"A glorious bit of womanhood," thought Marduk; "but I would rather Manasseh had the responsibility of owning it than I."
He turned to speak to the satrap, but that worthy, overcome by the abundance and mixture of drinks, was fast asleep, if not drunk. It will be well to drop the curtain briefly upon Samaria.
Two hours' ride south of the Phœnician city of Gebal, which the Greeks called Byblus, the river Adonis pours into the sea the water it has gathered from the melting snows and living springs of the Lebanon. Every year the banks of the stream were thronged with multitudes that swarmed out from Tyre and Sidon, Byblus and Sarepta, and all the fishing hamlets and farm villages from Aradus to Joppa. These people were pilgrims to Apheca, the source of the sacred river Adonis.
It was the month of Tammuz, when summer bursts with fecund life upon the land of Syria. The change of the season was thought of by the Syrians under the pleasing myth of Astarte and Tammuz; or, as the Greeks told the story, of Venus and Adonis. When summer yielded to winter, stark and sterile, this was Tammuz, in his strength and beauty, slain by the wild boar. The returning spring-time was the resurrection of the fair divinity under the embraces of the yearning goddess. The water of the river, reddened by the earth that mingled with it, as the melting snows from the Lebanon overflowed the channel of the stream, was it not Tammuz's blood?
Several months had elapsed since the events heretofore related. The ruddy tide of Adonis River had already sent out its annual invitation for the festival. The report had been duly repeated that the star, which was none other than Astarte herself, had been seen to pass over Lebanon and fall into the pool of Apheca, the fountain-head of the river.
The joy of Astarte and Tammuz, now restored to each other's arms, was especially honored by love-making between the sexes. The innocent play of sentiment among the simple-minded people would naturally have degenerated into grossness, even had there not been prescribed the sacrifice of maidenly modesty upon the altar of Astarte, as a preliminary to legitimate marriage. The renown of the festival of the Syrian goddess drew not only worshippers, but the curious and the vile, from all parts of the world, as insects are attracted by light and by foulness.
The banks of the river Adonis were adorned at places with the memorial tombs of the god, wrought not only with the highest Phœnician art, but in many cases with the touch of the more delicate chisel of the Greek. Interspersed among these permanent ornaments of the sylvan stream were the tents of the pilgrims, whose rich canvas and streamers contrasted gayly with the sombre rocks of the deep ravines and the dense shadows of the overhanging trees. These tents the wealthier folk pitched for their noontide rest or for the night, as they journeyed leisurely towards the river's fount.
A pavilion larger than all others, and which excited the gaping gossip of the passers-by, was that of the household of Ahimelek of Tyre. Indeed, next to the marvels of the goddess herself, the visit of Zillah was the chief notoriety of the season at Apheca. She was to engage in the ceremonial which not only marked her entrance upon womanhood, but which was to be especially preliminary to her marriage with Rubaal, the presumptive king. By ancient custom the queen of Tyre was also ordained a priestess of Astarte. The splendid rites of Zillah's institution as such were to follow the less seemly ones. This would have drawn to her tent the curiosity of all, even if the tent had not concealed the person of one who had been the affianced of King Hiram, whose translation to the estate of the gods surely omened some miraculous blessing upon her who would have been his queen and bride.
The priests of Melkarth had joined with those of Astarte in fanning the popular interest in Zillah's investiture, as it was understood that the greater part of Ahimelek's dower would go into their coffers; for Rubaal, her prospective husband, was but the priesthood crowned in the person of its tool.
To Layah, the handmaiden of Zillah, the strange taking-off of the king, whatever it meant, was the profoundest disappointment of her life. She had thought so long of him as her young lord, had served him with such devotion when she served her young mistress, that she had now no object in life but to join with Zillah in her mourning, or to comfort her as a mother would comfort her broken-hearted child. From the marriage of Zillah with Rubaal she shrank, and would have detested it even if her mistress had been able to put off her old love for the new.
"To-morrow, Layah, is the day. It has come at last."
Zillah raised her face to her companion's. It was very fair; more winsome than ever before. It had been growing in beauty; but of that spiritual sort of beauty that awakens pain together with admiration. Her eyes were deeper set; more lustrous, but with a far-away look, as if the light that kindled them came from beyond the common day. Her face was thinner, its lines harder and sharper. "A typical face for a priestess!" old Egbalus said, as once he saw her. "A sufferer's face!" thought Layah every day, and a hundred times a day, as she saw beneath it the tragic features of her mistress's soul.
"Do you hold to your resolution, my lady?" Layah asked, her voice trembling, scarcely making the words articulate.
"Yes—at last! at last!"
Layah threw herself on the ground at her mistress's feet. She remained for a while as one in prayer. At length, raising her face, she cried:
"O my lady! have I influenced you to this decision? Tell me truly, as Astarte lives! as Baal-Hiram lives there in the sky! tell me, truly, have I led you?"
"No, Layah, you have not. It was the covenant I made with him who was Adonai to me, my lord Hiram! my god Hiram, if Baal will! Baal will take us both. Hanno himself, and he is wisest of all the priests, assured me that we should not always be separated. I asked him directly if at the festival of Adonis I might not go to Hiram. He replied that in the lore of the priests such things are said to have occurred, and bade me be true to Hiram, and watch; and, furthermore, he gave me a sign of the divine will. But I may tell it to no one; not even to my faithful Layah."
"If," said Layah, "I have not persuaded you to the deed, tell me now, before the gods, have I sought to dissuade you?"
"No, my dear Layah, you too have been true to my lord Hiram. You have not hindered me from my holy sacrifice to him."
"May I have my reward, then, from the hand of my mistress?"
"Ask what you will, Layah."
"Let me go with you, if merely human creatures may enter the world of the gods. Perhaps I can serve there. They have slaves there, have they not? The sky has flecks in it. Why may not I be with you? I know that Baal-Hiram will let me come with you."
"No, no!" cried Zillah. "It must not be. If I live after my body is dead—and who can tell?—let me think of you as living here. I will come back often, and bless you; or I will watch over you as the moon gleams upon us. And if I do not live again, let there be one heart in this world to mourn for me. I have none other than thine, my dear Layah. My father does not love me, except for the riches I may bring him. To you I give these. See! This armlet was Hiram's gift. Let me put it on you. This necklace you shall wear. Do not deny me this favor, or I shall believe no one on earth loved me."
The two women remained much of the night weeping, or in grief too deep for tears: Zillah prayerful and resolute, the comforter of her handmaiden; as if the poor girl's sorrow were for some other misery than that of her consoler.
With the dawn all was astir. From behind rocks and trees the curious stared as Zillah's litter was carried along. At every spot where the path widened, so as to allow them to gather in crowds, many people prostrated themselves as if before a sacred ark. The day was yet young when the denser throngs indicated the immediate vicinity of the holy place. The servants of Ahimelek had gone before Zillah and prepared her pavilion, so that when she stepped veiled from the litter she entered alone the seclusion of her own chamber.
A vast amphitheatre of rocks, rising almost perpendicularly hundreds of feet, abruptly closes the valley of the Adonis. A deep and dark cave opens at the base of this precipice, like some ominous portal of Sheol itself. From its black jaws issues the torrent, hailing its first glimpse of the light with wild roar, like that of some beast startled in its den by the flash of the hunter's torch. Tossing high its mane of spray, it leaps wildly down from ledge to ledge, until it stretches itself for its long race through the deep ravine below. Its course is lined with trees—gigantic oaks, their limbs gnarled and torn, like those of veteran gladiators, by conflict with the storms of centuries; tall pines whose lofty tufts at noonday throw shadows, like patches of night, into the gorge below. Nature here seems to resent the intrusion of men, and drops a sense of solitude among the noisy crowds, or lifts them in spite of their revelry to an awe of her own vast mysteries. It is a spot where men, if they have no genuine revelation, are tempted to invent gods; to shape them into phantasies of overwrought imagination, and clothe them in the shadowy habits of their fears.
Close beside the Fountain of Adonis rose the Temple of Astarte. In front was a quadrangular court, in the open portion of which the throngs of votaries walked, and beneath whose cloistered sides they rested in extravagant ease and sanctioned vice. In the centre of the court stood the great conical stone, the symbol of deity, on the top of which, twice a year, a chosen priest sat and presented to the divinity the prayers of those who sent their petitions up to him winged with sufficient gifts to warrant their flight to the goddess. White doves flitted through the air, perched upon the projecting stone-work of the porticos, and flocked on the marble pavement regardless of the convenience of human beings, whose superstition made reverent space for the birds which Astarte had chosen to be her favorite symbol. The cooing of the doves, intermingled with the softest notes of flutes floating lasciviously from hidden places, melted into the murmur of the stream. The natural perfume of plants and flowers was supplemented by the incense of rarest spices, which loaded the atmosphere with the illusion of some other world beyond the shores of Araby the Blest.
Back of the great court an ascent of steps led to the temple. Folding gates of bronze guarded the sacred precincts from unhallowed intrusion. Gilded beams held aloft the roof of cedar, carved with grotesque symbols.
The statue of the goddess stood colossal in size and exquisite in form and decoration. In her right hand she held the sceptre, in her left the distaff; for, while she swayed the hearts of women, she was at the same time the patroness and rewarder of their domestic industry. On her head was a tower of gold, whose gleaming spikes well imitated the rays of the sun by day. But at night her peculiar glory was revealed. Then the sacred stone that was set in her crown glowed with mysterious light, and filled the temple with soft rays as of the moon. The central gleam from the stone followed the beholder as an eye, shooting the beam from the omniscience of the goddess into the very soul of the devotee. A statue of Baal sometimes floated in the air, and invited the questions of worshippers, to which it gave oracular response by swaying forward if the answer were affirmative, and backward if a request were refused.
There were varieties of worship adapted to the caprice of all comers. Some bent over the pool, where the torrent, issuing from the cave and plunging from the ledge, makes its first halting-place. Into the swirling waters they cast jewels and gems. If these sank to the bottom, they were presumed to have been accepted by the divinity; if they were cast up by the swift and turbulent eddies, the worshipper retired without assurance of favor. Perhaps the devotee did not confess to himself the selfishness of his motive for making his offering of goodly weight; nor did the priests confess to the people the motive with which every night they dragged the pool and took up the sunken basins they had placed in the bottom.
In the temple court were daily hung some golden caskets containing the hair and beards of young men, their first manly offering to the goddess, whose favors they entreated with the fair sex; and other caskets or bags of golden thread held the similar offerings of the maidens.
A less attractive sight was that of one who had sacrificed a sheep, and, while its skin was still warm with life, placed its head upon his own, tied its forelegs about his neck, the greasy inside against his face, and, doubling his body so that he could kneel upon the lower part of the skin, prayed to the Sheep-goddess—one of the appellations of the Queen of Heaven.
The most imposing offering was that of the Fire Night, the preparation for which occupied many days. A large area in front of the temple court was filled with standing trees which had been cut from the sides of Lebanon, and made an artificial grove. The offerings of devotees were hung among the branches—rich jewels, and the handiwork ornaments of the poorer class; garments of priceless stuffs, and the discarded only raiment of some pauper; birds of all plumage, some in cages of bronze or carved alabaster, some tied by strings to the trees; wild animals, the captive pets of the hunter; sheep, and at times living bulls, swung in girdles from the stancher branches of the trees. The combustible nature of the wood was augmented by smearings of resinous matter gathered in great quantities in the forest.
After the images of the gods had been carried about the grove, at a given signal torches were applied at many places simultaneously. Then there burst through the night a spectacle of wildest magnificence. The spark sprites sprang rapidly from the lower to the topmost limbs of each tree; then roofed the intervals with arches of fire; then flung far and high over all a hundred sheets of flame, banners and streamers that signalled the event to the very sky. The intense heat so rarefied the air that, though scarce a leaf quivered on Lebanon, a mighty wind was created, which swayed the forest around, whose roar answered back the roar of the burning timber. This was not unreasonably interpreted by ignorant people to be the response of nature to the honor paid to its queen.
The day on which Zillah reached the shades of Apheca was the one devoted to mourning for Tammuz. The box containing the image of the god had been borne on the shoulders of six priestesses of Astarte, followed by a procession of maidens with dishevelled hair and torn garments, who threw handfuls of ashes into the air, and filled the grove with their wailing for the brief widowhood of their goddess. At nightfall the coffin was buried. As at the time of real death the lights are extinguished in the house, so now every tent was darkened. Only sounds of lamentation floated through the ravine and among the sacred trees, prompted at brief intervals by the lugubrious wailing of a trumpet blown in the temple precincts.
With the first blush of the new day all was changed; hilarity took the place of mourning. The woods rang with shouts and song and merry laughter. The image of the god was exhumed, and carried in the arms of dancing women to the temple. On this day maidens, hoping to be married before the year elapsed, gave their hair in offering to Astarte or their persons to the embrace of strangers. The latter was the more sacred service, the performance of which could not be omitted in the case of one highly born or ambitious of entering the aristocratic circles of matronhood. The women entered the booths prepared. With locks entwined into the conventional sacred node, arrayed in elegance rivalling that of the bridal raiment they hoped to wear, glittering with the gems that betokened their dowry, they sat and waited for the rite.
Layah was fully persuaded of the determination of her mistress to destroy herself, and, notwithstanding Zillah's commands to the contrary, was resolved to imitate her heroic example. This purpose was strengthened by her fears of Rubaal's vengeance upon her in the event of Zillah's suicide. Her handmaiden would be suspected of collusion with the unhappy lady, and certainly be charged with a criminal neglect in allowing such a deed. Her penalty would be death, unless Rubaal and the priests invented for her something worse—sale for the ship-harem of some rude sea-captain, transportation to the tin-mines of the Cassiterides, or physical torture in some prison. In contrast with such possibilities, her mind became fascinated with the idea of standing erect, raising her arm adorned with the wristlet which her mistress had given her, striking the sharp blade into her breast just beneath the heavy pendants of the necklace that Zillah had worn, and falling dead by her side—a brave self-sacrifice to her love for her mistress and her fidelity to the royal house of Tyre.
The two women went together to the shambles of Astarte, both closely covered with the long veil, which concealed their faces and forms. No word passed between them, except Zillah's repetition of the oft-said vow: "The dagger before the stranger!"
At the shambles they stood a moment in endearing embrace, then silently separated. Zillah entered the booth designated by the insignia of the house of Ahimelek. Layah entered another adjacent, which communicated with that of her mistress; an arrangement which allowed the toilet service of a maid without apparent intrusion.
The day passed. The general reverence for the person of the betrothed of the now deified Hiram, together with the awe that was felt for the person of one who was to be a priestess of Astarte, restrained the most wanton from approaching Zillah's retreat.
Night shadows had already climbed the precipitous sides of the valley, crowding the sunlight before them, until the day gleamed only in the tops of the tall pines that fringed the crest and seemed to mingle with the sky.
The priests had noted the immunity of Zillah's apartment; that no one had approached it. They were concerned about the issue. A group of several strangers had been observed during most of the day sauntering about the temple court. These were approached by the priests, who evidently offered them money to assist in the accomplishment of the rite. After a few moments of apparent entreaty with them one of their number said, "I will go;" and, stepping from the group, walked to the apartment.
"Handsome enough for Adonis himself!" observed a priest.
"How the eyes of Rubaal would turn green to see him!" rejoined another.
"He looks like a Jew," said a third.
"That cannot be," replied the first speaker, "or he would have bargained with us for a heavier price upon his service."
The strange man approached the curtain of the apartment and hesitatingly drew it aside.
Zillah sprang to her feet. She was clad in the white robe of a priestess of Astarte. One who believed that Hiram had entered the estate of the gods would have declared that Astarte had herself entered the person of this woman. Her look was superhuman. An unearthly passion burned in her eyes. Her whole frame seemed to glow with the radiation of her soul, as a lantern globe with the light that is centred in, but not contained by, it. Her attitude, as she retreated a few steps to the rear of the little room, was majesty itself. Her jewelled hand held a dagger at her breast. She pressed it until the blood trickled beneath its gleaming edge, but, in the ecstasy of her mental mood, she was evidently unconscious of pain.
The man raised his hands in entreaty against the intended deed. He stepped towards her. She retreated farther, and stopped his approach by the very spell of her gesture as she raised her left hand and bade him stand. He tried to speak, but she silenced him by her words:
"Go! tell the priests that I offer myself to my Adonai Hiram, whose spirit calls me."
A look of agonizing terror came upon the intruder. He hastily threw back his outer garment, and pointed, speechless with excitement, to his own breast. Upon his white chiton glowed a ring of crimson.
Zillah's dagger fell from her hand.
"The circle!" she cried, and dropped into a swoon.
A slight scream as of an echo to Zillah's cry rang from the adjoining apartment of Layah. It was a tone of mingled determination and pain, shrill, brief, and followed by the sound of one falling to the ground.
Silently the man waited. At length Zillah raised her head. She gazed around her in a daze.
"He is not here, my lord! my Hiram!"
Seeing the man, she added: "O cruel dream!" and reached for the dagger that lay on the ground beside her.
The man seized it first. The action fully aroused her to the reality of her position.
For a moment the two stared at each other in mutual perplexity. They were parts of an enigma which neither understood, though each held a portion of the clew.
Zillah was the first to break the silence.
"What is your message to me by the mark of the circle?"
"You know its meaning better than I," rejoined the stranger, bowing in profound respect.
"Am I to go with you?"
"I am to do your bidding, my lady."
The man made obeisance, touching the ground with his forehead. "My life is pledged to bring you to him who wrought the symbol on my breast."
"And he?"
"Marduk, of Tyre."
"I know none such. Is he not Hanno, the priest?"
"I only know him as Marduk, the merchant of Tyre."
"Tall, with shaved head, and eyes full of subtle wisdom?"
"No. Of my own stature, with hair black as the raven's; of open face. His beard conceals a scar of a wound received in fight."
"A scar! Is he a man? Is he not a god?"
"More godlike than any god of the Phœnicians; yet a man, indeed."
Zillah sat motionless, her head pressed against her hand in deep thought.
"I cannot understand it," she said, at length. "Mystery! mystery! Oh, I do not know—I cannot see!" and she stared into the shadows as one walking in sleep.
"Nor I, my lady. I only know that I am here to obey you. Command me!"
"And I will obey the sign," said Zillah. "Let me look upon it again. 'Tis a circle, surely; and 'tis blood-red. I must follow it."
"And follow me?"
"Yes—to him! to him!"
"Let me leave you, then, my lady. You will know my face or my voice; for I must let no eyes but yours look upon the symbol. To-night I will be beside the pavilion. Another will accompany me whom you may trust, for we both serve a man we love; one to whom we have vowed secrecy and service."
"Before what god have you vowed?"
"Before no god, but by all that is meant by man's honor. And, by all that is meant"—he paused before he added—"by all that is meant by the sanctity of womanhood. I swear by the life I have saved this hour—and I know of nothing more sacred, since what I have witnessed—I swear that no harm shall come to you. If mistake has happened in the person of her I seek, or in him you seek, I swear by your own life to return with you to your father's house. Can I do more?"
"I will follow the mark of the circle wherever it may lead," said Zillah.
The stranger withdrew from the apartment. The priests met him without. They led him to the clerk of the temple, before whom he took the oath that the sacrifice to Astarte had been rendered.
Zillah sought the adjacent apartment of Layah. Upon the ground lay the prostrate form of the girl. A pool of blood told the story of her sacrifice, not to Astarte, but to friendship; to that love of woman for woman, holier than the debauched heathenism of the world ever conceived or tried to express through its rituals.
Zillah flung herself upon the body: "It is too much! too much! O my Layah! my sister! my mother! speak to me!" She kissed the silent lips, that seemed to smile at the touch, and gave into hers the last lingering warmth that had been life.
Scarcely knowing what she did, she took up the dead girl's veil and ran from the apartment; not through her own, but directly into the court. With stumbling feet she sought her pavilion.
"There goes her handmaid," said a priest.
"A graceful shape, which the veil cannot hide. The new priestess will come out soon," said another.
Zillah's soul now impelled her to hasten her flight. She must not be captured. For what could she live in Tyre but to grace the pride of Rubaal, insolent as he was insignificant? Then the memory of Layah, who had given her life to encourage her in fleeing such a fate, would be a perpetual rebuke. She would see the dead girl's face always in remonstrance. Layah would become to her a jinn, a demon, her human love turned to ghostly hate.
Nor was this all. Zillah conceived of herself as having broken faith with Astarte in not rendering the sacrifice. She could not now be a priestess of the goddess. Astarte, if a real divinity, would strike her dead the first time she attempted to minister at her altar.
But Hiram had not believed in Astarte; why should she? It was possible that Hiram was living. The scar? It must be so. If not, the circle which priest Hanno had told her to follow surely indicated his will. Her human affection led her to seek him. If he were dead to earth, and, as the priests said, taken to Baal and become a god, he surely would have prevented any misuse of the symbol he had given her. It must lead to him, to some mountain-top, or some cave where gods have been known to meet with men.
There was but one course open to her. It was flight. She knew not whither; but, if the worst came, she had the last resort still left. She could join Layah and Hiram anywhere, at any moment; and, suiting her action to her thought, she felt in her bosom for a phial containing the poison with which she had intended to accomplish her suicide if anything prevented the quicker work of the knife. It was there. Drawing it out, she looked through the ruddy liquid, and apostrophized it thus:
"You will befriend me! Red, like the blood of Layah! Red, like Hiram's circle! True friend, if men prove false! We cannot misunderstand each other!"
She kissed the phial, and put it back into her bosom.
It became quite dark, except for the lanterns that hung from the trees and the torches that the revellers were carrying. She stepped out into the night, closely veiled.
A voice, that of the stranger, greeted her. It did not startle her. She had become familiar with it, though so few words had it uttered, because they had been words of kindness and confidence. Strange though it was, it was the only voice in all the world that she dared to hear now. She must trust it. What else was there to trust on earth or in the sky?
"I am ready. Lead! I will follow," she whispered.
It was not difficult to avoid detection, there were so many veiled and masked figures flitting among the lights and shadows of the sacred grove. Zillah felt confident of safety, at least from the priests, should they seek to detain her; for her quick eyes could not fail to notice that there were others in league with her guide. Two men almost kept pace with her. Sometimes one went ahead, and, making a way for himself through the thicker throngs, left it open for her. Or, if attention seemed drawn to her, one of these mysterious attendants dropped behind her, and blocked the way until she was beyond the sight of the curious.
A little way down the ravine, where the crowd was thinner, a litter was in waiting. As she entered it, the two men she had observed lifted it, and, turning abruptly from the river, climbed the steep bank. As they reached the bluff and placed the litter upon the ground a fourth person joined the party. His stay was but for a moment. He threw his arms about one of the bearers of the litter.
"All the gods be praised, and especially Jehovah of the Jews, this time!" said he, putting his hand upon the shoulder of the guide. "But I must away. This is no place for me, the future high priest of Melkarth! Ha! ha! But now you have the goddess herself enshrined in a litter, you will have safe journey. For a while Baal and Jehovah watch between us, good Marduk." The speaker was gone.
The guide lifted Zillah from the litter; and as he held her by the hand, he placed it in that of one of the carriers.
"Marduk, have I kept my covenant with you?"
Marduk's reply was not to him. A whispered word, and Zillah lay speechless in the arms of the Phœnician merchant.
The men withdrew as from too near proximity to some holy scene. Four horses were brought. As Zillah was lifted to the saddle, the Phœnician mentioned the names of his comrades, Manasseh of Jerusalem and Elnathan of Galilee, who in turn kissed the hand of the maiden and mounted their horses—Elnathan guiding the way, and Manasseh following, while Marduk rode by Zillah's side. The moon burst brilliantly from behind a mass of clouds.
"Astarte's parting blessing!" exclaimed Elnathan.
"No, Astarte goes with us," said Manasseh, remembering the scene in the shambles. "A fairer goddess than Phœnicia ever dreamed of!"
Great was the commotion in the Grove of Adonis late that night. It was reported that Ahimelek's daughter had not been seen to come from her apartment, though her maid had returned to the pavilion. As the hours wore on, the anxiety of the priests led them to search the place. There lay the girl upon the ground. The armlets and necklace were assumed to identify her; and such was the dread the common people had of a dead body, that no one of the domestics from Ahimelek's household had ventured to look upon her face.
The priests ordered that the body should be left where it had fallen until swift couriers had run to Gebal, where Ahimelek had taken advantage of the coming exaltation of his daughter to the priesthood of Astarte, to demand the monopoly of supplying the provisions that were sold to the caterers at Apheca during the festival—a source of enormous revenues. His presence at Gebal had been sufficient to secure the discomfiture of all competitors for the trade, and many of his ships had exchanged their cargoes for the gold of the venders at the dock. Just before the priestly couriers brought him the news of Zillah's supposed death, a messenger had come from Tyre to Gebal, conveying a letter which had been discovered in her chamber after the family party had left their home. It read:
"My Father,—A daughter's obedience is sacred while the life he has given her remains. But I cannot endure the severity of your command. With your permission I once gave myself to King Hiram. I cannot recall this betrothal. To him I shall go. This will explain anything that may occur at the festival of Tammuz.
Zillah."
On reading the letter, Ahimelek's rage knew no bounds. He cursed his daughter aloud in the hearing of the bystanders. He cursed the name of Hiram, and defied him to appear to him as god or jinn or ghost. He even challenged Baal himself to thus circumvent the will of the richest man of Phœnicia—one who held the welfare of the state religion at his disposal.
"Let the Temple of Melkarth fall! Let the image of the god rot!" he exclaimed, in his insane rage.
Other couriers then arrived bringing the news of Zillah's death. "Killed by her maid, who has escaped," they explained.
The remnant of fatherly instinct asserted itself for a moment in Ahimelek's breast.
"My daughter! My daughter!" he cried, sitting upon the ground, and covering his face with his hands. But the gentler mood gave way to his wrath, as on the Fire Night the flames in the grove of Apheca caught the unburnt trees.
He held the letter in his hand, which trembled with his frenzy. Bewildered with his anger, he read it aloud.
"She has slain herself!" he cried. "Curse! curse! A father's curse upon the suicide! She has robbed me of my riches, of my honor. And you priests, see you not she has robbed you? robbed Melkarth? robbed the king? robbed Tyre?"
Then, as the fire dies down when resinous matter has been consumed, so he buried his head in his hands and moaned.
"My child! my Zillah!"
The priests waited his commands. By custom one who betrayed Astarte on such occasions was thrown into the pool of Apheca. With difficulty they aroused the wretched man to understand the situation. He stared stupidly at them for a time. His mind was evidently giving way in the fierce contention of his grief and rage. Suddenly he rose, pale with passion.
"Her body to the pool!" he shouted, and fell as if dead upon the floor.
Upon the return of the couriers the priests held counsel. They judged that there could be no doubt of the suicide. Her letter to her father proved it. Or if she fell not by her own hand, her maid was only an accomplice, and executed her mistress's purpose. The honor of the goddess demanded some disgrace to be shown the body of one who had flung such contempt upon the entire worship of Astarte. The whole Phœnician world would hear of it; it must hear of Astarte's vengeance also. Besides, the father's command could be quoted as inspired directly by Baal. Sudden insanity was believed to be an over-exaltation of the mind due to divine influence. Surely Ahimelek's raving was sufficient evidence that the hand of the god was upon him.
The body of the supposed Zillah was lifted from the ground by men who averted their eyes, that they might not be polluted, or even blinded, by the sight of the unhallowed thing. They thrust the corpse into a sack, and plunged it into the pool. Men were deputed to watch it as it emerged from the great caldron and floated down the stream, and to follow it, carrying with them poles with which to dislodge it from the rocks and fallen timber that might obstruct the river, until the body should be lost in the waters of the Great Sea.
The fugitives from Apheca rode as rapidly as the sure-footed horses could pick their way in the moonlight up the side of the western range of Lebanon, and at dawn looked down upon the majestic valley of the Litany. The weariness of the journey, and the attendant excitement, could not altogether destroy the impressiveness of the marvellous scene.
Thousands of feet below them lay the green meadows. Far across to the east rose the other range of Lebanon, a mighty wall delaying the sunrise. Among its snow-covered peaks the rays of morning poured, as the white foam surges over the breakers and between the jagged rocks on the Syrian coast. Tongues of snow filled the high ravines, and, diminishing as they descended, carried the illusion of an overflowing reservoir of light. Below the lustral crest, the rocky sides of Lebanon were black in shadow; here gashed by the ceaseless plunging of cataracts, there beetling with crags, like castles which had borne the assaulting storms since chaos. High against the mountain's base the immense amount of detritus made a sloping mound of soil, rich and green like a bank of emerald.
The valley of the Litany which lay between the two Lebanon ranges had been for ages the gateway of Syria from the north. Down through it had poured the vast armies of Assyria and Babylon, devastating Syria and Palestine on their way to the great objective conquest, the land of Egypt. Now it was dotted with the caravansaries of traders, the camps of Persian soldiers, halting en route, and the black tent villages of the farmers who thus congregated for mutual protection in the midst of the fields and herds they were watching.
Midway across the valley was a little city, whose buildings clustered about a temple, each of whose enormous stones was clearly marked to the eye miles away, so immense were they. These stones had been consecrated by the blood of human sacrifices. This was Baal-bek, the city of Baal. Not far from it Marduk pointed out his tent, a white cone just distinguishable in the distance.
On the mountain brow they took their morning meal, with which Elnathan's well-filled hamper supplied them. For an hour Zillah must rest. The cloaks of the men made her couch. It would be well for her to sleep; but the over-excitement of the day and night could not be allayed at the call of expediency. She could only promise to lie still if Hiram were by her. Manasseh and Elnathan assumed the duty of picket guards, and wandered back over the road they had come, to give warning in case of pursuit. Of this, however, they had little fear, at least for that day, as they had chosen a path which would hardly be thought of by others; the way of flight being naturally down the river Adonis, where one could be lost in the crowds and easily take to the sea; for the escape of such a person as Zillah would be thought of in connection with some wide preparation looking to future abode in a distant Phœnician colony, or perhaps in Greece or Egypt.
Zillah's chief fear was not danger from men. The superstition of her religion still held a partial spell over her mind which no resolution could break at once. The habitual thoughts of a lifetime will linger and impress us in spite of our calling them unreasonable. Zillah felt that she had challenged Astarte. In her keen imagination, the indignant eyes of the goddess were turned upon her. They burned her. She could not rest. But there was a counter-spell in the kiss of her companion, which would have gone far to exorcise these demons of fear and religious anxiety, even had he never uttered his stout words of disbelief in the whole system of Baalism.
Zillah's spirit was strong and self-assertive to a degree seldom shown by women or men, else she had never proposed to herself, and followed so nearly to completion, the project of self-sacrifice rather than submit to the custom of Astarte. But when with Hiram, her whole soul, her opinions as well as her will, became plastic to the touch of his thoughts and purpose. His soul was the mold into which her nature, melted by the fire of her love, ran and reformed itself. That Baal had not received him to an estate of divinity lessened not a whit her real reverence for Hiram; it only destroyed the sense of awe with which she had come to think of him. His loving humanity was more to her now than even her ideal of his godhead had been. He was her Adonai, her lord indeed. If he had diminished in magnitude, he had come nearer, and so was greater to her. Her heart worshipped and adored, though she did not call it worship. Simple love had wrought all this. Surely love must be divine to perfect that relation between human creatures which formal religion only aims to accomplish between the soul and a god!
Zillah looked into the face of Hiram as he bent over her, and thought something like this: "Oh, if a god were like him! If I could feel towards the divinity as I feel towards him! Then I would be a priestess indeed!"
"Have no scruple nor dread concerning Astarte," said Hiram, divining her thoughts. "Have I not found out that our religion is all a lie? My absorption into Baal the priests knew to be no more a falsehood than are all their teachings. Hanno is less false to them than they are to the people. See yonder pile they call a temple. From here how small in comparison with the mighty height of the mountains back of it! That little cloud of white smoke and incense from the fire they keep always burning, how insignificant under the white glory of the morning that bursts over Lebanon and fills all the sky above us! How cruel the sacrifice of bird or beast or child seems in a world which the real God has made so beautiful and filled with the sweet air! And how good he must be to have ever thought of making such a creature as my Zillah, and giving me eyes to see her and a heart to love her!" He bent low, and worshipped her with a kiss. "If there be any god, he is one of kindness, who hates cruelty, whose deep abomination must be for such things as you and I have escaped. I would live alone with this thought, and be inspired by it to happiness, if all the world believed the contrary."
"Do any people believe as you—as we—do, dear Hiram?"
"Perhaps no people do; but I am sure that some persons do. I met a man in Jerusalem who helped me to my faith, vague as it is. The Jews have sacrifices and many forms of worship; but one Malachi, whom some day you shall know, sees through all forms. His God is only a spirit—a spirit of right and love. The forms of religion with him are only like our letters, the shape suggesting a meaning that we put into it. Who would think that this"—drawing a few marks on the rock—"meant my love for you? So little can express so much! But to whom does it express it? Only to you and me, who feel our love. So the forms of religion represent great thoughts. But for whom? Only for those who have first felt them. Malachi was looking one night at a lamp flame very intently, and I asked:
"'What part of the flame is the most beautiful?'
"Manasseh, who was with us, said, 'He sees only the smoke that wreathes itself above it, for he is always brooding of gloomy things.'
"'No,' replied Malachi, 'I like to look through the centre, where it has no color, before the flame has got red.'
"So he sees religious ceremonies: he looks through the transparent centre of them. He talks of Jehovah's goodness and pity as if he felt them. He loves his God, and so knows Him. But he follows all the foolish ceremonies of the Jews. For that matter, few break away from the customs in which they have been brought up, as we have broken away from ours. But see, the sun comes over the mountain!"
Instantly Zillah rose from her recumbent position, and, bending her body, so that the first rays might fall upon her brow, began a morning prayer to Baal.
Hiram interrupted her with louder voice. "O God of all the Baals—of Jove! of Jehovah! God of all the world! bless us, thy children, and guide us this day!"
It was deemed advisable that Marduk should not travel farther in company with Zillah, lest any suspicion that might have attached to either should lead to the identification of both. Marduk therefore proposed to go directly to his camp under the walls of Baalbek, where he should remain for a few days; while Zillah should accompany Manasseh and Elnathan southward to the home of Ben Yusef.
The sun glared fiercely upon this latter party as the day advanced. Towards noon they sought the shade of a terebinth grove; but, on coming near, they found it already occupied by various parties. Manasseh, going forward alone, discovered that one of the companies was the suite of a Persian officer whom he had met at Jerusalem, now going to the Jewish capital to collect the tax due the Great King. The young Jew was cordially invited to join them. He declined to leave his companions, whom he described as Elnathan, son of Ben Yusef, whose home he must visit, as he had been deputed to gather information regarding the names of the families that had returned from Babylon under the original firman of Cyrus. The young man, he said, was travelling with his sister. The genial disposition of Manasseh, together with the fact that he belonged to the highest rank at Jerusalem, as a member of the high priest's family, led the Persian to gain his companionship by extending the hospitality of his camp to Elnathan and Zillah. This was a sure protection from all pursuit, as such a company would not be suspected. At the same time, the stricter customs of the Persians regarding the presence of women forbade any curious inspection of Zillah's appearance. She remained veiled while upon the march, except as she conversed aloof from the company with Elnathan, and was served with the utmost hospitality in a tent that was pitched for her private use.
On the third day they reached the sea of Galilee, where the party halted, while Manasseh saw that his charge was safely under the tent of Ben Yusef, and presumably made all necessary inquiries into the genealogies of the house of that worthy. The record which he showed to the Persian was long enough to have carried the family back, not only to the days of the Captivity, but to the life of the great patriarch Yusef himself.
Slowly the hours dragged while Zillah awaited the coming of Hiram. Elnathan was as faithful to his charge as the huge mastiff was to the care of little Ruth; and there was very similar communication between them. The young Jew's eyes searched all the paths over the hills that converged at the family tent; his ear was quick to detect any approaching step; and he eagerly ran to meet every one coming, lest some interloper should spy out the strange guest. Then from a distance he would watch the Phœnician lady as she walked, or sat under the great terebinth. The part he had taken in her rescue had reacted in a strong fascination for her. How many romances he wove about this beautiful woman!—a different one for almost every hour, but all terminating in her flight, and all involving himself as in some form her protector. He had felt a sort of proprietorship in her destiny, as he did in that of Marduk since he had saved his life at the old crater; yet it was a proprietorship of absolute unselfishness, of obligation to cherish and guard, such as a father feels in his child.
Beyond that, Elnathan could not go. To admire Zillah's loveliness, of which he now and then caught a glimpse, seemed unlawful for him; for that belonged to her lover alone. He scarcely ventured to speak to her, lest his words might be a sort of profanation. He could only wonder and watch. She was his queen, and every fibre of his soul thrilled with loyalty.
Old Ben Yusef had much the same feeling as his son; but his curiosity was absorbed in his tenderness. Tears came into his eyes as he looked upon Zillah's face, now shadowed with trouble, now ecstatic with yearning. That there had been some barrier to her union with Marduk was enough to revive memories of his own early life, when his now buried Lyda, an alien from Israel, had cast her lot with his. His tent-home, the home of an outcast from the family of Judah, was itself a memorial of the triumph of love over traditionary proprieties; and it seemed as if the God who had blessed his married life had now sent this Phœnician maiden to his care.
Ruth did not need to catch the sentiment from her father and brother. The fresh impulses of her own young womanhood went out unreservedly to their guest. Zillah's need of sympathy quickly responded, and from the first greeting the two were in closest sisterly relation. Ruth's presence was a perpetual salâm, a benediction of peace and quiet to Zillah's perturbed soul. The Jewess, though only a child, was old enough to respect the privacy of the Phœnician's thoughts, and made no inquiries, content to find her way to the other's heart, and to feel that she brought comfort to it.
But there was one respect in which the kindness of Ben Yusef's household failed. Zillah could not rest. There was but one pillow for her, and that was the breast of Hiram. Why did he not come? A strange listlessness passed through her. All the third day of her sojourn at Giscala she hardly spoke, but talked all the night long in her sleep.
The fourth day brought the welcome visitor. Elnathan made the rocks ring again as from the adjacent hill-top he signalled Marduk's approach. Ben Yusef ran to meet him as if he had been a son. Even Ruth left the side of the Phœnician, and tripped far away to greet him.
But Zillah moved not from her seat under the terebinth. As Marduk came near and extended his arms in eagerness, she stared at him with stony eyes. Then a faint smile passed over her face. Her body swayed against the trunk of the tree, and would have fallen had not Marduk caught her.
"A passing swoon!" said Ben Yusef. "The gladness has been too much for her. Some wine, Ruth!"
The swoon passed. Zillah rose, and, wildly flinging her arms, cried, "I will go. I will go to him! See! this—this shall take me to him!" She felt for something in her bosom. Raising her clenched hand, and with a shrill cry, "I come, my Adonai, Hiram!" she fell again. They brought the unconscious form into the tent.
Moments passed, which to the watchers dragged themselves as if they had been hours. Hours passed, heavy and slow as nightless days. Days lapsed into weeks. But neither day nor night brought rest to the disordered brain of Zillah. Her tongue ran incessantly; now uttering some fear: "The priests! Moloch! Save him!" Now some pleasant illusion: "He comes! No need for a crown! See the rays about his head! Baal crowns him with his own beams."
Day and night her phantasy ran in one or other of these grooves. There was no sleep, only brief lulls in the wild storm of delirium. After some days, Elnathan brought a physician from Samaria, an attendant on the household of Sanballat. He murmured over the tossing body some magical incantations. These failing, he prescribed the usage among the tribes beyond the Jordan in cases of high fever; namely, to wrap the patient in wet cloths. Under this treatment she caught some periods of quiet sleep, but only to awake again in the world of ideal torment or ecstasy.
Her lover was almost equally insane at times with his grief. He accused himself of being the cause of her death through his attempt to rescue her from the shambles of Apheca.
"No, no," old Yusef said at such suggestions. "The Lord gave man wisdom. For the use of so much as he receives the man is responsible. What happens beyond our wisdom is the Lord's dealing, not man's. You did as you thought wisest and best. Afflict yourself with no censure. Say now with our Psalmist, 'It is the Lord. Let him do what seemeth him good!'"
At times Marduk would stare at the sky, as if questioning whether this were not some curse of Baal. Then he would pray to Jehovah, into whose land he had come, to defend him from the assault of his old enemies, the gods of Phœnicia. But this mood was of briefest duration—only in moments when his grief made him forget his scepticism. Once he inquired of Ben Yusef if it were not possible that, through ignorance of the ways of the god of the land, he had inadvertently offended.
"The ways of the Lord are those of every honest man's heart," replied the patriarch.
"Is there no sacrifice I could offer? Behold all I have! Let it be burned! Nay, I will lie myself upon the altar willingly."
"Remember our Psalmist," Ben Yusef would reply. "'Thou delightest not in sacrifice and offering, else would I give it. The sacrifices of God are a broken and contrite heart.' If you have sinned, my son, confess it in your thought, and let us pray the Lord for his mercy."
One day the old man stood facing the south, and raised his hand. His white locks floated in the breeze, while thus he prayed, using the words of Solomon at the dedication of the first temple: "Moreover, concerning a stranger that is not of thy people Israel, but cometh out of a far country for thy name's sake: hear thou in heaven, thy dwelling-place, and do according to all that the stranger calleth to thee for: that all the people of the earth may know thy name, to fear thee, as do thy people Israel."
Three weeks had passed. The patient had steadily declined in strength. She could no longer toss upon her couch, but moved only her hands under the impulse of her restless soul.
One day she lay very quiet. Ruth scarcely left her side. Suddenly a sharp cry rang through the tent. It was that of the watcher. Entering, the men witnessed a scene that confirmed their worst fears. Ruth was leaning over the couch, and gazing with fixed stare upon the face of her patient, from which the fever flush had vanished. The pallor and rigidness of death were upon her. Her eyes were lustreless, the balls upturned.
"Quick! quick! the draught!" The physician forced some drops through the stiffening lips. The eyes remained fixed.
"It is over! O Jehovah! I would have served thee! Cruel as Baal art thou!" cried Marduk, throwing himself across the couch.
"Hush!" said old Ben Yusef. "The doors of Sheol open. Upbraid no one here; not even thyself. 'The Lord gave. The Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord!'"
The old man's trembling voice almost belied the submissive faith expressed by his words, for in a moment he too bowed his head and sobbed.
Ruth held the cold hand in hers, as if to force into it the warmth of her own life. So intense was her yearning look that it seemed as if her soul would break through her countenance and reanimate the face of the dead.
The silence was only for a moment, but it seemed a long time until the physician spoke.
"The doors of Sheol are closing again, and she—" He watched intently his patient's face as he completed the sentence slowly, and as if waiting to verify the words as he uttered them: "She—has—not—passed them."
There was slight twitching of the eyeballs. They resumed their normal position in their sockets. There was in them a soft gleam, as of recognition, not of the watcher, but of something very distant.
"The life throbs again in her wrists," cried Ruth, covering the hands she held with her kisses.
Zillah's eyelids fell, but it was in sleep. The breathing became regular.
"The fever has burned itself out; but it has burned up branch and stock, and left nothing but the root of life," said the physician.
A long sleep followed. At first consciousness came in lucid moments only. Then these periods lengthened until they became continuous.
Only Ruth was permitted to enter the sick-chamber. Zillah would look at her intently, evidently dividing her thoughts between wonder and admiration for the beautiful face of her attendant.
"Where am I?" she would ask.
"With me," would be the reply.
A kiss upon her brow was enough to restore perfect tranquillity, and with a smile the patient would go to sleep.
"What do I hear?" she one day asked.
"They are chanting our praises to the Lord for your recovery," said Ruth. "Listen!"
Old Ben Yusef was evidently the precentor, and the strong voice of Elnathan followed, accompanied by the well-known accent of Marduk: