Istar of Babylon Part 46

That mute appeal could not be withstood. Here, because she had asked it, she must remain.

Step by step up the stairs to the gallery he bore the pathetic burden.

At the top of the flight stood Ramua, face colorless, eyes wide with a fear that she would not admit to herself. Charmides, looking up, met the look, answered it, and saw his wife's hands go up to her head.

"Charmides! It is not--" she stopped.

"It is Baba, my beloved. Baba is alive. She has come home to us, Ramua, to be cared for. Be thou brave, then. Go down and bring water wherewith to wash her, and a clean tunic of thine own to put upon her; and then together we will bind her wound."

A little while and the sunset came, and Babylon was aureoled again in crimson. Not till then did Ribata's slave come back to consciousness in her sister's arms. The horror of the past night had stamped itself as indelibly upon her mind as on her body. Between fits of trembling she poured out to Ramua the story of the fight in the temple and the ma.s.sacre of the women. Charmides, standing outside the door on the gallery, listened to the tale as he looked off across the quiet city.

"And Istar, Istar, our divine lady, I did not behold at the side of Belitsum the queen, nor with the women of the royal house who lie together now in the centre of the dead. May the great G.o.ds grant that she and her lord, Belshazzar, together escaped death and are free--somewhere--in the city."

"Baba, the Lady Istar is here--below--sick of the plague; and our mother and Bazuzu are at her side."

"The Lady Istar! Here!" Baba struggled to sit up, but Ramua kept her firmly down while she told her the story of Istar's coming; how Charmides brought her to them crazed with her grief and with her long wandering.

Baba listened closely, and at the end of the recital her tears flowed fast. "Belshazzar, then, is dead!" she whispered more than once. "The mighty prince is dead, and Istar is alone--alone--even as I."

But now, while Ramua wiped her tears away, Charmides came in to them, saying: "Across the square from the ca.n.a.l come two men in the livery of the house of Ribata. I go forth to meet them. If it is for thee they come, Baba, what word shall I give to them?"

Baba gave a long sigh, and her eyes closed. "I am here. Seeks my lord for me? I am my lord's. I will return to him when I may."

And with this reply Charmides went forth to meet the messengers.

Ribata's men halted at the foot of the steps, waiting his descent; and the Greek found that he had guessed aright when he surmised the object of their coming. My Lord Ribata, terribly wounded, stricken with great grief at the downfall of the city and the ma.s.sacre of all his women, had despatched messengers to the only place where news of his favorite slave could be had, if mayhap she had by a miracle escaped the general carnage. Charmides dutifully gave them Baba's message, saw their faces light up with amazement and pleasure, and bade them, if they would carry Baba to their lord, go fetch the easiest of litters, that she might not suffer more than necessary on the way.

This was done. In less than an hour two litters halted in front of the tenement of Ut, and in one of them was Ribata himself, his head, breast, arms, and one limb wrapped in heavy bandages, so weak that his voice was but a whisper, yet a whisper of joy that one little creature out of all the mult.i.tude had escaped death in the temple. Baba was carried down to him, and their meeting had in it much of pathos. Ribata's career was ruined, his position gone, his lord dead, his house in disorder; yet one thing was left to him, and her, in great joy, he took to his heart.

Charmides and Ramua, side by side, stood listening as Ribata whispered to his slave the two words that changed the lives of them all.

"Baba--my wife," said he. And then presently, together, they were carried away into the evening.

While Charmides and Ramua went back to their room to talk over the great thing that had come to Baba, Beltani, below, was preparing for the doleful night. She had kindled a little fire, cooked food for herself and Bazuzu, and was now on her knees offering up incantations to Namtar, the demon of the plague. Bazuzu, from his place beside Istar, joined at intervals in the prayers, which the sick woman, now in the violent delirium of fever, broke in upon continually with appeals for help and wails of grief over Belshazzar, who never left her thoughts.

In many a house and hovel in the Great City a similar scene was enacted to-night. Yet there could not be one more deplorable than this. She who raved upon the bed of straw in the heart of the most poverty-stricken quarter of Babylon--from what things was she descended? One by one she had lost everything that had made her life wonderful. Now the last, that attribute that she had left uncounted because it seemed to her indestructible, was going from her. In the next five days of this horrible sickness her beauty fled away, and she was left a thing dreadful for mankind to look upon.

By the second day of her attack, the mental disturbance had increased till the intervals of her sanity entirely disappeared. On the morning of the third day began those violent constrictions of the heart that caused unspeakable agony and brought her to the brink of the black abyss. By this time, also, the enlargement of glands, or buboes, the dominating symptom of the plague, had become frightful to see. Her eyes were suffused with a thick, white matter. Upon her body came forth great carbuncles. On the fourth day dark spots, patches like black bruises, and long, livid stripes, appeared upon her fair skin. The fever, now at its height, burned itself out in a day, and Istar fell into a cold and quiet stupor, the first stage of death. Her lips were black. Her eyes had closed. Her body had become something from which Beltani shrank at sight, and old Bazuzu touched only because of his great pity for the woman. Also at this time Istar's veil of hair, which had been wont to conceal her under its silken meshes, fell out in great ma.s.ses and was burned by Beltani as a sacrifice before the demon of the plague.

Beltani's prayers to Namtar, however, had lost their sincerity, for the old woman could not in her heart wish Istar to live in her terrible disfigurement. Istar herself did not yet know what she had become. But unless, as seemed most probable, she died, there must soon come a time when she would discover, when she would see people shrink away from contact with her, yet turn to stare after in that fascination that a dreadful sight draws forth. Out of pure reverence for what Istar had been, Beltani attended her faithfully. Every herb and medicine and charm within her means and known to her she used to mitigate the sores, and to make the after-scars less terrible. Yet she, and Bazuzu also, felt that death were now the greatest boon for the woman.

Death did not come. In spite of her stupor and her low temperature, the fatal eighth day pa.s.sed, and on the morning of the ninth Istar lived and was better. She regained a dim consciousness, and the strength to ask for food, which was given her in minute quant.i.ties, as also milk and wine. For forty-eight hours she hovered on the brink of reawakening; and then, finally, she found herself.

On the morning of the fifteenth of the month Istar opened her eyes in the early dawn. She was alone. On the other side of the room, upon her pallet, Beltani lay in a heavy sleep. Bazuzu was outside in the square.

Istar moved her hand and sighed. She felt life coursing through her veins, and remembered the past week with only a vague, nightmarish sense of oppression. The air of the morning, hot as it was, had in it the gathered sweetness of the long, starry hours. She breathed it with joy; and for a moment forgot the sorrow that must be hers perpetually.

Presently, with an old and habitual gesture, she lifted her hand to her head to push away her hair. And her hand touched the head. There was no hair upon it. Rather, two or three thin strands hung about her ears.

Otherwise she was bald.

The heart of Istar gave a peculiar throb. She held up both hands before her eyes; and, as she saw them, she herself shrank. The hands, those fragile hands, the fair, white wrists, the arms, were spotted and streaked and swollen and hideously scabbed. She touched her cheek and found raw flesh upon it. She tore the covering from her neck. It was the same. Everywhere--everywhere, from head to foot, over her whole body--she was accursed. It was the plague--the plague! Istar tottered to her feet and uplifted her eyes. Poor, weak eyes! Yea, she was all but blind. With one low, wailing cry the afflicted one let herself slowly down, till she lay p.r.o.ne upon the kindly floor that did not hesitate to receive her. And there, through time and the day-dawn, she wept out the burden of her soul. But of the future and its inevitable suffering she could not think. As yet the way was too dark, too incomprehensible to her.

There upon the floor, motionless, Bazuzu found her two hours later. For long minutes he stood over her, helpless, pitying, knowing that there was no comfort to bring. But his heart was full as he felt the abandon of her att.i.tude. Presently, kneeling at her side, he laid a h.o.r.n.y hand gently upon one of her shoulders. And from his fingers a message of mute sympathy went forth to her. When she could bear that he should look upon her she lifted her head and opened her half-closed eyes to him. Then she spake, quietly, but with authority:

"Let my veil be brought, that I may put it upon me."

From the corner where it had lain, carefully folded by Beltani, Bazuzu brought it to her--the soft, black, silver-shot covering of her happiness. In silence he watched the woman put it on, wrapping it about her so that her head, her face, her arms, her form, were completely shrouded. Then, from behind the veil, she spoke:

"Let no man evermore seek to behold me in my disfigurement. Behold, no longer am I Istar, but a wanderer over the face of the earth. I go forth from this house of friendliness. The voice of the great G.o.d bids me follow out my life in desert places, in the lands of my enemies."

Bazuzu, from her words still believing her more than mortal, bent his head in silent acceptance of her desires. She took two or three quiet steps to the door, and then, when he had thought her gone, turned again, and softly said:

"Thou, Bazuzu, and thy mistress, and the young Greek whose house this is, take what thanks I have to give thee, and the blessing of All-Father for thy mercy to me, an outcast. Gold have I none, nor riches of any sort in payment for your labor. But from my heart I bless thee for thy compa.s.sion."

Then, like a shadow, she glided out at the door, across the deserted square, down to the ca.n.a.l of the New Year, and along its bank, out into the city. Through the long morning she moved through the streets, accosting no one, stared at by the mult.i.tude, but unaddressed. Her miserable body burned and ached. The sun poured down its blue-hot rays upon her head. m.u.f.fled as she was in the veil, she was like to suffocate for air to breathe, yet she would not expose herself to the gaze of human beings. It was noon when she entered the square of the great G.o.ds and pa.s.sed the door of the temple of Nergal, looking with weary eyes into its vast and cool interior. At some distance within was a group of priests, Sangu, Enu, and Baru, men of importance in their several stations. These the plague-stricken eyes of the woman failed in the dim light to see. But she was startled suddenly by the appearance in the door-way of one of them, who, catching a sight of her, had run quickly forward, and now stood eagerly staring at her form. She did not draw back from the look, and presently the priest spoke:

"Thou that standest shadow-like before me--art thou she whom they called Istar of Babylon?"

"I was Istar of Babylon," came the gentle voice.

"_Was!_ Comest thou from Ninkigal?" The priest started back from her, turning a little pale.

"Nay. Still I live; yet now am nameless."

"Thou hast dwelt as a G.o.ddess in the temple of Istar? Thou hast lived in the palace of the king as the wife of Belshazzar?"

Istar bent her head.

"Enter, then, into the temple, that I may speak with the others here before you." He motioned her to pa.s.s into the building, and, obediently, Istar entered it. She stood at a little distance, while he that had accosted her returned to the group of his companions and spoke with them. In a few moments they summoned Istar to their midst. She came quite close, and they eyed her in silence for a little while. Then one said:

"Ay. It is Istar of Babylon. I saw her thus from afar on the night of the feast of Tammuz."

"She is well found. Istar, for eight days hast thou been sought throughout the Great City. Kurush, the conqueror, demands thy presence before him. He has heard of thee and thy beauty, and the strange things thou art said to know; and he would have beheld thee on the day after the taking of the city. But we have searched for thee in vain. Where hast thou hidden?"

"I fulfilled my days. I will go now, if he wills, before the great conqueror. Haste were best, for the time to the end is not now long."

The priests looked at each other uncertainly. Her words had in them a ring of prophecy. They consulted for a little among themselves, till Istar herself made all things easy for them:

"Let a swift runner be sent to the camp of Cyrus, and let the great king be told that, one hour after the departure of the messenger, I come to him. In that hour I will rest here in the temple, for I am weak in body.

Then ye may lead me out by the gate of Bel to the camp of the conqueror, and there shall ye leave me. From that camp let no man follow me forth.

Now have I spoken."

And the priests heard the words of Istar and found them to be good; and that which she had commanded was done.

XXI

KURUSH THE KING

The camp of the invading army lay spread over the sun-burned plain like a camp of the dead. There was hardly a sign of life round any of the many-colored tents. The very horses and pack-mules, tethered in a herd in the midst of the desert of dry gra.s.s, lay for the most part panting with heat, pining, no doubt, for the distant, breezy hills of fair Iran and the snowy highlands of Media, where they had been born and bred.