed, wholly chagrined, went forth through the silent streets to the house of Amraphel. Here he was made to undergo a change of feeling. The priest recognized an opportunity in the first three sentences that the doctor spoke, and instantly took advantage of it. He set to work to play upon the alchemist's feelings, and such was his success that presently, by means of sympathy for the insults he had endured and promises of dazzling wealth, coupled with righteous denunciations of Istar as the queen of darkness, of wickedness, of all the vices, the learned man found his price, bent the knee before his preceptor, and hied him back to his den of charms, where, kept in a convenient cage, was an adder, dwelling effectively among the other insignia of this awe-inspiring profession.

Nergal-Yukin did not re-enter Belshazzar's presence that morning; but he sent a slave to say that he was preparing a new and infallible charm, that could not, to be most efficacious, be applied before the hour of sunset. Belshazzar was pleased with the message; perhaps not less pleased because it gave him the chance of being alone at Istar's side all through the day. Not for one moment did he leave or even turn his thoughts from her. Councillors and courtiers, officials and judges, tax-collectors, officers of his regiment, treasurer and usurers, were kept from his presence by peremptory command. He refused food for himself; but he made an effort to force something between Istar's pallid lips--and in the attempt succeeded in rousing her for a moment from her stupor. As he knelt by her side, supporting her head upon his arm, his hand, unsteady with an emotion that none would have believed possible to him, holding the cup of warm milk to her mouth, Istar's great eyes opened and she looked at him. There was a fulness in Belshazzar's throat that presently broke into a sob. Blindly he groped in the realm of prayer for some words into which he could put his heart. And his will rose up in him, till he would have pitted himself against all the powers of h.e.l.l for the sake of saving the life of this woman who was lawfully and spiritually his own.

"You shall not die--you shall not die--not die!" he muttered, over and over again.

Then Istar sank back upon her many pillows. The heavy lids once more shut off her wonderful eyes from his sight. Her face was colorless and drawn. He could trace with ease the course of each tiny blue vein in her fair temples. He looked at her hands--so white, so transparent, so frailly beautiful; and over them he bent his head, touching them with his lips. As he kissed them there came a wail from the baby.

Instinctively, half conscious as she was, Istar gathered the child to her side, while he, the man, looked on, wondering and helpless.

Noon, with its breathless, stifling heat, came and went again. An hour after it a slave tiptoed into the room and whispered a name to Belshazzar. The prince's expression brightened a little. "Let him come in to me," he said, softly.

A moment or two afterwards Ribata noiselessly entered the room.

Belshazzar held out both hands, greeting his friend with such an air of weary helplessness that Ribata stared at him uncomfortably.

"Name of the great Marduk, Belshazzar, what is come to thee?" he asked, holding his friend at arm's-length and looking into his face with a mixture of sympathy and perplexity.

"Hush! Curb thy voice! She will be disturbed."