Chapter XV: The Children of the Sun

Slowly the crowd surged back to the city, sobered by the scenes they had just witnessed, bewildered by the sudden loss of a ruler whom they began to really love, and who, after all, was by no means so great a wretch as some believed. Have we not protested from the beginning, by inference, that the proverbially good are not always angels to the core? Have we not tried to insinuate delicately and gracefully the opinion that the wayward and apparently wholly evil man or woman develops sudden traits of heroism in the presence of great danger or disaster that forever separates them in the human mind from the company of cowards, the association of poltroons?

And some of those who constantly put forth the motive of pious devotion to duty wear that kind of virtue merely as a mask behind which repose arrant cowards and hypocrites.

Did you mention the names of Isidor and Abram as examples? Let us hear them discourse to each other after the exciting scenes of the day are past, after the accident, after the crowning of Rebecca as queen, and Levi king, of Israel, a ceremony somewhat hastily performed lest the people should recover from that state of bewilderment into which events had thrown them, and after Abram had been appointed keeper of the royal stables with more gold for salary than he had ever dreamed of, and more honor shown him than his present capacity for adulation could comfortably support.

“Bring forth the bond, Isidor,” said Abram gayly, “and let us compute if we can, how much it is worth per day to work for a king. Our blessed queen has given me a fine chariot and team, and when we drive abroad we shall wish to locate our possessions.”

“She has remembered me bountifully, too,” said Isidor, “but in none of thy kind, for mine is the yellow gold; but tell me, brother Abram, thou sayest two of the noble beasts were alive when thou foundest them, why then didst thou not spare them?”

“Why did I not spare them, fool, in exchange for our necks? Suppose these Elimites were to learn of our little exploit, they would overturn everything.”

“Thy training was indeed perfect, Isidor; in time thou wilt come to be as expert in the dark art as I. Didst thou see how proudly Corinthia viewed the new mantles upon her team, which were yet, _not_ for her team, and how impossible it made detection even with her?”

“’Twas a marvelous thought, Abram, that sprouted in thy fertile brain, but tell me how didst thou exchange Corinthia’s team for Rebecca’s last night, without being seen by the minions at the royal stables?”

“That was easy,” replied Abram. “A trifle of the same power that was so convenient to rid us of the horses to-day, made every one of the worthless curs sleep long and deeply.”

“Thou art my elder brother, indeed Abram,” replied Isidor, “and I reverence thy glorious talents; but how very strange to see how easily so vast a crowd could be deceived into thinking it purely an accident.”

“It may have seemed easy to thee, my unspoiled Isidor, but if thou couldst have seen the sleepless nights and anxious days I endured in planning everything to work with the smoothness thou observed, it would have seemed less simple; but together we did in a few weeks what no other Israelite has ever accomplished, namely, undo the teachings of years in a beast, and teach him to obey the opposite sign in a few days so that when our beauteous queen Corinthia urged her team to stop, they ran the more furiously, and when she would have them go to the right by the old familiar word, they turned quickly to the left; and now we have our reward, we shall be honorable in Israel with our palaces, in which we shall dwell, and our chariots in which to visit the pleasant places of the city, and we shall be as far removed from the groveler who used to call us brother as our Queen Rebecca is above us; but I must away to discharge the duties of that honorable office which Corinthia the Elimite intended should fall as a prize to Rebecca, if to any, as a stab to her pride.

“All this but yesterday, and to-day Rebecca is queen, and Corinthia a wandering, hopeless leper, as the result of a cross training of the horses, and a timely exchange of Rebecca’s team for Corinthia’s. Farewell, Isidor, don’t forget thy prayers,” said Abram sneeringly, “and remember to swear by thy elder brother who taught thee how to drive a horse upon the highway of fortune.”

Life soon settled to its wonted groove after unwonted excitement, and the populace shouting a moment ago for Corinthia were now just as energetic in their demonstrations of undying fealty to Rebecca and Levi.

Although Levi had ever posed as an Israelite indeed, in whom there was no guile, and though Rebecca was a good old Jewish name, the policy of their reign did not appear to differ from that of their unhallowed predecessors.

The Elimites were still the trusted advisers of the king and queen, and the incumbents of the places of honor and emolument. The priesthood still continued the Accadian form of worship in the temple of the sun.

But wedge and golden image, being thus associated in the minds of the people with ideas of devotion, they gradually, as the Elimites designed they should, came to look upon them as objects of worship themselves, and soon a golden wedge was laid upon the altar, and the people of Israel bowed down to the image of the sun and worshiped at sight of the golden wedge.

Wealth was increasing rapidly in Ophir, of which the Accadians managed to own a goodly share. Taxes were increased, rigid enforcement of the laws to collect them followed. Tax gatherers and tithing men were given princely salaries so that these offices were sought and obtained by the Elimites.

Discontent began to work in the public mind, sullen murmurs were heard and dark hints of revolt began to be dropped by the Jews themselves, who not only saw themselves ignored in matters of government, but their hatred toward Elim was ten times more intense by reason of the odious offices that they occupied, for in what age or country have tax gatherers not been regarded with something of spleen by the people?

But the favored class heeded not the tokens of a rising storm. Drunk with prosperity, created by the labor of others, the longer they enjoyed the ease and luxury of the present the less they cared for the future, the more they respected but slightly the rights of their fellows, whose ruder life rendered them repulsive to the more refined Accadian, and the harder the toilers were oppressed the more repulsive they became to the parasites who were at once sucking their blood for subsistence and swearing openly at their want of spirit and refinement.

But religious superstitions interwoven with political influences are the strongest safeguards of a ruler whether the religion be a false one or the political bias a pernicious one or not.

In proportion as the people became restless and stricken with poverty and their rulers rich and arrogant, the priests increased their zeal in warning the people against the sin of not submitting to the powers that be, and roused their patriotism by pointing with pride to the immense public improvements, and reminded them of their glory as a nation. In progress in all the cunning arts of the world, there were none to surpass them, while in palaces and dwellings, in temples and gardens of pleasure, there were none to contest with them.

So the ferment of human life went on for a year, since that day when Rebecca and Levi had come so unexpectedly to the throne. Unexpectedly, at least, to the outside rabble, who dreamed not of the artifices being practiced within the charmed circle of power. It was again the time of the great festival which has been established as a fixed institution wherein the high rites of the sun worship were celebrated within the most sacred and secret precincts of the temple, rites in which lust and immorality joined hands with religion to dishonor themselves and all human decency.

The queen became the high priestess of these orgies and the low sensual instrument of national shame.

Again the multitude filled the streets of Ophir to choking. Again the approaches to the outer courts of the temple of the sun were packed. The queen was already at her altar in the temple prepared to offer herself as a spectacle of shame before the gaze of thousands, who trampled upon each other in their eagerness to witness this new ceremony in their religion of which they had heard only vague rumors and gained dim ideas.

Suddenly there seemed to be a diversion in the outer circle of the crowd near the street. Some one whom the people called Abram the magician staggered forward with a muttered curse, and almost fell, but recovered himself and stood gazing down the street with fear-haunted eyes, and with trembling lips, and sunken jaw, he exclaimed: “By the rod of Moses! it is none other than the dogs of Elim.” Thus admonished the crowd turned its gaze toward the spot where his was riveted, and beheld a faded, dust-covered chariot drawn by two jaded horses and bearing two persons whose attire was so extraordinary as to arouse curiosity in the beholder.

These two were a man and a woman; the former was clothed in a suit of sheepskin from head to foot, had an unkempt, bushy beard and hair flowing in great ringlets over his shoulders. His clothes were rudely fashioned and his headgear a sort of cap made of the skin of some wild creature.

His companion was clad in a fashion not less striking. A jacket of fine soft fur, dyed blue, and a skirt of equally delicate fur and white as snow. Delicate slippers of brown, trimmed with fringe of white around the top, and a jaunty headgear of the same kind of material made up a costume that might make a woman of these modern days proud.

Her dress was forgotten, however, when a glimpse of her face was obtained. It was beautiful and radiant behind its border of white furs as the face of an houri, and the crowds through which they were making their way gazed in undisguised admiration, mingled with a stirring of memory that seemed to struggle for mastery, suggesting vaguely that she was not unknown to them.

Suddenly a cry was raised by a man in the crowd! His cry had the effect of an electric shock. Every tongue took up the word and every throat was strained to vocalize that word. Rebecca, thrilling with triumph in the zenith of her power, heard the commotion, and glanced into the street to learn why she was no longer the center of all eyes, and astounded sees the smiling countenance, and hears the resounding name of one in whose praises the streets were vociferous. Why did she turn pale as the ivory image beside her? Why did she shudder at the mention of that name? Guilt was in her bosom, and Corinthia was the name in the street that caused her to quake like an aspen.

The rabble crowded upon the chariot with the wildest demonstrations of joy, weeping and laughing, and blessing the God of Elim that he had brought again the beloved queen. What! their queen? What traitorous words were these! There was no queen but Rebecca. Where was the magician Abram with ready device in time of peril? He was not far away, and as he was the first to act on that disastrous day one year ago, so now he was the first to lift his voice for Rebecca, the lawful queen. He struggled frantically toward the chariot, using all his burly strength to push aside or trample down whoever came in his way, and when he reached a favorable position he lifted a stentorian voice, and a commanding hand to still the roar of voices.

As soon as he could make himself heard he cried: “Back, fools of Ophir! Beware of these dogs of Elim. Hast thou forgotten that they are condemned lepers? Back if ye would not have rottenness in your bones.” Then turning, frothing and furious in his hatred toward the occupants of the chariot, he waved them back exclaiming: “And ye, dogs of Elimites, begone. Yonder is your home in the city of lepers. Begone or die. Dare ye to bring your carrion flesh to the city of Ophir to be a stench and a plague in the nostrils of our people? Beware, cursed seed and follower of a harlot!”

Consternation struck the clamoring multitude mute for a moment, and standing in the chariot, Jokim addressed them: “Men and women of Ophir, ye know well who we are. Full well ye know that only twelve months ago we celebrated with you this sacred festival. Ye know too that at that time the queen of all Ophir was none other than she who is by my side. The circumstances which suddenly drove us from your presence and made us outcasts are familiar to your memory. It is true that the great disaster of that day exposed us to the danger of the taint of leprosy. We went forth into the mountains, looking only for a place where we might die in peace without spreading the plague among you. For weeks we lived in daily expectation of its coming, but thanks be to the God of Elim, we are pure. We are in your hands and we are willing to be tried by the law of Israel for leprosy, for we know that we are as free from its touch as yourselves.”

Again a great shout went up from the people, but Jokim lifted up his hand as a sign that he would speak further, and silence oppressive as death reigned in an instant. He spoke once more: “Men and women of Ophir; we have lived in sadness apart from our native city for many weary weeks. To return to our people and our home has been our thought by day and our dream by night. We shall be content to dwell among you as the humblest citizens of all Ophir; but first, O men of Ophir! we would make plain to you and explain the cause of disaster on that almost fatal day.

“You had among you at that time a certain man called Abram the magician, for he was a magician in his power over beasts of burden.” Here a confusion arose and a man was observed trying to make his way through the crowd from the vicinity of the chariot. “Nay, Abram the wizard, do not slink away yet, I have something more to say to thee.”

Thus detected, Abram turned toward the chariot a countenance in which fear, hate, and fury worked fearful contortions. “A curse on thy lying tongue, thou dog of a Gentile,” he muttered.

Jokim continued: “This man was employed by your queen, Corinthia, to train her team for the chariot race, and his brother Isidor was also employed by one Rebecca, to train her team likewise. I now appeal to your understanding and ask you why on that great day of the chariot races did the queen’s horses refuse to obey her commands? Do ye not remember that whenever she commanded them to go to the right they turned to the left, and that when she commanded them to stay their running, they ran the more madly?”

Here again Abram made a wild attempt to force a way through the crowd, but Jokim cried out: “Whoever is for justice and Queen Corinthia, stop him, till I have done, then ye may do with him as seems good.”

A hundred hands were ready to tear him in pieces if need be, and Abram subsided into sullenness again.

“Do ye believe, inhabitants of Ophir, that the chariot horses of Corinthia disobeyed her in so doing? Canst ye give any cause why they should so forget the voice of their mistress in a day? This son of perdition who slinks from our presence like the jackal of the plains can tell you the reason thereof. Isidor, Rebecca, and Levi can tell why a wicked plot was laid to kill your own beloved queen, and doubtless seeing the present inhabitant of the throne, ye can make a guess as to why. These four wicked people planned the murder and almost carried it out. Isidor trained the team of Rebecca to heed the contrary sign of command, and when the lesson was well learned under the direction of Abram the magician, and by the knowledge of Rebecca and Levi, Abram stole away the queen’s docile horses and put in their places the horses of Rebecca on the night before the great chariot race, and covered them with new mantles that the queen should not know them. That ye may know we speak the truth, but read the evidence of guilt in the countenance of yon sneaking jackal. We have proofs of all we say, and if ye are for Corinthia, seize yon monster and bind him hand and foot, advance to yonder temple and do likewise with Rebecca and Levi, and proclaim Corinthia again queen and dethroned only by the wickedness of these people.”

The rabble again burst into wild cheering. They seized Abram, whose bravado melted away into contemptible cringings and pleadings for mercy at the hands of the mob, who were near fulfilling the wishes of Jokim, that cords and bands would have been unnecessary.

Meanwhile, Rebecca and Levi left alone in the temple with the priests, with suspicions sharpened by guilt, mistrusted the cause of the commotion, and hastily dispatching a priest to the palace for the royal guard which the usurpers had found it necessary, or thought it necessary, to provide; they then sent a second priest to the street to ascertain what was the cause of the commotion. He soon returned, pale as a ghost, and almost speechless. When he found words to deliver his message he exclaimed: “It is Corinthia, O queen, and the people have gone mad after her. They are coming toward the temple, fly, or your lives will be less than straws before these madmen.”

“We will fight them,” said Levi, trembling and pale in spite of his declaration of war. “Where are our fighting men?”

“I see them even now, O king, with their bows and arrows and battleaxes; they will meet Jokim and his dogs by the temple here, and then we shall see how long honeyed words will stand against arrows, or the beauty of a white sepulcher against spears. It is plain that the crisis will come when the soldiers and the followers of Corinthia meet, which will be near the temple.”

Levi and Rebecca watched the progress of events from the eastern portal of the great temple, nor had they long to wait. The shouting populace advanced, led by the chariot of the travelers, until the bowmen were within easy arrow-shot of them, and halted directly before the eastern portal and made humble obeisance to their sovereigns, with perhaps a trace of mockery in their salutations.

The king made as if he would address the crowd, but the people drowned his voice by hooting and jeering, and flinging vile epithets at Rebecca; and Levi shrank back cowed by the just wrath of the people.

Emboldened by his cowardice, one or two cries of “bring him out,” were heard, and he hastily betook himself to the inner temple to hide him among the sacred emblems of his chosen religion; but Rebecca came boldly forth upon the porch of the temple and essayed to answer the mob. Her voice was drowned in a wilder chorus than ever, and oaths and blasphemies filled the air. Cries of harlot and murderess were freely used, and the more frantically she strove to be heard, the louder swelled the din of disorder. Seeing her efforts were futile, she turned like a tigress at bay and beckoned the soldiers to discharge a flight of arrows into the mob. But they too, standing there in the presence of Corinthia for a few minutes, had caught the contagion of her lovely presence, and instead of obeying the order, a few straggling arrows were shot at Rebecca, striking the wall of the temple beside her.

Mad with rage against her rebellious subjects, and jealous hatred of her rival, she ran to the captain of the guard and seizing a spear from his hand she bounded like a tigress upon Corinthia, and aimed a blow with all her might at her heart. But retribution was swift upon her track; a man sprang forward from the crowd, and grasping the weapon from her hand, drove it completely through her body, piercing her heart. With a fiendish curse upon the “she-dog of Elim,” and such a look of diabolical hatred upon her face as haunted those who saw it, she fell to the ground a corpse, and her slayer kicked her dead body aside exclaiming: “May the devil roast thy soul, and buzzards fatten on thy carcass.” It was Isidor who dared to become the avenger of the wrongs which he himself had helped to heap upon Corinthia.

But a mob is not a nice discriminator between consistent and inconsistent justice, and the narrative of the tablets forces me, though much against my personal wishes and feelings, to write it down that his act was wildly applauded by the raging flood of humanity, and as the taste of blood had whetted their appetites they began to shout hoarsely for Levi, the false king, who had by foul measures come to rule over them. The queen’s archers had witnessed her death without betraying any emotion, but now they flung down their arrows and joined in the cry of “Corinthia our Queen, God bless her forever.” Some one shouted for a volunteer to bring out the skulking Levi, and Isidor sprang forward, seized a spear from the ground and disappeared within the portals. In a few moments he came forth, driving the terrified Levi before him down to the very spot where Rebecca’s body lay in the dust and filth of the street. Did he throw himself upon her body and willingly share her fate? Not he. He grew so white with fear as to be ghastly in his cowardice and starting back, he cried with an oath, “My people, will you kill me for this harlot’s foul deeds? You have done well to rid the earth of such scum, but I swear by Abraham, the just, that I had nothing whatever to do with the plot of this sorceress and her two fiendish confederates.”

Public opinion is rash, public judgment is harsh, but standing there and witnessing the cowardly and slanderous lies of this man against one who was at least as innocent, as guileless, as pure as he, but who alas, could not lift up her voice to fling back with scorn the accusations made by one who should have been bitterly upbraiding his own folly and wickedness instead of hers, whose greatest fault had been in trusting a craven, this surging, seething mass of excited humanity in their fury compared this with another scene only a few moons agone when another unfortunate woman had been hooted at, and jeered by the same people, and whose lover, esteemed also an illicit lover, had shared her horrible fate gladly and without a murmur, asking no greater happiness than to die with her?

Ignorant as was the rabble, dimly as reason shone upon their feeble intellects, they yet comprehended the vast difference in the degrees of manhood that marked the two men, and also of womanly virtue that marked the two women.

The pitiful cries of Levi for mercy only awakened their contempt; but Jokim, who now perceived that in the heart of the people Corinthia reigned supreme, and acting for her, commanded the archers to take up again their bows, and conduct Levi to prison until his case could be heard. Then there was another joyful coronation in which Corinthia again was made queen of all Ophir, and speaking for her Jokim made a great speech to the people in which he told them of all that he and Corinthia had suffered in anticipation of death, and in hardships in the mountains; how they had realized as scarcely to be believed, at last, that they were safe from the taint of leprosy; and how their experience had caused them to humble themselves greatly in the sight of the God of the universe; how he had shown them that they had been too much taken up with their ambitions and had thought too little of the people of Ophir; but that they were determined by the grace of the eternal Creator to rule more justly and to regard their own ends less.

Then a festival was proclaimed to last fourteen days, to celebrate the return of Corinthia, and during the festival Jokim and Corinthia were by solemn rites of the Elimites made man and wife, and so the scribes recorded on the little brick tablets that Ophir prospered as it had never prospered before; that a happier queen, or one more beloved or admired, never lived; and that Jokim was the happiest and most unselfish man in the kingdom, wholly devoted to the lovely Corinthia, caring not in the least for power which he could have shared with her for the asking, as she urged him to do; but he was perfectly contented in seeing a loving and loyal people look up to one whom to praise and love was greater happiness to Jokim than to have received the adulation of Ophir himself.

Many other scribes took up the tablet account after the time of Corinthia, who passed away as do all things earthly, after a long and happy reign, but not one of them failed to speak of the glory, the prosperity, the peacefulness and felicity, of the reign of Corinthia, or to extol her beauty and her wisdom and her humility and to deplore the fact that they should never again see a ruler so gifted, so fair, and so blest as the first Queen of the Ten Tribes of Israel.

Human nature presents as many varieties as there are specimens. Some men and women who strive with the most selfish and sordid ardor for power, are sobered and purified by its responsibilities when they attain it. Others who exhibit themselves before the public as pure, high-minded beings, who accept power only because the good of their fellows demands it, develop into monsters of haughtiness and tyranny. Can we trust such evidence to prove that these two oppressed creatures really underwent such a magic change, or is it proof merely that in the first, good and benevolent qualities under favorable circumstances would always rule, but may have been hidden and dwarfed by the evil in his surroundings, the hardening influences of his associates against which he could not rise to the level of his better self? And in case of the nice moralist who nibbled delicately at the official bait, subsequent acts of his suggest the bare possibility that he was merely acting this part of the Christian gentleman because of the approval it won him, and continued in his self-satisfied career only while he deemed it policy to do so. But as soon as he rose to be the head and ruler of a nation he could afford to ignore the opinions of his pious associates and indulge the cold-blooded propensities that he had been starving so long. So we see that you or I have need of nothing so much in this world as a broad Christian charity by which to regulate our own acts, and to judge the actions of others.

If we take pains to ferret out the cause of all the sickening bloodshed recorded in the history of the world we shall find that much of it was caused by religious intolerance; which means when reduced to practical language, “Believe as I do in religion or burn.”

Unless we shall emancipate our intellects from the prejudices that prevent our seeing a brother’s right to investigate, formulate, and crystallize his own creed--until we admit that with equal light and knowledge his chances of being right are at least equal to ours, we are nothing but refined barbarians.

When we recollect that there are about one thousand different forms of religions professed in the world, we can see that possibly on some of the microscopic non-essential points of our religion there might by the rarest possibility be a shade of error. Believing in the universal fatherhood of God, and the universal motherhood of nature, why can we not live at least so that the example of the Arctic Highlander shall not be a standing reproof to our higher civilization, and a constant reminder that when we reach a state of society as innocent of courts of justice as theirs, as perfectly free from religious strife, it will be when we shall, apparently, have progressed backward.

Many subsequent scribes recorded the story of their own time upon the succeeding tablets; it was a history uninterrupted for a long period by civil feuds, or foreign molestation; but not one of them failed to celebrate the name and reign of the good, the wise, the transcendently beautiful and beloved Queen Corinthia.