Istar of Babylon Part 39

"Give us our tribute, Kurush!" sneered the Jew, scorning the scene.

"Take what was promised you," answered the conqueror, slowly.

Belti-shar-uzzur stepped forward exultantly and would have put out his hand to touch Nabonidus' arm, when the old man quickly turned from him and cast himself at Cyrus' feet.

"Thou wearest, there at thy waist, a knife, O conqueror! Let it by thy hand rest in my heart!" he cried out. "Send me not forth, great king, in the power of these two, or I die terribly! I die alone, in the night, with none to close my eyes!"

Cyrus turned his head away. "Take the prisoner from my sight, ye dogs, or I will hold ye both here also! Take him from me!"

At this Daniel, starting forward, threw himself on the kneeling king, caught him about the meagre body, swung him up to shoulder, and would have started out of the tent when Amraphel stopped him.

"The gag," he muttered, sharply.

Bardiya started forward, his hand on his sword; but his father, catching him by the girdle, held him in a grasp of iron till the operation was over and the piece of wood lay in Nabu-Nahid's mouth, fastened there with a white bandage. His hands and feet were also bound with leathern thongs, and after this the body, now as helpless as a log, was borne out into the night in the arms of the Jew. Then Cyrus and his sons were left alone, nor, during the remainder of that unhappy night, did they speak one to another.

In the mean time Daniel had carried the king to where, some yards from the entrance of the royal tent, there stood a closed litter, such as was used by women of rank. Beside it, as it rested on the ground, were its four bearers, stalwart men, m.u.f.fled from head to foot in white--slaves of the house of Amraphel. None of these mute, dark-faced creatures stirred as their master returned to them with his companion and his companion's burden. Only, as they came close, the foremost fellow silently threw back the curtain from one side of the basket-like couch.

Daniel stooped and laid the body of the king on his back on the cushions inside. The king closed his eyes. The curtain was lowered and Amraphel gave the signal. The four slaves seized the poles and, softly singing their working-chorus, raised their burden waist-high and began their walk back to the gate of Sand.

It was a twenty-minute walk, and was accomplished without adventure.

When they came to a halt outside the gate, Nabonidus, anxiously listening, could hear nothing but a suggestion of whispering between Amraphel and some one whom he believed to be the captain of the gate.

Presently their way was resumed, and the company pa.s.sed into the city. A little distance inside, the litter stopped again and was set down on the ground. The curtains were thrown back, Daniel bent again over the king, took him about the body, and, lifting him, laid him in one of two chariots that stood waiting. In his single fleeting glance Nabonidus recognized both of these as belonging to Amraphel's house. The king lay in the one that Daniel entered. From the other, where Amraphel stood, came presently the long, peculiar cry for the starting of the horses.

Daniel's driver echoed it. The animals sprang forward, and the long drive through the city began.

In spite of the jolting misery of that ride, Nabonidus preferred it to the litter. Air came freely to his lips, and now he could see a little of what they pa.s.sed. The moon was well up in the unclouded sky, lighting the fields and streets of the Great City for the last pa.s.sage of her last native king. Nabonidus' heart was full, but he did not weep. The end to which he was going was unknown. Yet this, for him, was, as he knew well, the last sight of his beloved city. Still, even as he went, the moonlight fell athwart the sapphire charm that hung upon his neck, and sent forth a thin gleam of the blue light of hope--a hope that could not be brought to fulfilment by anything short of a miracle.

The horses on both the chariots were swift, and it took scarcely a half-hour to reach the second gate of Sand in Imgur-Bel. Through this they pa.s.sed without parley, and the journey across the inner city was begun. They had entered Babylon at the extreme west, a little to the north of the ca.n.a.l of the New Year, which, as they drove, could be seen in the distance, shining clear as silver frost in the moonlight, reflecting in its placid surface the shadowy black buildings near it on either side. Ribata's house was too far distant to be seen; and the tenement of Ut rose tall and gaunt a long way to the south. Ten minutes later the hurrying vehicles clattered into the a-Ibur-Sabu. They continued along the famous way for little more than a quarter of a mile, and then turned to the east again, till, at something near eleven o'clock, they came to a halt beside a small, neglected building on the bank of the river Euphrates: mighty Euphrates whose Chaldaic waves were of tears to-night. Here, evidently, was their destination. Nabonidus, aching in every joint, groaning wretchedly in his heart, was lifted again in Daniel's arms. He had one glance at the river and the group of royal buildings cl.u.s.tered thereon but a little distance away. For one instant the three famous palaces and the mound of the hanging gardens met his eyes. Then they were lost to him, for the world swam and grew black, and he fainted.

Two minutes later, when he returned into a dim consciousness, he was in a place that he soon came to recognize. It was the temporary abode of his strange G.o.ds. The interior, lighted by two torches, that burned blue and ghostlike on the bare brick walls, was utterly forlorn. The walls, floors, and ceiling were of crumbling gray brick, unrelieved by a single color or attempt at ornament; and the usually open door-way was now closed by a black curtain. So much he saw in the first moment of arrival. In the next he realized that the gag had been taken from his mouth and that his arms were being unbound. In the third the voice of Amraphel was heard, bidding him rise. Obediently he made the attempt, got, with much effort, to his feet, reeled blindly, and was saved from falling again by Daniel. Amraphel's lip curled. Nevertheless he helped the old man to sit down with his back to the wall. Then, when Nabonidus had blinked a little and grown steadier as to his head, the high-priest stood over him and spoke:

"Thou, O weak one, hast been king of the Great City. King of her shalt thou be nevermore. Here thou art, alone, unheard, unseen, in my power and the power of the captive Jew. Death hangs over thy head; yet by one means thou mayst save thyself. Wilt thou hear?"

Nabonidus, looking at him steadily, nodded.

Amraphel continued: "No man, Nabonidus, either fears or loves thee. Thy power over the people of the Great City does not by one-twentieth equal mine. But at thy pa.s.sing there are two--two whom I hate--and, I say it, fear--that will struggle for the crown thou hast borne. One of these thou hast seen to-night--the Achaemenian. The other is the child of thy flesh, not of thy spirit--Belshazzar the prince. Nabu-Nahid, if thou to-night wilt swear, on penalty of the curse of all the G.o.ds, to remove thy son and thy son's wives, and thyself and thy wives, and all thy household, from the royal palace, and wilt swear that thou and he will go forth in peace out of the Great City, to return no more to it forever, if thou wilt do this--"

"Thou fool!"

Amraphel faced round. "What sayest thou, Jew?"

"Thou fool! Wilt thou put faith in the word of a man in the death fear?

Wilt thou play me false? There was to be no choice here to-night. Mine eyes were to behold the blood of the enemy of my race. He shall find no mercy--or, if he finds it, then thou shalt not!"

Amraphel grew white with anger; but, before he spoke again, Nabonidus had struggled to his feet and stood supporting himself against the wall, gazing with fiery eyes at his enemy.

"I also say it:--thou fool!" he said. "Think you, indeed, that because I am old and feeble, and in the power of traitors, I would sell the birthright of my son? Thou fool!"

At these words Daniel turned to the old man and looked thoughtfully at him. But Amraphel, with a sneer, advanced a step or two, and said, in a soft and menacing voice: "The hour is come, Nabu-Nahid. Prepare thyself!"

"O Bel! Receive my spirit into the silver sky!"

Slowly Daniel drew his knife, but Amraphel was before him. Nabonidus saw the weapon of his enemy flash in the torch-light. The gleam of it pa.s.sed over his deathly face. Just at the moment of the blow, a faint cry left his lips. Then a long spurt of heart's blood shot from the body. There was a sickening gasp--a fall--and the flesh only was there with the murderers. Nabu-Nahid had gone. Belshazzar was king in Babylon.

The Jew had gone rather sick, and Amraphel himself was white to the lips. "Let us go forth," he muttered, unsteadily.

"Fool!" said Daniel, for the second time. "Wilt thou leave here the body of the king, that all Babylon may look on it at dawn? Shall thy charioteer and mine say who it was that brought Nabonidus here? Thou hast struck the blow. Hast thou lost strength to finish the work?"

Amraphel caught at his nerves and said: "What is there to be done?"

Daniel's lip curled, but he did not reply in words. Pa.s.sing into a far corner of the temple, he took up two fallen bricks that lay there and brought them over to the body. At the sight Amraphel came to his senses.

"I will make fast this one to his feet if thou takest the hands," he said, quietly.

Accordingly Daniel drew from his girdle two more leathern thongs, and with them the weights were bound upon the body. Then the two stood back and looked at their work. Amraphel was satisfied. Not so the Jew. One more brick he fetched from the little heap in the corner and fastened it on Nabonidus' neck, never noticing that in the operation he loosened and dislodged something that had been around the throat of the king. The last task finished, he stood back once more, carefully examining the b.l.o.o.d.y corpse.

"Take out thy dagger," he said, finally, to his companion.

Amraphel shrank back. "I cannot!" he whispered.

Beltishazzar bent over and drew it from the wound. Blood followed it in a thick stream. The Jew wiped the weapon off on the skirt of Nabonidus'

robe and silently handed it to his companion. "Now--take thou the feet,"

he commanded, himself lifting the shoulders of the light body.

Revolting as it all was, Amraphel could not but obey the word of the Jew. Together they bore the body out of the temple, into the still moonlight, down to the edge of the quietly flowing river. For an instant they held it over the brink. Then, at a whisper from the Jew, they let go together. There was a splash, an eddy in the water, a little red stain on the clear stream, and then only a widening circle of ripples remained to mark the resting-place of Babylon's last king.

Late on the afternoon of the next day, Belitsum, the low-born second wife of Nabonidus, sat, as usual, in the court-yard of her part of the seraglio, in her usual canopied idleness. Morning prayers and exorcisms had been said; the daily omens looked to; all the endless details of superst.i.tion finished; and now the queen of Babylon was free to dream away the rest of the day in comparative quiet. Beside her lay a piece of unfinished embroidery, badly done; for her plebeian fingers had never taken kindly to this work of the gentle-born. Two eunuchs waved over her huge feather fans, of which the extreme size denoted her rank. Beside her sat a pretty slave with a lute in her hand, though Belitsum was paying no attention to the sweet monotony of the tune she played. The queen was lost in one of those vacant reveries in which long years of idleness and neglect had taught her to remain for hours.

Suddenly there came an interruption upon this quiet scene. A eunuch of the outer palace hurriedly entered the court, and, prostrating himself profoundly before Belitsum, asked permission to speak.

The queen was a moment or two coming out of her dreams, but she presently recovered enough to find her curiosity, and to say with some eagerness: "Speak, slave! Deliver thy message. Is it from the king?"

"May it be pleasing to the queen my lady! No word hath come from Nabu-Nahid. It is a soothsayer that comes in royal state, beseeching the ears of the queen to incline to him."

"A soothsayer?" Belitsum relapsed into tranquillity. "Let him be taken into the shrine. But also cause him to know that for this day the G.o.ds have been propitiated."

As the eunuch departed, Belitsum, who had long since lost claim to youth and the slenderness thereof, rose with an effort to her feet. "Kudua,"

she said to the slave, who had also scrambled up, "wait thou my return.

I am going to the shrine."

Kudua fell back willingly enough, while the queen, followed by her fan-bearers, waddled slowly across the court-yard towards the specially consecrated room in which any member of the royal harem might hold conference with men of the outer world. In spite of her slow pace, the queen reached the dimly lighted apartment in advance of the soothsayer; and she occupied her time till his arrival in offering up a quick prayer to Nindar, her especial deity. The Amanu had hardly been reached when two figures appeared in the door-way, one the attendant eunuch, the other a magnificently robed and coroneted man, in whom one accustomed to his usual slovenly appearance would have had great difficulty in recognizing Beltishazzar the Jew.

Belitsum, entirely ignorant of his race and station, judging him only by his dress and bearing, came forward with hasty respect, leaving her fan-bearers on either side of the small altar. At the same time Daniel, accustomed of old to the rigorous etiquette of the court, made a proper and graceful obeisance.

"Art thou indeed but a soothsayer?" inquired Belitsum, admiringly.

"No soothsayer I, lady queen of Babylon, but a prophet and a dreamer of dreams. And it is by reason of a dream sent me by the Lord of my race that I come to you, seeking audience. Open my lips, O queen, that I may tell this dream!"

"Wilt thou have gold? Wilt thou have gems and silver? How shall I open thy lips?"