Chapter X: Book II: The Great City (2)

"Their hearts! You have said it! Their hearts! Oh, thou man of Jerusalem, canst thou give me knowledge as to them?"

He looked at her closely, as if to make sure of her meaning. Then, taking courage, he replied: "Men's hearts! Who, in truth, but Yaveh, the one God, shall know them?"

Istar made no answer to the question, but once more motioned the Jew to enter the faintly lighted room. This he did without hesitation. Thereupon she covered the door-way with its curtain, turned without any sign of haste, and seated herself once more on the high throne, but left the Jew to stand before her. Finally, before the words he had framed could leave his lips, she swayed forward slightly and asked:

"What have you, the child of Yaveh, to gain from me?"

"Much--or nothing."

"It is no answer, Daniel."

Beltishazzar bent his head and folded his arms over his breast. So he stood for many minutes, silent and motionless, while Istar waited serenely for him to speak; and, when he spoke, she was not startled by his words and their blunt directness.

"Istar of Babylon, what are you--who are you? child of God, 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 God's creation. I came from space. Into it, in time, I shall return again. My mission I have told you. I come to learn the hearts of men, their relationship to God."

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 passion--"Istar, you have said it was from God that you came hither from space--you, a heavenly being, an archangel. God 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 God--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 God heavy upon us, have acquired honor and riches in the country of our woe. Is it not a sign that God 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 noble, 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 worship 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 nourishing 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 God 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 attitude 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 companionship 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 passion, hanging still, by early night, over the land and the drowsy city. But to immortal ears it was as the voice of God. 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 space, 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 pronounced 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 God, as we are but its outer rays. Love walks through all the earth, passing 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 canals 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 Nisân and the square of the gods, on the north bank of the canal of the New Year, in two tiny rooms, with a little space 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 gods; 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 god 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-pronged 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 Ribâta Bit-Shumukin, just across the canal.

At sunset on the day of the great sacrifice to Nebo and Nergal, Beltani stood in the door-way of her living-room, watching the gory light burn over the city, and, fist on hip, shouting gossip to neighbor Noubta of the next tenement.

"Have you been on the Â-Ibur to-day, Beltani?" called the Bee, when one of their intimates had been pretty well demolished at that distance.

"No. Few enough holidays are mine to take. From morning to night the girls run about the city, and some one must be at home to manage."

"Ay, there's your slave. What good is he if he can't take the rooms in charge once in a month? We have no slave, and my man's at work on the reservoir all day; but I slipped out this morning and went off to see the sights. Such crowds! All the city was out. I've a rent in my fresh tunic."

"Well, I couldn't go. One's slave may do much, but he isn't to be trusted with everything. Bazuzu, is the sesame ground?" This last ostentatiously; for Noubta was busily pounding her own barley.

Bazuzu made some reply from within, and after a moment came out of the room, bowl in hand. Jet-black, high-shouldered, and slightly lame, for all that as powerful as an ox was Bazuzu. His appearance was startlingly uncouth as he limped out in answer to Beltani's question. But a gentler light never shone from mortal eyes than from his; and a gentler nature never lurked in so ugly a body.

Beltani took the bowl from his hand, and, calling a good-night to her neighbor, proceeded leisurely to the stair-way that ran up the outside of the building to the roof. It was on the roof that every family in the tenement did its cooking, except, indeed, in the rainy season. In all these districts the roof was the one luxury, the one comfortable, light, shaded spot, cool and airy in the summer evenings, protected through the day by an awning hung each morning and taken down at sunset. Roof-space was portioned off to tenants according to the number of their rooms; and up here, for them, life was sometimes really worth the living.

While Beltani was up-stairs beginning the preparations for supper, Bazuzu remained in the door-way, shading his eyes from the light of the west, and looking with some interest out towards the canal. Noubta the Bee, still pounding barley, looked also, and presently called to him:

"Baba is coming, there, with the goat, Bazuzu."

And Baba presently appeared. She walked slowly, with a limp, for her feet were sore and inflamed from contact with the burning pavements. Beside her the silky goat, Zor, trotted along with gentle friendliness. Over her left shoulder hung a long string of pine-cones, gathered in a grove by the river and brought home for firewood. As she reached the door-way the slave took these from her and carried them up to Beltani. Baba, meantime, entered the house, passed into the second room, where she, her mother, and sister slept, and threw herself wearily down upon her bed. She lay here quite still, eyes wide open, one thin, brown fist thrown above her head, the other hand on her breast, an expression of intense, never-ending weariness upon her peaked little face. Over her, lying thus as usual after the long day of wandering, Zor stood, looking at her with half-human disturbance. Presently she ran her tongue sympathetically over Baba's hand, and then, with a goat-sigh, settled down on the floor beside her, her white, silken coat close to Baba's coarse, cotton garment. It was a peaceful half-hour that they spent before Bazuzu came to relieve Zor of her burden of milk. Then Baba opened her eyes, realizing that it approached supper-time. Rising with an effort, she passed into the other room to wash at the big, open jar of water standing there. Her head, arms, and hair were just dripping refreshingly, when there came an incursion from without. First arrived Beltani, flushed with astonishment and anger; after her followed Ramûa, in company with a golden-haired youth bearing a silver lyre. At sight of him Baba gave a spasmodic gurgle of amazement, and then stood wet and staring, while her sister gave an explanation of the coming of Charmides.

"Istar hath bidden it, O my mother," she said, pleadingly, while Beltani still glared. "He is come from over the desert. He is weary, and he is poor."

This last explanation was the worst mistake that Ramûa could have made. "Poor!" burst forth Beltani, angrily. "_Poor!_ And is it thy thought that our wealth is so great that we must house here another one--we who have not the wherewithal to exist except in misery? Why is the great goddess wroth with us? Wherein have I offended her, that she sends me another mouth to feed? What can he do, this pale-eyed, white-headed thing? Who is he that you bring him home with you? What have you done, Ramûa? How speak you to men that you do not know--men of his class? I will--"

She suddenly stopped; for Charmides' "pale" eyes were fastened on her intently, as if he would have read her words from her expression. And indeed, if this was his idea, the success of it was unique. For when the gaze that caused Beltani to stop speaking, Baba to shake with cold, confusion, and hysterical laughter, and Ramûa to turn fiery red with shame, had lasted as long as Beltani could endure it, Charmides, with business-like precision, brought forth his money-bag, drew therefrom a piece of silver, and quietly proffered it to the mistress of the house.

Beltani accepted the money without the grace of an instant's hesitation. Moreover, she advanced into the light, where she could examine it more closely to make sure that it was good. "It is not our money. Has it any value?" she asked, looking squarely at the Greek.

Baba went white, Ramûa blushed crimson, and only Charmides kept his countenance unchanged. It was to Ramûa that he looked, this time, for some guidance as to Beltani's meaning; and, looking at her, he presently forgot to wonder why the old woman still held his leafy coin suspiciously up in the light, after a moment repeating, sharply:

"Is the money of real silver, I say?"

"Yes, yes, yes!" cried Baba, disrespectfully. "This very morning I changed one of them for twenty _se_."

"_You_ changed one?" asked Ramûa, wonderingly. "How?"

"He bought of me a cup of Zor's milk this morning as we stood near the square of the gods in the Â-Ibur."

Ramûa laughed merrily. "Then it was your _se_ that he paid me for bread and dates at noon."

"He pays, then?" queried Beltani.

Ramûa had begun her reply when, to the surprise of all three of them, Charmides himself, who at last had understood a whole phrase, and thus grasped the situation, came out with a stammering and broken, "I pay." And forthwith he took from his bag another piece of silver and held it out to Beltani, who received it shamelessly, while both girls, indignant and helpless, looked on. Fortunately, at this juncture, Bazuzu came down-stairs to say that the sesame boiled, the dates were cooled, and the jar of beer had been set out on the roof.

Baba returned to her neglected toilet; while Beltani, turning to Ramûa with a very agreeable "Bring the stranger up-stairs," departed in haste to see that enough had been cooked to include Charmides in the meal, and yet leave something for Bazuzu afterwards.

Ramûa waited till Baba had retired to the sleeping-room to bind up her hair; and then, rather apologetically, indicated to Charmides the water-jar. He proceeded, not without a little qualm of distaste, to plunge his head and arms into the same water used ten minutes before by Baba. How Ramûa managed Charmides never learned; for, while he shook the water from his hair, and wiped his face and hands with a garment of his own taken from his bundle, his companion followed her sister to the inner room, from which they presently emerged together, glowing, demure, smooth-haired, and ragged only as to tunics. The three together then mounted the brick staircase in the deepening twilight, to find the whole tenement on the roof at supper.

Beltani, who had waited impatiently for their appearance, was shouting across to a friend certain pieces of information in a way that terrified Ramûa. Charmides might again display that unlooked-for comprehension; and if he did!--Ramûa flushed in the semi-darkness. But the rhapsode, though he did not understand one word in twenty of those that were spoken about him, had already formed a very fair opinion of Ramûa's mother; and nothing that she could have said would much have amazed him. But, disagreeable as she was, he felt that more than she might be endured for the sake of sitting, at each meal, so close to that delightful bit of humanity, Ramûa. As to Baba, with her big eyes and pinched face, and the wonderfully beautiful little body concealed by her hopelessly insolvent garments, she meant nothing to him now, one way or the other. It was all Ramûa--Ramûa, who, with her pretty, quiet helpfulness, her modesty, and also, in no small measure, her very apparent satisfaction in his presence, made the impressionable Sicilian at home in Babylon.

Before supper was begun Bazuzu came up to the roof again, bearing in his hand a lighted dish-lamp. Chaldean twilights were very short. Day and night were too fond to be kept at arm's-length, and almost before a sunset had time to reach the height of its glory, gray shadows, the loving arms of darkness, were encircling the glow, and presently--lo!--from the east a string of stars was shining forth, and day had fallen to the night's caress.

The hour of the meal was as a dream to Charmides; a dream so vivid that, long years after, when he approached old age, he found himself able to recall with ease every look, every gesture, every shadow that passed before his eyes. The taste of boiled sesame and garlic never failed to bring back the impression of this meal; and time came to be when the master-singer, of his own accord, would go forth to purchase the coarse food that should conjure up again before him Beltani's masculine face watching him out of the shadows; Baba's big eyes fixed unwinkingly upon him; the ungainly figure of Bazuzu, standing in the background beside Zor, the goat; lastly, delight of all delights, Ramûa again beside him, at his shoulder, her head turned just a little away, her eyes refusing, out of shyness, to meet his, her pure profile all that was to be seen of her face, a little of her smooth shoulder just visible through a sudden rent in the tunic. And at this point Charmides would cover his eyes with his hands to hold the memory, and laugh a little out of pure joy that it had all been so.

At the time of its happening, however, one could not have called Charmides joyful. He was weary, he was hungry, he was conscious that the object of his journey had been fulfilled, and that, now that all was done, his home was at a measureless distance, and there seemed no immediate prospect of returning to it. Onion-flavored grain, eaten with an awkward wooden spoon out of the same dish from which three others were also eating, might be poetic to think of, but was not delightful in actuality. To eat with Ramûa--well and good in its way; with Beltani, however--no! and as for Baba, he regarded her already with displeasure. Her eyes were too big and her body too meagre.

There was not much conversation at supper. The uncertainty as to the actual powers of Charmides in the way of understanding the Babylonish tongue was dampening to the general spirit. Beltani could only dream of the morrow, when she should have an hour's rest, at any cost, for chatter with Noubta; at which time the estate and importance of the fair-haired one would be definitely settled. Meantime supper must be got over as rapidly as possible. The sesame duly finished, what remained in the dish was handed over to Bazuzu; and bread, dates, and cheese being portioned out, the women rose from their stiff postures and took up less constrained positions in various spots on the roof. Ramûa carried her fruit over to the edge of the roof and sat there in the starlight, her feet hanging over the unrailed edge, munching comfortably. Charmides finished his second course where he sat at table. Baba had thrown herself down by Zor, who was eating a hearty supper of refuse; and Beltani went to the other end of the roof to visit a friend. Now the Greek, scenting an opportunity, finished his dates, and darted down the stair-way, to return after a few minutes' search in the darkness with his lyre. Ramûa did not notice his return, for she had not seen him go. But Baba's little hand tightened on Zor's silken hair, when she felt that he had come back to the roof. Without moving or making any sound, without even a change in expression, she saw him hesitate for the fraction of a second, and then pass quietly over and seat himself at Ramûa's side.

Charmides was disappointed, perhaps, that the maiden made no sign of satisfaction at his coming. She sat staring up into the high, star-spangled heavens, oblivious, apparently, of everything below them. He also remained silent, looking off towards the dark canal that wound, black and smooth, between the high buildings jutting over it on either side. After all, Babylon, the city of which he had dreamed so long, held nothing that was strange to him. It had been so long his heart-home that he loved it now. As he thought of all that he had done for the sake of being within its giant walls, and as he reflected upon the success of his great purpose, he forgot Ramûa beside him. He had not come for her. She was only a part of the city, the city that he had discovered out of the mighty west. How far above him he had thought all Babylon must be! Yet here it was, at his right hand; and he might touch it where he would, it would welcome him.

Pleased with his thoughts, Charmides ran his fingers over the silver strings of his lyre; and, because he was accustomed to express his emotions in that way, he lifted up his voice and sang, in a gentle tone, some rippling Grecian verses in a melody so delightful that Ramûa turned to marvel, and little Baba laid her head down upon Zor's warm coat in rapturous delight.

Presently, however, Charmides stopped short. Beltani, drawn by the sound of his voice, returned to her corner of the roof, and in the darkness stumbled over Baba's prostrate body. There was a harshly angry exclamation, a sharp blow, a stifled cry of distress, and then her mother was at Ramûa's side, commanding her down-stairs. The girl obeyed without protest, and Charmides followed her, distressed and helpless. In the rooms below, a torch and a lamp gave forth a dim and greasy light. In the first room, against the wall, sat Bazuzu, who had just finished arranging a bed for the stranger. It was but a heap of rags and mats, covered over with a torn rug; and Charmides was soon made to understand that upon this he was expected to pass the night.

The whole room was utterly uninviting. However, he was tired enough genuinely to welcome the thought of rest, and he looked for the women to retreat to their own room at once. He soon discovered, however, that there was no hope of their immediate retirement. Baba, having driven her goat into its corner, where it obediently lay down, went back to the door-way and stood looking out upon the night. Ramûa was busy making a little fire on the brick table, out of two pine-cones. Beltani held a bit of wood, which she was laboriously shaping with a knife into a crude imitation of a human figure. Charmides watched her with no little curiosity. Her whittling finished, she carefully gathered up all the shavings and threw them into the fire. Then, with a word, she summoned Baba and Bazuzu to her side, and, with an imperious gesture, brought the Greek also into the circle around the little fire. Very solemnly she placed in the centre of the flame the wooden image that she had carved; and, while the fire caught it up, the four Babylonians lifted their voices dolefully, in the old Accadian incantation against demons:

"O witch, whosoever thou art, whose heart conceiveth my misfortune, whose tongue uttereth spells against me, whose lips poison me, and in whose footsteps death standeth, I ban thy mouth, I ban thy tongue, I ban thy glittering eyes, I ban thy swift feet, I ban thy toiling knees, I ban thy laden hands, I ban thy hands behind. And may the moon-god, our god, destroy thy body; and may he cast thee abroad into the lake of water and of fire. Amanû."

This prayer, of which Charmides understood not a word, but the import of which he pretty clearly guessed, was the regular conclusion of the day. No Babylonian of the lower class could have passed the night in peace having omitted this exorcism. When it was over Bazuzu filled a dish with the ashes and carried it outside the door, setting it just over the threshold, where no thing of evil could enter the house without passing it. This done, Beltani, with a gesture of good-night to the stranger, retreated into her bedroom, with Baba on the one side of her and Ramûa on the other.

Now at last Charmides was free to rest. Bazuzu, of course, was in the room; but he, having extinguished the lamp, and making signs that when Charmides was ready to sleep he should put out the torch, laid himself down upon his pallet, and, turning his face to the wall, fell soundly asleep. Charmides did not follow immediately. In the flickering light he knelt down and prayed to his lord, Apollo of the Silver Bow, rendering thanks for the safe accomplishment of his journey, and acknowledging the god-head of Istar, whom, in his heart, he regarded as Artemis incarnate.

His devotions over, he rose, extinguished the torch, and felt his way to the bed. He sank upon it with a sensation of delight. His weary limbs relaxed, and for a moment his head swam with the relief of the reclining position. Nevertheless, it was some time before he slept. Through the open door-way the cool, sweet breath of the summer night stole in upon him. In the square, black patch of sky visible where he lay came two or three stars: the same stars that had looked on him in Sicily. A sudden spasm of longing and of fear--fear of his strangeness, his helplessness in this vast city, came over him then. From out of the night he heard his mother's voice calling him from the shore of the sea; and he answered her with a moan. For a little time her form stood out before his eyes, clear and luminous against the black background. Then, gradually, the blinding rays of Istar's aureole replaced her, and Istar herself was before him, in all her surpassing beauty. After a time she flashed out of his sight, but not before the thought had come to him, unsummoned, that he had not yet finished with Istar of Babylon in her city; that she, the great, the unapproachable goddess, would need him at some future time to succor her. He smiled at the idea, thinking it a dream. And with the thought of dreams he entered the land of them, nor came forth again till morning dawned.

The night wore along, and there came to be but one sleeper in the room. Black Bazuzu was awake, sitting--no, standing up. He moved noiselessly to the door-way, and picked up there one of the baskets of his own making. With this he crossed the threshold of the door, stepping carefully over the witch's plate, and presently disappeared into the blackness beyond. An hour later he came quietly in again, put his basket into its place, and stopped to listen carefully to the sound of his companion's breathing. It had not changed. With a satisfied nod the slave returned to his couch, laid him gladly down, and slept.

Sunlight streaming over his face, the sound of a quick exclamation, and a little ripple of laughter, brought the Greek to his senses next morning. Ramûa, bright-eyed and smiling, sat in the door-way, a heap of fresh and dewy flowers in her lap, a basket-tray beside her. She was fastening up little bouquets of roses, lilies, heliotrope, nasturtiums, iris, narcissi, and the beautiful lotus. Baba, as usual, was playing with Zor, who had just made another rent in her much-tattered garments; and Bazuzu lay upon his pallet, still asleep. Presumably Beltani was on the roof. Charmides hoped so. He had already come to prefer her at a distance. But at present the rather unusual arrangements of this household puzzled him; and he could not tell, from precedent, where any of its members would ordinarily be at this hour.

Charmides rose, not a little embarrassed at having been asleep in the presence of Ramûa and her sister. He became in time accustomed to the very free manners current among Babylonians of the lower class; but at present he was mightily relieved when Ramûa, with a tact hardly to be hoped for, jumped up from her place, and, calling to Baba to follow her, departed towards the roof with her fragrant burden. Charmides at once began his toilet, which he happily finished without interruption. Then, leaving Bazuzu still asleep, he sought his hosts in the upper air. Breakfast was ready, and it proved to be a gala meal. There was meat--goat's flesh from the yesterday's sacrifice. For on days that followed great religious festivals the flesh from the sacrificial hecatombs was sold at a minimum price to the poor, so that the greater part of Babylon had meat to eat. Besides this, there were milk and bread; and Charmides, in a sunny mood, felt that the king himself could have desired nothing more.

The meal was quickly over, and, a few minutes afterwards, Charmides could scarcely have told how, he found himself walking, lyre in hand, at Ramûa's side, along the bank of the canal, on the way to the temple of Istar. On her head Ramûa carried her basket of fresh flowers. The Greek watched her closely and with delight as she moved, lithe, straight, and graceful as a young tiger, her bare feet making delicate marks in the dust of the way, her hair, to-day unbound, swinging behind her in long, silken masses. And Charmides' beauty-loving eyes brought joy to his soul as he regarded her. Yet his walk was not wholly a light-hearted one. His mind was troubled with thinking, as other men thought, as he had not thought before, of a means of livelihood. Here he was, thrown utterly on his own resources. If he would live he must work--must gain enough to keep him, however simply, when his father's money was used up. This conviction was not an easy one to face. There was but one thing that he knew how to do well, and at all times liked to do, and that thing held forth small promise of earning him money. His poor lyre! In any province of Greece, or Lydia, there had been small cause for worry. Rhapsodists were of a class apart, and were reverenced by an art-loving people as on an equality with their priests. Zeus might be the greatest Olympian; but Apollo had a shrine in every heart. Babylonia, however, was not Greece; and what the Babylonian fancy for music might be, Charmides did not know. Thus when the long walk was ended, and Ramûa had taken her place on the platform steps below the temple of Istar, she looked up into his face to find the usually bright countenance as solemn as that of an ibis. Nor could any word or look of hers bring more than the shadow of a smile to his lips.

Charmides stood beside her for a few moments, looking across the thinly peopled square. Then his shoulders straightened. He gave a little outward manifestation of his mental state, looked at Ramûa with a farewell smile, and left her, walking swiftly away towards the Â-Ibur-Sabû.

Ramûa, confounded, cried after him impulsively: "You will return! You will return to me at noon?"

Charmides looked round, nodding reassuringly, but whether in response to her words or merely in answer to her voice, the maiden could not tell. She sat quite still where he had left her, her head drooping a little, utterly forgetful of her business, paying not the least attention to possible buyers. The sun poured its bright, scorching heat down upon the gray bricks. Water-sellers were to be heard crying their ever-welcome refreshment. Chariots, carts, and litters passed through the square. The city's voice rose murmurously through the heat, and one by one the usual beggars and venders made their appearance on the platform steps.

Through the hours Ramûa sat spiritless, watching those that passed up the temple steps, selling her flowers unsmilingly, half unwillingly, to those that offered to buy. At early noon she felt a first qualm of hunger, and looked up to find the sun at its zenith. With a start she came to herself. It was past her usual luncheon hour. All around her little meals of bread, sesame, and dates were being brought forth by the habitués of the steps. The cripple on Ramûa's left hand, thinking perhaps that she must go hungry to-day, proffered her half of his loaf with a compassionate, misshapen grin. Ramûa refused him with a forced smile, and, heavy-hearted, took out her food and showed it to him. There was enough for two in her package to-day; and she regarded it unhappily, still hesitating to eat, while the hope that Charmides might return died within her. Once again she looked over the deserted square, and then, resolutely turning her face to the temple, took one dry mouthful of bread. Charmides was gone for evermore. She should not see him again. Another bite: Charmides had been killed. A third: his body was floating, face downward, in the black, hurrying waters of the cruel Euphrates. A fourth, a fifth, a sixth, and there appeared a tear, that rolled uncontrollably down her pretty nose. She put her bread away--when before had she not been hungry at noon?--and then sat with her head bent, trying to conceal her grief from the sympathetic beggar.

Presently some one came up the steps and sat down close beside her. She felt the presence, but did not look round. Suddenly a big, ripe melon was placed before her, by a hand too white for Babylon. Ramûa started up, with a spasmodic breath, and her face glowed like the sun after a summer storm. Charmides, the morning trouble all gone from his face, was at her side. In one hand he held a number of ripe figs. The other had borne the melon. Ramûa retired at once within herself, too shy to do more than smile faintly and then try to hide her face, with its unconcealable joy. But such a welcome pleased the Greek more than anything else; for, as he was beginning to realize, his instincts regarding woman nature were quite unexpectedly reliable.

Luncheon was now eaten in earnest; and the cripple could not but be amazed at the change in Ramûa's appetite. With a little laugh she broke the melon on the steps, and proffered a large piece of it, together with his bread and dates, to the Greek. She herself ate slowly but willingly, answering the looks of the rhapsode, and even talking to him in the tongue that he could not understand.

There came a time, however, after the last fig was gone and the cup of water had been bought and drunk, when embarrassment fell between the two. Ramûa feared, dreaded, and then half hoped that Charmides would rise and go away again, this time to stay. She felt that she could make no effort to keep him at her side. She would have given half her life to be able to treat him with natural gayety; and yet, had she been able to do so, the essence of delight in all this would be gone. Charmides himself was suffering from the inability to talk to her. But after an unbearable period of awkward silence he strove to solve their difficulty. Leaning over from where he sat, and touching the girl's tunic, he said to her, by means of signs and looks, and a word or two:

"What is the name of this?"

Ramûa smiled with delight. "_Kadesh_" she replied; and in this way Charmides' course of study was begun. The first lesson lasted for an hour, and at the end of it the Greek knew not a few words that promised to stick in his memory. When he felt that he could retain no more, he stopped her, and sat conning his lesson on the steps in the sunshine, while she, tardily recalled to duty, took her flower-basket and went forth into the square to proffer her somewhat drooping bouquets to the passers-by. By the time she returned to her companion the sun was midway down the heavens, and Charmides, lyre in hand, stood, evidently waiting for her. By means of signs he made her understand that he must leave her till after sunset, when he would return again to the square to go home with her.

Ramûa did not ask his destination. Very probably he could not have made her understand it had she done so. She watched him pass down a narrow street that led to the southwest, out of the square of Istar, in the direction of the temple of Sin. It was to the holy house of the moon-god that Charmides went; for his single morning in Babylon had found him a means of livelihood.

Though he himself was unaware of the exact position that he held, he was attached to the temple as an oracle. That morning, as he had hummed himself through the square of Sin, one of the Zicarû, or monks in service at the temple, had chanced to hear his voice, and, perceiving that the singer was of foreign race, and being himself a highly educated man, as were all of his order, addressed the fair-haired one in the westernmost language that he knew--Phoenician. Charmides had come near to falling at his feet and worshipping in the delight of finding some one to speak to. But the Zicarî led him gravely into one of the inner rooms of the temple and there asked him sing and speak and play upon his instrument, and after a time made him an offer to join the temple service, unordered as he was, and to do exactly what he was told for about three hours in the day. The pay was high, and to Charmides it seemed that a miracle of fortune had befallen him. Such being the case, it was, perhaps, just as well that he did not understand the full significance of his duties. For an hour in the morning he was to stand inside of the heroic statue of the god, and to speak through the half-open mouth words whispered in his ear by an attendant priest. He was not told that his peculiar pronunciation of the Babylonian syllables and the melodious softness of his voice were invaluable adjuncts to the oracle of Sin; and that, furthermore, the fact that he understood not a word of what he said made him more desirable for the place than any member of the under-priesthood would have been. Besides this curious work, he was supposed to assist at sacrifices by playing on the flute or lyre; and by means of these light duties his livelihood became an assured thing, and his place in Babylon was secure. He asked no questions, either of himself or of the priest, his master. He accepted everything with childlike faith; and, verily, it seemed that, brush as he would against the world, the bloom of his pristine innocence would never be rubbed from Charmides' unstained soul.

So, having found a home and an occupation, within forty-eight hours after his arrival in the Great City, Charmides' life in Babylon began.

IV

BELSHAZZAR

Charmides found no loneliness in his Babylonish life. In an unaccountable way he felt it to be the home of his spirit. The dirty, narrow, barely furnished rooms of the tenement of Ut; the vast temple of Sin, where he performed the light tasks that gave him his livelihood; the platform of the temple of the goddess, where, with Ramûa close at hand, the hours were wont to fly on rosy wings; the long streets, the myriads of people, the hum of the city, the curious, solemn, ceremonious bearing of its inhabitants, all these welded themselves into such a life that sometimes, in dead of night, he cried out in the fear that it was all a dream: a dream from which he could only pray not to wake.

In the second week there happened something that gave him a great thrill of exalted pride. It was eight days after his arrival; in fact, the noon after the third Sabbatû of the month of Duzu (June). He was sitting with Ramûa on the steps of the temple of Istar, munching dates and struggling with new phrases in the apparently hopeless Chaldean tongue, when a veiled hierodule came out of the temple and down the platform stairs with the request that Charmides follow her to the presence of Belit Istar, who longed for the sound of his voice.