Nabonidus' question was fully answered, and he asked no more; but his manner did not change. Perhaps he drew himself up a little, became a little more royal, a little more angry, a little brighter of eye, a little whiter of face. The soldiers stood mute and motionless, waiting evidently for their next move to be ordered by Ludar, their leader. He, after a moment or two, nodded to them.

"Do what is commanded to be done," he said.

In a breath Nabonidus of Babylon lay on his back on the floor, while the two soldiers worked to bind him about with heavy thongs till he was unable to move so much as a finger alone. Lastly the gag was put upon him; but there was no need of it. During the whole business the old man remained perfectly passive, perfectly still, gazing steadily up into the face of Ludar, who presently refused to meet his glance, though he could not, in that small room, get out of range of the pale, fixed eyes.

When their captive was perfectly secure, the soldiers lifted him in their arms and carried him roughly out of the room, past the bloody body of Kudashû, along the silent passage and out into the night, where, before the door of the college, waited a cart, one of the rude vehicles of the common people, drawn by a water-buffalo. Into this lowliest of all conveyances the king was lifted and laid down. There was a word of command from the soldier that clambered in beside him. The driver gave a long shout, and the cart clattered away from the door of the college in which, with his still burning torch, stood white-robed Ludar, left alone with his triumph.

As they went along, the king, his gaze turned upward to the sky, could see nothing of what was happening in the streets around him. But that something unusual had occurred was only too apparent, and what that something was, was not difficult to surmise. The city was filled with soldiers, half of them in the uniform of the Babylonish guards, and half of them in the dress of those that had entered the presence of the king. Yet there was very evidently no hostility between them. Men, women, and children were also in the streets, the last making an especial clamor over this unexpected holiday night. Here and there bonfires burned in the heat. In every direction torches flitted through the moonlight. And still to the strained ears of the king came not one sound of combat, no single clash of swords or whistling of stones from the sling. No. Sippar had fallen, had fallen to Elam, without blood, without a suggestion of defence, without one blow for this, Nabu-Nahid's, country, the country over which he had ruled as justly and as gently as he could for seventeen proud years. No. He had been left alone, utterly alone, without a single hand to hold him back when others pushed him ruthlessly forward to face the rainbow gates of the silver sky.

Through the city and out of the gate of Babylon and over the shadowy plain for half a mile or more, the slow cart passed till it came to a halt in the camp of the invader, in front of a great, crimson tent that stood in the midst of a host of smaller ones, and on top of which, from the head of a spear fastened to the central pole, hung suspended the Persian sun-standard. Nabonidus saw this, rising against the shadowy sky; and seeing it, he realized where they were.

There were two soldiers guarding the door of this tent; and, as the cart halted before it, a short colloquy passed between them and Nabonidus' captors. Then one of the soldiers disappeared inside, to come forth again an instant later with an order. Nabonidus was lifted from the vehicle and carried inside the temporary domicile of the general. He was greeted by a glare of light so bright that, involuntarily, his weak eyes closed before it. When he opened them again to look about, he had been placed on his feet, and found himself facing a tall, heavily armored, black-bearded fellow, with piercing eyes and an air of undeniable dignity, who performed an obeisance due from a nobleman of rank to a sovereign.

"Lord Nabonidus of Babylon, I bid you welcome to my tent in the name of Bel, your god. I am Gobryas, general of the army of Kurush of Elam."

Nabonidus slowly bent his head. "I am your prisoner. Do your will with me," he said, faintly.

"It is my wish, O king, that you sleep here to-night in peace. By rule of war you are my prisoner. Yet know that I and all that is mine to give, save only freedom, are at the king's command."

Again Nabonidus bowed his head; and then, lifting it slowly, he gazed at Gobryas with a question in his eyes.

"I ask of you to speak, lord king!" said the general, with all courtesy in his tone.

Nabonidus drew a quick breath. Then, with an effort, he said: "Sippar—is fallen—to you?"

Gobryas bowed, with regret in his attitude.

"And my servants—Nânâ-Babilû, and Sharrukin, the former governor of the city, where are they?"

"O king, they have suffered the fate of the conquered. They alone, out of all Sippar, were killed in defending their palaces."

"They alone," whispered the king to himself, wearily. "They alone? Nay, there was one other—one other faithful servant had I in my kingdom. I pray that Bel—re—ceive—" The old man reeled where he stood. Gobryas sprang quickly forward, catching him before he fell. And as he gazed upon the helpless, innocent face of the fallen king, Gobryas was constrained to wonder a little whether the part he had played in this game of unwarlike war were quite worth the suffering it inflicted upon others.

XVI
BELTI-SHAR-UZZUR

A short, rather stocky man, this Cyrus, with thick, curling hair, a beard more golden-brown than black, and eyes so piercingly brilliant that it was difficult to determine their shade. His face had been tanned to a leathery brown by years of exposure in various climes; but his hands were smooth, shapely, and well-kept. In dress, there was no hint of either soldier or ruler. His head was bound round with a red fillet embroidered in black and gold. His body was clothed in the lightest and simplest of yellowish cotton tunics, narrowly bordered with red. On his feet he wore sandals, and his ankles and calves were bare. Only by his eyes and by the quick decisiveness of his manner could one have guessed that his station was high. And yet, with these two things to go by, few would have failed to select this man out of a hundred others as being indeed Kurush, the king.

Besides the king and his three scribes, there was one other person in the royal tent on this blazing afternoon of the twenty-second of the month Duzu. This was a young man, tall and meagre in body, with a peculiarly long head, a face not wholly devoid of beauty, but with an expression lurking about the lips and eyes that one who loved him would not have cared to analyze. Richly dressed was this youth, much belted, chained, and braceleted with silver and gold, his tunic elaborately embroidered, the very thongs of his sandals wrought with lapis-lazuli and crystals. It was Cambyses, eldest son and heir of the great Cyrus, who thus lay in the presence of his father, sighing out his weariness with the heat, with the campaign, with the lack of fighting, with the length of days—with anything and everything that it came into his head to say, and with that everything twisted into a complaint.

Cyrus, long accustomed to this monotone as an accompaniment to his afternoons of labor, listened to it abstractedly as he continued his letters. The train of thought that could not be disturbed by words, however, was presently broken by a shadow passing the door-way of the tent; and he suddenly looked up, staring at the second scribe, trying to return to his sentence, but able to think of nothing but the last imprecation uttered by his son.

"In the name of Ahura the blessed, Cambyses, get you from my presence till these labors are at an end! Follow Bardiya into the camp, go where you will, but leave me to the letters that must be despatched to-night if there be no word from Gobryas this afternoon."

"May he soon come!" muttered the first scribe; and the second and third, hearing, sighed in unison and wiped the sweat from their dripping brows.

Cambyses had risen and was doubtfully contemplating the prospect of the camp. Cyrus had come back to the subject of his epistle, and the scribe sat with his cuneiform iron poised in the air, when the scene was broken up. A horse, carrying a rider who clung to its bare back like a monkey, one hand twisted in the mane for guidance, came dashing up over the plain from the northwest and stopped at the tent door. The rider leaped to the ground, bending his head slightly before the king, and shouting, in a clear, fresh voice:

"News, my father! News at last! Gobryas with his army is three miles away. He will reach us by nightfall!"

Cyrus sprang to his feet. "How know you this, Bardiya?"

"I have seen them all, spoken with the general, and return to thee as his messenger."

Cyrus quickly waved his hand to the scribes. "Get you to your tents. Do not return to me till I shall command."

He waited while the three men picked up their stools in sober joy, and, saluting the royal master with a single accord, departed in an orderly file. When they were out of hearing, and Cyrus and his two sons were quite alone, the king let fall the crimson flap over the tent door, and then turned to Bardiya with his face very eager. "The king, Bar—"

"Gobryas brings with him Nabu-Nahid, the king of Babylon, a prisoner, to deliver him up to you."

Cyrus nodded, with less satisfaction than the boy had expected, and then thoughtfully bent his head. There was a short silence, which neither of the sons dared break. They saw an expression of trouble creep into their father's face. They saw him frown, and they heard him sigh. Then suddenly he crossed to a small coffer in the lent, and drew from it a long, white streamer.

"Bardiya, fasten this to the head of the spear on top of the tent. Put it there thyself, and at once."

The boy, in extreme surprise, received the pennant from his father's hand and went outside with it. Fifteen minutes later it was floating in the hot afternoon wind from the top of the royal tent; and ten minutes after that a white-robed acolyte had left the summit of Nimitti-Bel and was speeding through the fields on his way to a certain house in the centre of the city.

The afternoon passed. It came to be the hour of day's death, and in that hour the final junction of the two invading armies was to be effected. Seven months before, in the hills of Elam, they had separated, Gobryas marching to the north, Cyrus to the south. And now, each of them having fulfilled to the letter his plan of campaign, there remained only one thing more to do, the taking of that city which, six years ago, Cyrus had found impregnable to arms, and which he was now to assault in a less honorable and surer way.

The lamps in the royal tent were already swinging from their chains in a glow of fire, and the full moon was rising from the east over the city, though the sky was still too white for stars, when Cyrus, with Cambyses on his right hand and Bardiya on his left, stood in the door-way of his tent, waiting. Over the plain, at no great distance, could be seen a slow-moving line of horses and men. In front of this line, advancing at full gallop, came a single chariot, drawn by three white horses harnessed abreast, and carrying three men—the driver and two others. This vehicle hurried along straight in the direction of the royal tent, until presently Cyrus stepped eagerly forward, while his sons cried in one voice, "Gobryas!"

The chariot came to a halt, and from it leaped a tall, bearded fellow, whom Cyrus seized in his arms and clasped delightedly. "Welcome, lord of Sippar. Welcome, O conqueror!" he cried, in the Aramaic language, generally used in his camp, and understood by Babylonian, Jew, and Elamite alike.

Having been embraced, Gobryas saw fit to bend the knee before his master, saying: "I bring the king my lord his royal prisoner. He is full of years and weary with the length of day. Let him, I pray, be removed to some tent that befits his rank, where refreshment may be given him."

Three pairs of eyes looked quickly up to the chariot, but Nabonidus' back was turned to them. He stood there alone, his chained arms at his sides, looking off upon the walls of Babylon. His face was invisible; but Cyrus, seeing it, would not have known the expression. As it was, when the conqueror stepped up to the chariot and spoke a word of courteous greeting, the old man turned to him a dull and gentle countenance.

"O king, Nabu-Nahid of the Great City, let thy body find rest and refreshment here in my frail dwelling-place! In the name of the blessed Ahura-Mazda, I, Kurush, bid thee welcome. Descend from the hot chariot and enter my tent."

Nabonidus acknowledged the courtesy with old-accustomed graciousness. In alighting from the vehicle he stumbled a little in his great exhaustion. Instantly Bardiya and Gobryas started to his side, and, each taking an arm, assisted the fallen king gently inside the tent, prepared for him the couch on which Cambyses had spent the afternoon, and made him comfortable upon it while Cyrus called to a slave to bring food and wine to all.

The five of them partook together of the evening meal, while conversation ran upon general topics. Nabonidus did not speak; nor, though the others did not guess it, did he listen to what was said. Cyrus and his general might have discussed their most secret plans without risk of being overheard or understood, for Nabonidus' heart was beyond them, in Babylon, and his thoughts were of his world, not of theirs.

After the meal was over, however, Gobryas leaned across to the king and whispered, just audibly: "I must go forth now, for a time, to oversee the encampment that you have commanded. While I am gone, were it not well that Nabonidus be put in a tent of his own, under guard, that when I return we may talk freely of many things?"

"Nabu-Nahid—" Cyrus hesitated a little in his reply. "Nabu-Nahid will, I think, not sleep in this camp to-night. He is to be delivered into other hands, to which, many weeks ago, I promised to intrust him."

"Whose are they?" demanded Gobryas, roughly, without any of the respect due to his lord.

Cyrus failed to resent the breach. His expression betokened regret as he opened his lips to reply. But before a word left his mouth two figures appeared suddenly in the door-way—two white-robed figures, only one of whom wore the goat-skin on his shoulder. Before Cyrus could turn to them, the prisoner on the couch sprang suddenly to his feet, and a cry rang out into the night:

"Amraphel—thou dog!"

Then silence ensued. Gobryas, whose back had turned to the door, moved slowly round. Catching sight of the new-comers, he suddenly realized what Cyrus had meant: suddenly knew why Nabonidus would not sleep that night safely guarded in the camp. The high-priest of Babylon, and the leader of the Jews, in response to a prearranged signal, had come to claim their own—part of their payment for the betrayal of the city.

As he looked and understood yet more, Gobryas' face darkened with disgust. He could imagine well enough what was to follow, and his spirit revolted against taking any part in it.

"Let my lord give me permission to retire!" he demanded gruffly of Cyrus.

The king nodded to him, and the general forthwith, with a curl of the lip and a flash of disdain at the Babylonians, brushed his way by them and hurriedly left the tent. His departure removed the single disinterested element in the scene—and those that remained to enact it drew mental breath. For a moment or two no one moved. Priest and Jew stood facing the conqueror, the three of them eying one another in full understanding of this consummation of their plot. The conqueror's sons, more than half cognizant of the whole significance of the affair, shifted their glances from one figure to another with a vague sense of foreboding. Lastly, Nabonidus, the central figure in the scene, stiff and faint in his unutterable desertion, hair and face far whiter than his stained garments, confronted, with an air of supreme accusation, the two betrayers of his people. The silence was long, and nearly unendurable. Amraphel would not speak; Cyrus could not; the young men did not dare. It remained for Belti-shar-uzzur, evading that burning glance of Nabu-Nahid's, to address himself to the conqueror:

"We have seen the signal, Kurush, and have answered it. We are come to receive our own."

For the shadow of an instant Cyrus dropped his eyes. He said, anxiously: "Leave the prisoner here. I swear to his safety. He shall come to no harm!"

Amraphel stepped forward with menace in his eyes. "The promise! Remember the promise! Remember, or we fail you. Babylon to thee—Nabu-Nahid to us!"

At these words two cries rang out through the tent. The one was from Nabu-Nahid, the other from Cyrus' youngest son. The boy stepped forward quickly, his feeling plainly written in his young face. "My father!" was all he said; but before the words, and the unutterable things they told, the head of the great warrior fell and his heart smote him.

"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, muffled 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 passed 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 passed. The moon was well up in the unclouded sky, lighting the fields and streets of the Great City for the last passage 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 passed 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 canal 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. Ribâta'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 Â-Ibur-Sabû. 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 clustered 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 gods. 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 passing 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 Achæmenian. 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 gods, 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 passed 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. Passing 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 bloody 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 superstition 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 gods 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. "Kudûa," she said to the slave, who had also scrambled up, "wait thou my return. I am going to the shrine."

Kudûa 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 Amanû 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?"

"Bid me only to speak. Grant me the favor. Let me tell the dream, and restrain thy tears till its truth be known."

At these last words Belitsum nervously clasped and unclasped her hands. "Speak!" she said, quickly. "Tell thy dream! Speak!"

"In the evening of yesterday I lay down and slept. And in my sleep the Lord appeared to me in a vision, saying: 'Go thou down to the temple of strange gods by the side of the river, and there shalt thou find him who was king in Babylon.' And thereat, in my dream, I arose and went down through the city to the river-bank and the deserted temple thereon. And there I beheld Nabu-Nahid, the king, in mortal combat with two men that sought to kill him. And in my sleep I was withheld from giving him aid. I saw him fall by the blow from a golden dagger, and when he was dead the assassins, whose faces remained black to me, lifted him in their arms and cast him into the river, and he sank from my sight. Then said the Lord unto me again: 'Having beheld this thing, hasten to her who was the wife of him that is dead and relate it to her.' And behold, when I awoke I obeyed the word of the Lord; and, obeying, I now go forth from thy presence." Whereupon Daniel, with a delightfully dramatic effect, turned short on his heel, leaving the shrine, and in three minutes was outside the palace gates.

Through his recital Belitsum and her eunuchs had remained open-mouthed, rooted where they stood. It was not till the Jew had actually disappeared from her sight that the queen's amazement was overcome by her dismay, and, with a long-drawn, preliminary howl, she fell flat upon the floor in an agony of despair. Nabonidus, her husband, was dead. Never for one instant did her devout soul doubt the word of the prophet. Nabonidus was dead, and she was a widow. The shrine echoed to the sounds of shrieks, of groans, of wailing, finally of hysterical laughter. Now and then an attendant, drawn thither by the sounds of woe, appeared in the door-way, looked at her, at the bewildered eunuchs behind her, and scurried away again in empty-headed wonder. Finally one, wiser than the rest, went to the room where Belshazzar sat in council, and informed him that his step-mother was dying in the harem shrine. The prince was forced to believe the frightened and excited manner of the slave, and, hastily excusing himself to his lords, he strode through the palace to the shrine. In the door-way he halted. Belitsum was kneeling on the floor, beating her breast and wailing out prayers for the dead. She did not even notice the appearance of the prince.

"Belitsum—lady—what is thy grief?" he asked, gently.

No response. Ejaculations and redoubled wails.

Then Belshazzar, perceiving that she was bordering on frenzy, went forward and took her by the shoulders. "Art thou stricken with a sickness?" he demanded, loudly.

"Thy father—Nabu-Nahid—the king!" was all the answer he could get.

Belshazzar grew a shade paler. "My father!" He looked about him, and caught the eye of one of the eunuchs in the corner. This man he addressed. "What is the cause of this weeping? Knowest thou wherefore she cries?"

The man nodded solemnly.

"Speak, then!"

Forthwith the slave began an intelligent recital of the occurrences of the last half-hour, including a repetition of the dream in Daniel's own words. Belitsum quieted enough during this speech to listen again to the dream; but, after it was finished, the look on Belshazzar's face somehow withheld her from recommencing her lamentations.

"Who was this man? Didst thou know him?" demanded the prince of the slave.

"O prince, live forever! He was a strange prophet. Never before have mine eyes beheld him."

Belshazzar bit his lip. His face was very grave. After a short pause he took Belitsum by the arm and lifted her up. Then, turning again to the eunuch, he said, quietly:

"Go thou and command my chariot to be brought, and let the driver be alone in it."

Then, having almost tenderly returned Belitsum to the harem, and bidding her restrain her weeping till his return, Belshazzar went forth to dismiss his council for the morning, retaining Ribâta alone out of all the councillors. Fifteen minutes later he and Bit-Shumukin together mounted the chariot and set forth for the little temple of strange gods on the bank of the Euphrates. During the drive Belshazzar related to Ribâta the substance of what he knew; and, like himself, Ribâta's first question was as to the identity of the prophet.

"There is one whom it might be," suggested the nobleman, when Belshazzar had confessed himself at fault. "It may, perhaps, be Daniel the Jew."

"So at first I thought. Yet when has any man ever beheld Daniel in such raiment as this prophet wore? The Jew is poor."

Ribâta demurred a little, yet could not but admit that Belshazzar had all the evidence on his side. Then, as they neared the temple, silence fell between them.

The little building stood before them utterly deserted. Not a human being was in sight. It was a lonely spot—too far south of the bridge and too far north of the ferry to be frequented by any one. The prince dismounted from the chariot first, but in the curtained door-way of the temple he paused.

"Ribâta," said he, softly, "I am afraid."

Bit-Shumukin's reply was to lay a brother's hand on his shoulder. Then Belshazzar lifted back the curtain and entered the room. There came a great cry from his lips, and the hideous sight was once more veiled in gloom.

"There is blood, Ribâta! It is blood!" whispered the prince, hoarsely.

"I saw it, Belshazzar. Yet it may be the blood of an animal, or of some other man. I cannot think that thy father was yester-night in Babylon. Come, let us look, my prince. Within we may find some trace—some evidence of what has happened."

The prince shrank. "Wilt thou do it, Ribâta?" he asked.

Accordingly, while Belshazzar held aside the curtain that some light might enter by the door-way, Ribâta, sick at heart, hunted over the blood-splashed floor for some clew to the identity of what it was that had died here. Belshazzar presently turned his back and stood staring into the street, refusing to look, yet listening with every sense for a dreaded exclamation from his friend. It came. As Bit-Shumukin bent over the corner where Nabonidus had fallen, he found something that wrung from him a low cry.

Belshazzar turned deathly white. "What is it?" he said, quietly.

Ribâta came to him with something in his hand. It was a small, shining, blue stone, that showed itself in the sunshine to be an Egyptian-cut sapphire of great value, attached to a wire of twisted gold.

Belshazzar took it dully from his hand. "My father wore it always on his neck. Let us return to the palace," he said.

"But the body—it may surely be found!"

"The river hath it. Let her keep her own."

And so the two remounted the vehicle and started on their way back through the city of which Belshazzar was king.

XVII
THE WOMAN'S WOE

"I charge thee as my brother, Ribâta," were Belshazzar's parting words to his friend that day, "that thou let no man or woman, of whatever station, know from thy lips who is king of Babylon. And save for Istar, who is as myself, none shall know it from my lips. But also, as I live and reign, there shall come a day, not too distant, when justice shall be done—when this foul crime shall be avenged, as never crime before, on them that have accomplished it."

Ribâta gave his promise in all devotion, and, embracing his king, bade him farewell and set off to his own abode, his mind unstrung by the fearful discovery of the morning.

Long hours before, Belshazzar had sent a message of reassurance to Belitsum; and now, with a weary sigh of relief, he turned his steps towards the distant apartments of his wife and child. With Istar, as he knew, was peace and sympathy. Never yet had she failed to understand him, and to offer him in his trials the comfort that he needed. His mind, like his heart, was absolutely hers. Arrived at the threshold of the room where, at this hour, she was always to be found, he stopped, his hand upon the curtain. Some one within had been singing. Now, noiseless as was his approach, the voice was silent. The curtain was pushed aside. Istar stood before him with a smile in her eyes.

"I felt thy presence, lord," she said, in such a tone that his face kindled with love-light. "Thou—Belshazzar! Art thou ill?"

"Yea, at heart," he answered. "Not in body. Be not afraid. Let me come in to thee, that I may tell thee Babylon's new woe."

Istar took him gently by the hand and led him into the apartment. Inside stood Baba, holding the baby to her breast. It was she whose voice Belshazzar had heard. Belshazzar greeted the little slave, and then Istar, knowing how he wished to be alone with her, whispered a word to Baba, who a moment later went quietly away.

When they were alone Belshazzar sank back on the divan in the corner, and Istar, laying her baby upon the bed, seated herself at her lord's feet, laid her hands in his, and anxiously scanned his care-worn face.

"Kurush hath stormed the walls, Belshazzar? The city is taken?" she asked.

"Nay, my beloved. My father hath been murdered in the city—in the temple of the strange gods, by the river-bank."

"Thy father!" Istar gasped with horror. "Thy father! Oh, my lord—my lord—save thyself! If they should do this with—" Istar's head sank forward. She brought both Belshazzar's hands to her lips and held them there in an agony of love and terror. So they remained for a long time, sorrowing together silently: Istar for her lord, Belshazzar for the city. But Istar's presence brought comfort to the heart of the king, and her touch filled him with that high sense of protectiveness that generates the truest courage. In this woman life had given him enough. He had neither desire nor need for further blessings. His father had not been to him all that a stronger man might have been. It was the horror of that father's lonely death that now so completely overwhelmed him. But Istar, feminine, weak even, as she had come to be, brought him his full meed of consolation. The two of them wore the night away in council for Babylon; for Istar's fears for her king had now become abnormal. Belshazzar listened in surprise to her desperate prayers that he surround himself with every protection, that he beware against venturing out at night, that he wear armor under his tunic, and that he carry weapons of defence always around with him.

"They that sought thy father's life seek also thine," she insisted, till in the end Belshazzar left her with the promise that he would care for himself as he would have cared for her.

If this promise were not to the letter kept, it was hardly to be laid at Belshazzar's door as a fault. For at such a time as this, when the city was in such peril, an example of cowardly fear from its ruler would have resulted badly. After the death of Nânâ-Babilû at Sippar, and in the face of the continued absence of Nabonidus, Belshazzar had taken on himself the duties of absolute monarch—lord of the people and general of the army. And certainly it never could be charged to him that he neglected these duties. Early and late, sometimes from dawn until dawn again, he worked on those endless details of civil and military life that he alone could attend to. The city was in a state of siege. All the gates in Nimitti-Bel were closed, and those in Imgur-Bel doubly guarded. Also, in consideration of the fact that the food supplies coming from the country were cut off, the great fields between the outer and inner walls were under cultivation. A census was taken of every soul in the city, and preparations made for the regular daily grain allotments to come now from the granaries, and later from the new crops when they should be ready for harvest. For, by careful management, no one in Babylon need ever suffer from hunger, no matter how long a siege should last. This Cyrus had learned once before, six years ago; and the question now in the mind of every man was: Could he be made to cover it again?

Certainly the siege was conducted on an extraordinary plan. For ten days the besieging army had lain in camp before the walls of the city, yet not an arrow had as yet been shot on either side, not a javelin hurled nor a stone slung. The handful of soldiers inside the walls were hardly more than enough to man the watch-towers and guard the gates; and they were under orders from Belshazzar to await developments passively. Meantime they were kept in excellent form. Every day Belshazzar reviewed them in the great field between the walls, and daily he examined a certain number of men from his own regiment of Guti as to their intelligence and ability. Also, late in the afternoon, it had become his custom to drive on top of Nimitti-Bel in his chariot, showing himself to the enemy and to the city also. There was little danger in this drive, since the range from Cyrus' camp was too long for any known weapon, and the height of the wall was an excellent safeguard against shots from nearer at hand. At this time quite an extensive stable was maintained on the giant wall. Chariots had been wheeled up the inclined plane that led to the top of it, and orders were carried from gate to gate on horseback along the top. Belshazzar's wild drives on that dizzy height became one of the favorite sights of the citizens; and it grew to be the fashion for numbers of people of all classes to drive out to Nimitti-Bel in the afternoon, to witness the spectacle of the storm-prince in his golden chariot lashing his four white horses madly along that smooth way, two hundred and fifty feet above the ground.

On the afternoon of the twelfth day of the siege, one of the last days in the month of Duzu, Charmides walked out beyond Imgur-Bel to see this much-talked-of sight. At this time the Greek presented rather a different appearance from that of six months ago. His resignation from the temple of Sin had proved disastrous; and there were now times when the meanest of food was not to be found in the house of Beltani. Charmides had no work to do, would not beg, hated the thought of the temple, grew gaunt and big-eyed, went unkempt as to dress, and mourned over Ramûa, who in turn wept over him, both of them, and Beltani, too, concealing their state from Baba with the utmost care. To-day, after a troubled hour at home, where Ramûa's efforts at cheerfulness were like blows to him, the Greek went out, in the face of a prostrating heat, to seek by rapid walking an escape from the thoughts that pursued him, and to evade the admission to himself of the inevitable end: that he must go back to the profession of lies and of deceit; of treachery, of crimes, of death. He made his way quickly across the city and out beyond the first wall to a spot where green, well-watered fields stretched before his eyes, putting him suddenly back into his youth. He halted in his walk at a distance of thirty yards from the great wall, just behind a group of people come evidently for the same purpose as his—that of watching Belshazzar's drive. Rather absent-mindedly the Greek noticed the man immediately in front of him, who had been in a measure connected with his old life of the temple; and he watched the movements of that lean, ill-kempt figure with the same keen sub-consciousness that one sometimes exercises when the thoughts are very intent on something else. It was in this way that he noted the sling in the right hand of the Jew.

There was not long to wait for the coming of Belshazzar. At a little murmur from the men in front, Charmides turned his head and saw, far down the wall, a black speck that gradually increased in size, and finally resolved itself into four flying horses, harness and crests flashing in the light of approaching sunset, that raced neck and neck under the long, black lash wielded by him who stood alone in the rattling vehicle—a figure the poise of which was beyond question royal. Charmides looked on it with undisguised admiration—the superb head with its golden coronet, the broad shoulders, to which was fastened a fluttering, crimson cloak, and the hands flashing with jewels the least of which would have kept the Greek's stricken household well fed for months.

Absorbed as were Charmides' eyes in the sight of the approaching figure, he nevertheless felt his gaze suddenly withdrawn to the man in front of him, who was now busily fumbling with the weapon in his right hand. Suddenly a stone had been fitted into the sling and aim taken, and at the same time Charmides' slow thoughts resolved themselves. Leaning forward, he twitched the sleeve on the Jew's right arm at the moment in which the stone flew forth, wide of its mark, while the chariot passed safely by. Beltishazzar, with a Hebrew exclamation, wheeled sharply about. Charmides faced him in silence. A look only passed between them, but it was enough. In that little time they knew each other. Charmides had made an enemy, and the all-powerful Jew felt a twinge of fear.

An hour after this incident Charmides and the king met, face to face, in the middle of the Â-Ibur-Sabû. Belshazzar was in his ordinary chariot, slowly returning from the walls. Charmides was on foot, going his weary way back to the tenement of Ut. It occurred to the Greek to speak to the lord of the city on the subject of his personal safety. He therefore stopped in the road, directly in front of the royal horses. With a sharp exclamation Belshazzar drew up his reins. Catching sight of the Greek's face, however, and recognizing it, he paused to listen when Charmides spoke.

"Lord prince of the Great City—live forever!" he began, formally. "There was to-day an attempt upon the most royal life of the prince my lord."

Belshazzar stared a little. "How, Greek?"

"As the royal chariot drove along the top of Nimitti-Bel, a man, one of the subjects of my lord, made endeavor to fell him by a shot from a sling. I, pulling his sleeve at the moment, caused the stone to fly wide of the mark. When next my lord drives it may be that I shall not be at hand."

Belshazzar looked quizzically into the face of him who spoke these laconic words. But he found no guile in the emaciated face. Instead, there was something there that roused his interest. "Mount beside me, Greek. I have not forgotten thee. Thou shalt return with me to the palace."

Charmides refused. He had no desire for a cross-examination on the subject that he had detailed as fully as he intended to the prince. All efforts on Belshazzar's part to induce him to come were in vain. Therefore, seeing that Charmides would have his way, Belshazzar did what he could for the very apparent signs of pecuniary distress in the youth's appearance. Detaching from his neck a golden chain wrought with well-cut gems, he silently held it out to the Greek.

Charmides was much displeased. It was the first time that he had ever needed a gift, and therefore the thought of taking this one shamed him. "My words, O prince, were not a suit for gifts."

"Thy wife," suggested Belshazzar, inconsequently.

A flicker passed through the Greek's eyes, but he did not waver. "My lord, I shall probably re-enter the priesthood."

"I think thee no such enemy to me. Come into my regiment of Gutium."

"Nay. I cannot fight. I will have no blood on my hands. I follow music alone; and music forbids murder."

Belshazzar laughed slightly at the fellow's incomprehensible attitude. "Go back, then, to temple service. I will trust thee there," he said, good-naturedly. "And now, the name of him that would have had my life?"

Charmides opened his lips to speak, and then closed them again. "Ask me not. Only beware and guard thyself."

The king bent his brows. "Greek, hast thou lied to me?"

"No, lord prince."

Belshazzar shrugged. "Out of my way, then!" he cried. And Charmides stepped quickly out of the road while the king brought his whip over the haunches of his steeds and started forward, tossing, as he went, the chain of gold at the feet of the Greek. Nor was he ungenerous enough to cast a single backward glance to see whether or no the hungry fellow picked it up.

So Belshazzar proceeded on his way back to the palace, musing rather on the incident of his little talk with Charmides than upon its subject—the attempt on his life. More than this one time, and in more dangerous ways than a sling-shot at a hundred yards, he had been threatened with death. Those very drives round the walls carried with them the possibility of a far more frightful end. But Belshazzar's was an adventurous nature. And danger was his life, a life that the city's state of quiescence had once led him to seek by other than reputable paths.

On his arrival at the palace he went immediately to Istar's rooms, determined to tell her nothing of the event of the afternoon, for her fears for his personal safety would be thereby enormously increased. But when he came to her he found another subject ready to occupy all his thoughts. Istar was not watching for him at the door, as was her invariable custom. Instead, he found her hanging over the bed on which her baby lay ill—so ill that Belshazzar, on first seeing it, turned pale for Istar's sake. And the look that he found in her face, when, with a glad cry that he had come, she turned it to him, sent a pang to his heart.

Istar's child, the fruit of her earth-love, had cost her her godhead, but had returned her joy a thousandfold dearer than divinity had been. Only now, as she stood bending over the helpless little form, racked as it was with mortal pain, did the greatest world-horror, the horror of death, first lay its hold upon her. The thought that this little being whom she had brought into the world—whom, day and night since its coming she had cherished with an all-powerful love and joy—could die, could cease to live for her forever, rushed over her as the waters close over the head of a drowning woman.

Until an hour before the coming of Belshazzar, Istar had been alone with the child, believing it to be suffering from some infantine ailment. But finally the little creature's fever was so manifestly high, and its distress so great, that she had commanded the attendance of the new rab-mag, a man widely celebrated for the potency of his charms. He came at once, examined the baby from head to foot, and noted certain things that caused him to turn to the mother with a look of deep anxiety.

"Great lady," he said to her, "thou wilt do well to leave this child alone, though before dawn it die. I, Kidish-Nindar, say it. Accept my words, and put the child from thee for the sake of the Great City over which thy husband rules!"

Then Istar, in fear and amazement—quickly and sharply dismissed the man from her presence and turned again to the infant, that lay now in a quiet stupor. It was so that Belshazzar found her, wetting the child's forehead with her tears, pouring forth mingled prayers and the incoherent, birdlike talk of a mother, while her own face took on the color of chalk, and her eyes were bright with a dread to which she would not, even to herself, give form.

The king, for a moment, took her place over the infant, and stood regarding him while Istar told the story of the rab-mag's desertion. Belshazzar would have commanded his return had not the mother forbidden it. But when his displeasure had cooled a little, the king began to ponder over the evident fear of Kidish-Nindar; and finally, bidding Istar remain where she was, he took the child in his arms, carried it across the room, and seated himself with it upon his knees directly under a light. His back was turned to the divan, and Istar did not see what he did. When he had finished his examination and carried the faintly moaning child back to its place, he went over to her, and she could not but start with dismay at the ghastly pallor that had come upon him. Rising, she laid both hands upon his arm, looking silently, wistfully, into his sad eyes.

"My lord!" she whispered, fear unlocking her lips.

Belshazzar, knowing the ineffable tenderness of her motherhood, could not tell her what he knew. He said only: "Beloved, we will watch together through the night."

But before that watch began Belshazzar left Istar's rooms for the space of half an hour while he sought the apartment of Kidish-Nindar. The rab-mag was frantically purifying his body and repeating mingled prayers and exorcisms, in the hope of warding off that which he so unspeakably dreaded. The king, by means of threats and bribes adroitly alternated, extorted from the man an oath of silence, and then left him grovelling on his knees before an image of Sin, while he, the king of Babylon, returned to the vigil of his child.

Through the long night they sat together, man and wife, by the bedside of the child. Together they watched the progress of that terrible disease of which Istar was so happily ignorant. Together they saw the flame of life struggle with the suffocating darkness in which it burned. And they saw the little light grow feebler, and the flame flutter in the wind that came across the dark valley of the beyond. Istar's brain reeled and her heart grew sick. Still, as she sat with her gaze fixed on the drawn face of the child, unconscious that Belshazzar's eyes were always upon her, she refused to believe what was too apparent.

And there came a time in the early dawn when the mother could hold away no longer. Lifting the baby from its place, she clasped it close to her breast, carried it across to the soft divan, and lay down with the little, fever-flushed body pressed warm over her heart. In this position her eyes, weary with the long vigil, closed; and while she slept the day broke. Belshazzar remained close at her side to watch the end alone. He could not have told what it was that caused him to lift up his hands there in the faint light, groping for something to which to cling, for some higher power that should ease the terrible aching of his heart. Suddenly the world had become a vast waste, and he was in it alone, helpless and unutterably weary. And it was still without the hand of God to help him that he saw the end come—the death of Istar's happiness and of his own. It was while Istar still quietly slept that the white shadow passed into space. And the woman awoke to find Belshazzar's hand in hers, and the little body lying stiff and rigid across her bosom.

When Istar realized what had happened she made no outcry. She sat clasping the lifeless form tighter to her own. Tearless, speechless, motionless, she sat alone with that unbearable thing that mortals know as the death-sorrow. Pitilessly it ate its way into her vitals. She forgot everything that had been in her heart before. She was unconscious of any living presence. She was bereft—bereft—and of her offspring. It was in her mind to curse the God that had conceived such suffering and put it upon man. And then there came a touch upon her arm that stilled all her rebellion. Belshazzar's tears fell hot upon her cheek. Without a word she lifted up to him the baby that was also his: and, when he took it in his arms, she crept again over to the pillows, and as she laid her face among them, the blessed tears came forth, and she could weep.

How long she lay there no one knew. Belshazzar had carried away the body—the little body that had been hers; and when he returned to her he brought a cup of wine. The child was gone. As he lifted her up in his arms she asked a mute question with her eyes, and he answered her softly:

"The baby, most beloved, is gone. Our eyes may not again behold him. Some day—some day—" he got no further. For an instant Istar had looked at him in a dull, meaningless sort of way. Then, no longer knowing what she did, her nerves suddenly giving way, she threw herself upon him in blind anger, struggling like one gone mad, crying that he had stolen her child from her, screaming till her voice was gone and her strength gave way, and she fell into his arms a helpless, lifeless form.

Later in the day, when, with invincible patience and tenderness, he had soothed her into quietude and had gone forth to his inevitable duties, Baba came—Baba, who, since her day in the house of Êgibi, had been Istar's constant companion.

Baba had come to love Istar's child almost as Istar herself loved it. When, therefore, the little slave first came to the mother, she could speak no words of comfort. Her tears flowed faster than Istar's own, and she could only grieve beside the queen. Yet in some way this human woe brought to Istar's lonely heart its first breath of comfort and of hope. In the evening she began to speak to Baba of many half-forgotten things—of her own mysterious birth, of her dim remembrances of a great preceding existence, of those beings that had sometimes come to her on earth from space. In the last few weeks Istar had become almost utterly oblivious of her one-time divinity. Natural life and natural love had so blunted her former faculties of perception that the past remained only as a misty background to her life. Yet as her mind struggled to pierce the mists that hid from her the glory of bygone days, a longing was born within her heart—a longing ill-defined, yet so strong that she made, perforce, painful efforts to formulate it.

"I have beheld the glory of the setting sun—the pale light of the newly risen moon. The murmur of waters came to me as I slept. I beheld great lakes and white palaces, and high towers shining in the morning light. The scent of the lotus filled the air, and the rustle of the wind was in the palm-trees. Tell me, my Baba—tell me that for which I thirst! Tell me the great desire of my heart! Tell me, oh my Baba, where, in the same hour, have I known all these perfect things?"

Baba, gazing at her with the big, wondering eyes that had never in all her little life shone with the light of complete happiness, understood the words of her golden lady. "I will bring the great comfort to thee," she said. "Wait till I come again." And, rising, she left the palace.

Through two still hours Istar waited there with her heart-sorrow, trusting in Baba to bring that for which she thirsted. And at last, when she had grown weary with waiting, Baba came again, and with her some one else—Charmides, with his burnished hair and his pale, gaunt face, carrying his lyre in his hand. With a silent obeisance to Istar, he stood off at a little distance, and, opening his lips, began to sing.

Then, indeed, came the glory of the setting sun, the pale light of the newly risen moon, with the whisper of waters and the shining gold of great lakes. And around fair white towers and palaces hung the scent of lotus flowers, and the murmur of the evening wind was in the palm-trees. All things far and beautiful came home in the same hour to Istar's senses. And as he sang again, the tears of mingled joy and woe flowed from her eyes. Once more, and music, which is divine, opened divinity again before her vision, and she rose up transfigured, crying:

"Allaraine! Allaraine! Mine eyes behold thee once again!"

Then the moment of fire faded, and she was alone with only Charmides and his careworn, ethereal face, singing on in the fragrant accents of his Sicilian land, till Istar's passion faded gently away, and she smiled a little, and her eyelids grew heavy with sleep. Presently her flower-like head drooped forward. The frail, white hands fell from where they had been clasped upon her breast. Baba drew her down upon the divan, and when Charmides' voice died at length away, a great silence was in the room. Baba and the Greek were alone together. Charmides stood transfixed, his eyes fastened upon the sleeping figure of her whom he had once worshipped. He was roused from the look by a touch on his hand. Baba was kneeling at his side, and her lips were pressed to the fingers that had touched the magic lyre-strings, bringing peace to the soul of Istar of Babylon.

And thereafter ten days passed away, and it was the time of the great yearly feast of Tammuz, the beautiful god of spring.