Istar of Babylon Part 12

"Istar of Babylon, what are you--who are you? child of G.o.d, or instrument of the devil?--archangel, as some say, or arch-fiend, as many think? What is your mission in Babylon? Whence came you? Whither do you go?"

Istar smiled. "Neither angel nor fiend am I, Beltishazzar, but archetype of G.o.d's creation. I came from s.p.a.ce. Into it, in time, I shall return again. My mission I have told you. I come to learn the hearts of men, their relations.h.i.+p to G.o.d."

As she ceased to speak she found Beltishazzar's eyes fixed upon her in a look so penetrating that it seemed impossible it should not pierce her veil. Presently, in the silence that followed, the Jew began to pace up and down the little room. He walked nervously. His brows were knitted, his shoulders drawn up, his head sunk between them in an abstraction that Istar never thought of disturbing. When, at length, he looked up at her again, she found in him a new enthusiasm, a spirituality, an exaltation even, that gleamed like fire from his sunken eyes and increased his unhealthy pallor till his skin was like that of a dead man.

"Istar," he began, in a voice low and tremulous with incipient pa.s.sion--"Istar, you have said it was from G.o.d that you came hither from s.p.a.ce--you, a heavenly being, an archangel. G.o.d despatched you to earth for an unknown purpose, a purpose that, in its fulness, hath not been confided to you, but is revealed unto me, the prophet of Nebuchadrezzar, the great king. Listen, and thou shalt feel the response of truth throb within thee at my words.

"Forty-and-seven years ago the holy city of Judah fell before the onslaught of the Babylonian king. Zedekiah and his race were taken captive by the hands of the wicked, and were carried away into exile to the city abhorred of G.o.d--Babylon, the queen of evil. Since then, in sickness and sorrow, in captivity and death, our people have dwelt here, a piteous hunger for the promised land gnawing at their hearts, while Babylon waxed great and strong in her wickedness off the fat of many captive lands and peoples. Long have we been without hope of salvation.

But now Nebuchadrezzar, the fierce ruler, is dead many years since. In his kingdom are sown the seeds of dissension and strife, and, in the weakness of her strength, she shall reap bitter fruit. For Babylon, even as Nineveh before her, must fall. At the hands of her captives shall the great city suffer destruction and death. Again in their strength the Jews shall rise up and smite the tyrant down. And now, O Istar, hear thou the word of the Lord! In this great retribution it is thou that shalt lead us, the chosen ones; thou that shalt win glory and honor among us; thou that, as Moses from Egypt, shalt lead us out of Babylonia through the wilderness, back to the land of our fathers!"

He paused for an instant in the midst of his delight, to note the effect of his words on the woman--or angel. She sat before him radiant, wavering with light, motionless, unmoved, inscrutable, showing no desire to interrupt the flow of his words; rather, in her silence, urging him to greater heights. So he continued:

"For forty-and-seven years have we, the captives, dwelt in the land of bondage; and in that time, even with the hand of G.o.d heavy upon us, have acquired honor and riches in the country of our woe. Is it not a sign that G.o.d is with us--that he holds sacred that spot in which we dwell?

Thou also art from Him! The end of our trial approaches! By night I hear the voice of the Lord crying from the high places that thou art here as a sign of His protection. And I and thou are destined to lead the children of Jerusalem out of bondage. Mine is the hand that will strike down the weak and faltering king of Babylon--Nabu-Nahid, the foolish one. At our hands priest and n.o.ble, citizen and soldier, yea, mother and infant of this unholy people, shall be made to drink of their own blood.

And for thee, O Istar, shall be reserved the triumph, the deed of danger and of glory! For by thy hand, in stealth, when he shall come to wors.h.i.+p idolatrously at thy shrine, shalt thou strike to earth the monster tyrant of the city, Nabu-Nahid's son, the child of sin, Belshazzar! Now behold--"

"Thou infamous one!"

Daniel's rush of words suddenly ceased. He paused long enough, fully enough, this time, to perceive and to understand the situation. Istar, trembling with anger and disgust, had risen from her place and towered above him like an archangel indeed. Through the blaze of light her two eyes glowed like burning coals upon the insignificant creature cowering below her. Beyond her exclamation, Istar found no words to say. The two confronted each other in palpitating stillness, and as they stood, Daniel, inch by inch, began to regain his stature, and gradually to move away, backward, towards the door. When finally he had his shoulders against the leathern curtain, and knew his ability to effect a quick escape should it become necessary, he delivered himself of a final oracle:

"Thou thing of evil, the Lord hath stripped from mine eyes the veil! I behold thee nouris.h.i.+ng the serpent in thy bosom. Thy master, Satan, stands at thy right shoulder. Upon the other hand is Belshazzar, thy paramour. But I say unto you that the streets of Babylon shall run with the tyrant's blood. There shall come a night when Babylon shall burst into flames; when Nabonidus will be no more; when Belshazzar's life shall be taken by the hands of his own people; when thou, in mortal terror, shalt flee the city of thy wickedness; when the Jew shall triumph over Bel, and the G.o.d of Judea lift up his sword in the heavens!

Thus, in mine ear, sounds the mighty voice of the Lord!"

Then, with one baleful gesture, and a fiery glance of hatred from his bright, black eyes, Daniel flung back the curtain of the sanctuary and slunk away, with his usual gait, out into the twilight and down the winding plane of the ziggurat.

For many minutes Istar remained as she had stood while listening to the last words of the leader of the captive race. Her limbs trembled. Her eyes were dim. When presently she felt the cool breath of the evening envelop her, her senses swam. In the midst of it all, in the midst of that terrible vision that the Jew had conjured up before her, there was one thing that stood out before all else, till the rest had lost all significance. Kill Belshazzar! _She_ kill Belshazzar! Over and over she repeated it to herself, unable to understand why the horror of the mere thought should be so great.

The swinging-lamp in the sanctuary mingled its dim, steady light with that of the rosy evening. From far below, over the Great City, came the faint hum of weary millions that had ceased from toil--a drowsy, restful murmur, suggestive of approaching sleep. The sound came gratefully to Istar's ears. Here were no battle-cries, no shouts of attack, no wails of the dying. Beltishazzar surely lied. Nay, over her senses began to steal a sensation of subtle delight, of exquisite content, of freedom from earth-weariness. The hum of the city was gradually replaced by a long-drawn celestial chord, spun out and out with fainter, increasing vibrations, till it died away in the glow of unearthly light that was gradually suffusing the room.

Istar gave one low cry of love and relief, and, moving from her strained position, lay down upon the soft couch in an att.i.tude of expectancy and happiness. Minute by minute the glow increased in brilliance till the little shrine palpitated with the fires of a midsummer sunset. Vapors of gold, in hot, whirling eddies, floated from ceiling to floor. The objects in the room became indistinguishable, and the light was such as must have struck mortal eyes blind. Gradually, in the meeting-point of the radiating light-streams, there became visible a darkly opaque shape upon which Istar fixed her eyes. It became more and more definable.

Suddenly, from the head, there flashed forth five points of diamond light; and at the same instant Allaraine, star-crowned, emerged in mortal semblance from the melting glory. The moon-daughter rose from her couch, and silently the two greeted each other, looking eye into eye with all the companions.h.i.+p of divinity. While they stood thus, Allaraine touched his lyre, and the chords of the night-song of stillness and peace spread through the room and out into the darkness beyond. To mortal senses it was the essence of the summer day, with its fragrance and its pa.s.sion, hanging still, by early night, over the land and the drowsy city. But to immortal ears it was as the voice of G.o.d. Istar drank it in as a thirsty field receives the rivulets of irrigation. And, little by little, as the spell was woven to its close, the star-crowned one drew her towards the throne, on which he caused her to sit, himself floating at a little distance.

"Allaraine! Allaraine! You bring again the breath of s.p.a.ce, my home!"

"Yea, Istar!"

"And a half-mortal sadness looks upon me from your incarnate eyes."

"Beloved of the skies, I am troubled--troubled for you. It is as a messenger knowing little that I come to you from the great throne."

"What message? What message?"

"This: 'As immortal men are yet mortal, so shalt thou be. And by means of pain, of sin, of death, and of love, shalt thou in the end know mankind through thyself; and for thee will there be freedom of choice.'"

Measuredly, clearly, but unintelligently, Allaraine p.r.o.nounced the words that were to him a mystery; and Istar listened, wondering, a dim foreboding at her heart. After a long pause she spoke mechanically the two words:

"_Mortal! I!_"

"Mortal. Thou. Istar, the heavens mourn!"

"And why, Allaraine?"

"To see thee in pain, in sin, in death--"

Istar raised her hand. "Have peace! These are in the world, but they are not all. There is something besides, that I have seen, yet that neither I, nor thou, nor any of our kind can understand. Sweeter than all the rest are hard, higher than sin is low, more joyful than death is sad, love reigns over men. Love is from the central fire of G.o.d, as we are but its outer rays. Love walks through all the earth, pa.s.sing to and fro among men, making them to forswear sin, to forget suffering, to overcome death. Those that love are happy in spite of all things. This much have I learned on earth. And if mortality is decreed for me, I shall find love with the rest. Fear not for me, for willingly I bow down in acceptance of suffering, of pain, of wandering in the maze of ignorance, for the sake of this thing that men know and that I cannot understand."

"And thou wilt gladly forget us?"

"Nay, Allaraine. In the long nights and troubled days, thou, as ever, wilt bring me comfort."

"Ah, Istar--that may not be."

"May not? I shall lose the music--the communion--"

"All things divine will be lost. You enter into the wilderness of the world."

Istar bent her head and was silent. She who had seemed to understand so much, realized nothing. At last, lifting her head heavily, she asked: "When does it come, this farewell to--my home?"

"Not until you, of your own will, renounce divinity."

"Not till I seek it? Nay, this very night I asked it of the Almighty."

"Yea, and the cry was heard. Mortality shall be yours whenever of your own free will you renounce us all for that which mortality will give."

"Ah, then--then, immortal one--I shall remain the Narahmouna."[7]

Allaraine shook his head thoughtfully and said: "Of that I do not know.

I have brought the message. Sleep, celestial woman. I go."

Obediently Istar lay down upon her couch, and the white eyelids closed over the unfathomable eyes. Allaraine, standing over her, looking down upon her mortal form with infinite pity, infinite ignorance, lifted up his lyre once more, and, by the magic of his power, Istar's spirit quickly fled to the land of dreams. There Allaraine left her to await the dawn of the new day, with its monotonous, wearying duties, and its weight of dim, indefinable foreboding, that as yet was all of the earth-life of Narahmouna the divine.

III

A BABYLONISH HOUSEHOLD

Babylon, the largest, richest, and most powerful city in the world, and of Oriental cities probably the most beautiful, presented, to the discerning eye, not a few glaring incongruities. Though its population had always been large, and was at the present time greater than ever before or after, the actual area of the city was, nevertheless, much too great for the number of people that dwelt in it. There have been kingdoms of fewer acres than those over which the monster city spread.

Between the two walls, Imgur and Nimitti-Bel, were grain-fields of sufficient extent to supply the entire population with sesame, barley, and wheat in the event of a prolonged siege. This part of Babylon, therefore, called city by courtesy, was really more in the nature of farm-lands than anything else. While within the inner wall, indeed almost in the heart of the city, were many bare and unsightly acres, used for nothing better than dumping-grounds, or for encampments of the troops of dogs that wandered freely through the streets as scavengers.

In some quarters, however, and especially along the banks of the five ca.n.a.ls cut from the Euphrates, and winding out towards Borsip on the west and Cutha on the east, every available inch of soil was occupied.

Houses jutted over the streets and were crowded together, side by side and back to back, without any attempt at system: tenement districts such as the worst cities of later times never dreamed of. Here the three-story, flat-roofed buildings would be rented out, room by room, to as many people as poverty obliged to live in them. And these were myriad. For as Babylon was the wealthiest of cities, so she concealed in her depths nests of filthy, swarming life, of suffering and of privation such as only human beings could see and still tolerate.

On the edge of one of these districts, between the square of Nisan and the square of the G.o.ds, on the north bank of the ca.n.a.l of the New Year, in two tiny rooms, with a little s.p.a.ce also on the roof, lived the widow Beltani, her daughters, and their male slave. The slave was Beltani's sole inheritance from her husband. He was her luxury, her delight, the outlet of her not unfrequent tempers, and one of the three sources of a very limited income. Her daughters were the other two means of livelihood, but to them--though as girls go they were pretty--she was indifferent. Beltani herself was not, like so many of the Babylonish women, in trade. She did the work of the household; cooked--what there was to cook; washed--also what there was to wash; kept the rooms clean, as was consistent with tradition; and, hardest of hard tasks, managed the general income so that, in the two years of their unprotected life, none of the four had starved outright, and none of them had gone naked, while the rent was also paid as regularly as it could not be avoided.

Besides this, Beltani held the patronage of two of the great G.o.ds; and by their help, together with frequent incantations, had kept the devils of the under-world from inflicting upon her any particularly direful misfortune. Images of the G.o.d Sin, of Bel-Marduk, and of the demons of Headache and the West Wind, were the only ornaments of her rooms. Each of these, however, had its shrine, and was regularly addressed three times a day; and it is to be hoped that if any demon had a due sense of proportion, he would refrain from inflicting any further ill of life upon these poor and pious creatures.

Neither chair nor rug had Beltani. Four pallets, such as they were, three in an inner room, one in a corner of the living-room; a wooden movable table and a brick stationary one; some vessels of clay, two iron pots, three knives, and a two-p.r.o.nged fork, together with an iron brazier that was kept upon the roof, and lastly, three or four rough, wooden stools, formed the furniture of the house. Nevertheless laughter, and that from very pretty throats, was a thing not unheard in this poverty-stricken place; and as many human sensations, from joy of life to pain of death, had run their course in these rooms as in the magnificent abode of Lord Ribata Bit-Shumukin, just across the ca.n.a.l.