Belshazzar: A Tale of the Fall of Babylon. 1902

CHAPTER I

BABYLON THE GREAT

On a certain day in the month Airu, by men of after days styled April, a bireme was speeding down the river Euphrates. Her swarthy Phœnician crew were bending to the double tier of oars that rose flashing from the tawny current; while the flute-player, perched upon the upcurved prow, was piping ever quicker, hastening the stroke, and at times stopping the music to cry lustily, “Faster, and faster yet! Thirty furlongs to Babylon now, and cool Helbon wine in the king’s cellars!” Whereupon all would answer with a loud, “Ha!”; and make the bireme leap on like a very sea-horse. Under the purple awning above the poop, others were scanning the flying waves, and counting the little mud villages

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 dotting the river-banks. A monotonous landscape;—the stream, the sky, and between only a broad green ribbon, broken by clumps of tassel-like date palms and the brown thatched hamlets. Four persons were on the poop, not counting as many ebony-skinned eunuchs who squatted silently behind their masters. Just as the flute-player blew his quickest, a young man of five and twenty rose from the scarlet cushions of his cedar couch, yawned, and stretched his muscular arms.

“So we approach Babylon?” he remarked in Chaldee, though with a marked Persian accent. And Hanno the ship-captain, a wiry, intelligent Phœnician in Babylonian service, answered:—

“It is true, my Lord Darius; in another ‘double-hour’ we are inside the water-gate of Nimitti-Bel.”

The first speaker tossed his head petulantly: “Praised be Ahura the Great, this river voyage closes! I am utterly weary of this hill-less country. Surely the Chaldees have forgotten that God created green mountain slopes, and ravines, and cloud-loved summits.”

Hanno shrugged his shoulders.

“True; yet this valley is the garden of the earth. The Nile boasts no fairer vineyards nor greater yield of corn-land. He who possesses here a farm has a treasure better than a king’s. Gold is scattered; the river yields eternal riches. Four thousand years, the tablets tell, has the river been a mine of things more precious than gems. And we

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 approach Babylon, rarest casket in all this vast treasure-house.”

“All men praise Babylon!” quoth the Persian lightly, yet frowning downward.

“Yes, by Astarte! I have seen India and the Tin Isles, the chief wonders of the world. Yet my heart beats quicker now. A hundred strokes brings us to the first view of the mistress of cities.”

But Darius did not answer—only scowled in silence at the foam-eddy under the flying stern. As he stood, a stranger could have noted that his tight leathern dress set off a figure short, but supple as a roe’s, with the muscles of a leopard. Fire sparkled in his steel-blue eyes; the smile on his lips, from under his curling, fair beard, was frank and winsome. His crisp blond hair and high forehead were pressed by a gray felt cap, and upon his untanned jacket hung his sole ornament, a belt of gold chains, whence dangled a short sword in an agate sheath. Here was a man of power, the first glance told.

After no short silence the young man turned to his companions. Upon one of the couches lounged a handsome elderly nobleman, dressed in a flowing white and purple robe, and with a felt cap like Darius’s; on the next a lady, clad also in the loose “Median” mantle, beneath which peeped low boots of crimson leather. But her face and shoulders were quite hidden by an Indian muslin veil. Without speaking, Darius stood beside her for so long a time

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 that she broke the silence in their own musical Persian:—

“My prince, you grow dumb as a mute. Does this piping desert breeze waft all your thoughts after it? By Mithra! Pharnaces”—with a nod to the old nobleman—“has been a wittier travelling companion.”

And, as if to gain a better view, the lady lowered the veil, showing a face very white, save as the blood of health crimsoned behind it, and deep-blue eyes, and hair bound by a gold circlet, though not more golden than the unruly tresses it confined. The lines of her face were soft; but despite the banter on her lips none was in her eyes. Upon her breast burned a single great topaz, such as only kings’ daughters wear.

There was no levity in Darius’s voice when he answered:—

“Princess Atossa, you do well to mock me. Let Ahura grant forgetfulness of that night in the gardens at Ecbatana, when we stood together, and heard the thrushes sing and the fountains tinkle, and said that which He alone may hear. And now we near Babylon, where Belshazzar will hail you as his bride. In Babylon they will proclaim you ‘Lady of the Chaldees,’ and I Darius, son of Hystaspes, must obey Cyrus, your father—must deliver you up, as pledge of peace betwixt Persia and Babylon; must sit at your marriage feast”—with a pause—“must return

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 to Susa, and forget Atossa, daughter of the Great King.”

The lady drew back the veil and answered softly: “Cyrus is King; his word is law and is right. Is he not called ‘the father of his people’?”

“Yes, verily, more a father to his people than to his friends,” was the bitter reply. “In my despair when you were promised to the Babylonian I went to him, and he professed great sorrow for us both. But ‘he were unworthy to rule if he set the joy of a daughter and a friend above the peace of his kingdom.’ Then he bade me ask any boon I wished, saving your hand; I should have it, though it be ten satrapies. And I asked this—‘to go as the envoy that should deliver you to Belshazzar.’ He resisted long, saying I made the parting more bitter; but I was steadfast. And now”—hesitating again—“we are close to Babylon.”

Atossa only looked away, and repeated, “Better to have parted in Susa! We should be learning a little how to forget.”

Darius had no answer, but Hanno, who could not hear her, cried from the steering oar, “Look, my lords and my lady! Babylon!” He was pointing southward.

The river bent sharply. Just above the topmost plumes of the palms on the promontory thus formed hung a glitter as of fire, pendent against the cloudless blue.

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“Flame!” exclaimed Darius, shaken out of his black mood.

“Gold!” answered Hanno, smiling; “the crest of the queen of ziggurats, the uppermost shrine of Bel-Marduk, the greatest temple-tower of the twenty in Babylon.” And Darius, fresh from the splendours of Susa, marvelled, for he knew the wondrous shining was still a great way off.

But even without this bright day-beacon they would have known they approached the city. The shores were still level as the stream, but the palm-groves grew denser. They saw great cedars and tamarisks, blossoming shrubs, strange exotic trees in pleasant gardens, and the splendour of wide beds of flowers. Tiny canals drained away inland. The villages were larger, and beyond them scattered white-walled, rambling farm-houses. They saw dirty-fleeced sheep and long-horned kine; and presently Hanno pointed out a file of brown camels swaying along the river road—a Syrian caravan, doubtless, just safe across the great desert.

But never in her mountain home had Atossa seen a sight like that upon the river. For the Euphrates seemed turned to life. Clumsy barges loaded with cattle were working with long sweeps against the current; skiffs loaded with kitchen produce were drifting southward; and especially huge rafts, planks upborne by inflated skins, and carrying building-stone and brick, were creeping down-stream towards Babylon. In and out sculled little wicker boats,

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 mere baskets, water-tight, which bore a goodly cargo. And, as the bireme swept onward, the boatman gave many a hail of good omen. “Marduk favour you! Samas shine on you!” While others, who guessed the royal passenger, shouted, “Istar shed gladness on the great lady Atossa!”

So for the moment the young Persians forgot all cares, admiring river and land. All the time the tower of Bel shone with growing radiance. They could see its lower terraces. Around it other ziggurats, nearly as high, seemed springing into being, their cone-shaped piles of terraces glowing with the glazed brickwork,—gold, silver, scarlet, blue,—and about them rose masses of walls and buildings, stretching along the southern horizon almost as far as the eye could traverse.

Hanno stood smiling again at the wonderment of the Persians.

“Babylon the Great!” he would cry. “Babylon that endures forever!”

And truly Darius and Atossa thought his praise too faint, as they saw those ramparts springing up to heaven, worthy to be accounted the handiwork of the gods.

“Do you say now,” asked Hanno, “that the Chaldees have forgotten the hills? Elsewhere the gods make the mountains; in Babylonia men vie with the lords of heaven! You can see yonder the green feathers of the trees in the Hanging Gardens. The great Nebuchadnezzar once wedded Amytis the

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 Mede, who wept for her native uplands. In fifteen days, such was her husband’s love and might, he reared for her this mountain upon arches, and covered it with every fruit and tree. And this paradise shall be yours, O Lady Atossa!”

“Verily,” cried Darius, half bitterly, “on this earth you will enjoy the delights of Ahura’s Garo-nmana, ‘the Abode of Song.’”

But Atossa, shuddering, answered, “Not so; in Garo-nmana there is no such word as ‘farewell.’” And for a moment her eyes went back to the river. But now Hanno was thundering to his men to back water. A crimson pennant was being dipped on the staff before an ample country house by the river bank, and as the Phœnicians stroked slowly backward, a six-oared barge shot out towards the bireme. Behind the white liveries of the rowers one could see two figures sitting in the stern, and Hanno, with his hawk’s eyes, cried again, “I am not deceived. The ‘civil-minister’ Daniel and the chief of the eunuchs, Mermaza, are coming aboard, as escort of honour, before we reach the city.”

Darius appeared puzzled. “Daniel?” he asked. “That is not a Babylonian name.”

“You are right. His official name is Belteshazzar, but he is by birth a Jew; one from the petty kingdom Nebuchadnezzar destroyed. He has held very high office in these parts. All men honour him, for he is justice and faithfulness itself. The priests hate him because he clings to the worship of his native

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 god Jehovah; but the government continues him, old as he is, as ‘Rabsaris,’ the ‘civil-minister.’ His popularity strengthens the dynasty.”

“And the eunuch with him?”

The captain laughed significantly. “There must be like pretty serpents at Cyrus’s court. He was born a Greek. Men say he is soft-voiced and soft-mannered, yet with a brain sharp enough to outwit Ea, god of wisdom. But he is nothing to dread; never will dog run more obediently at your heels than will he.”

The boat was near. The two figures in the stern rose, and the elder hailed, “God favour you, Hanno! Is the Lady Atossa aboard?”

“May Baal multiply your years! She is here and the Lords Darius and Pharnaces.”

Then, while the boat drew alongside, the younger of the strangers, who was beringed and coiffured in half-feminine fashion, burst into a flowery oration, praising every god and goddess for the safety of the princess, for the sight of whose face the King Belshazzar waited impatient as the hungering lion. The need of clambering upon the bireme cut short the flow of his eloquence. Darius had only good-natured indifference for the eunuch, who was, as Hanno said, quite one of his kind—handsome, according to a vulgar mould, rouged, pomaded, and dressed in a close-fitting robe of blue, skilfully embroidered with red rosettes; gold in his ears, gold chains about his neck, gold on his white sandals;

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 the whole adorned with a smile of such imperturbable sweetness that Darius wondered if he were a god, and so removed above mortal hate and grief.

But the Jew was far otherwise. The Persians saw a man of quite seventy, yet still unbowed by his years, his hair and beard white as the wave-spray; in his dark eyes a fire; strength, candour, and wisdom written on his sharp Semitic features. His dress was the plainest—a white woollen robe that fell with hardly a fold, a simple leathern girdle, around the feet a fringe of green tassels. He was barefoot, his hair was neatly dressed, but he wore no fillet. Upon his breast hung his badge of office, a cylinder seal of carved jasper, bored through the centre for the scarlet neck-cord.

Daniel had salaamed respectfully; Mermaza brushed his purple fillet on the very deck. The salutations once over, Darius began with a question:—

“And is it true, the report we heard at Sippar, that my Lord Nabonidus, the father of my Lord Belshazzar, has been so grievously stricken with madness that he can never hope to be made whole, and that his son must rule for him, as though he were dead?”

Daniel’s answer came slowly, as if he were treading on delicate ground. “The rumour is too true. So it has pleased the All-Powerful. Nabonidus is hopelessly mad, the chiefs of the Chaldeans declare. He lies in his palace at Tema. Belshazzar has, seven

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 days since, as the saying is, ‘taken the hands of Bel,’ and become sole Lord of Babylon.”

“And I trust, with Ahura’s grace,” replied the prince formally, “soon to stand before him, and in my master’s name wish his reign all manner of prosperity.”

Then, when the ceremonies of greeting were ended, formality fled, and the talk drifted to the wonders of the approaching city.

“And was it your own villa that your boat left?” asked Darius; to which the minister answered affably: “My own. As Hanno may have told, I am by birth a Jew; yet our God has blessed me in this land of captivity. I possess a passing estate; it will be a fair marriage portion to my daughter.”

“Your daughter? Does God refuse a son?” A shiver and sigh seemed to sweep over Daniel at the question.

“I had three sons. All perished in the conspiracy when the young king Labashi-Marduk fell. They are in Abraham’s bosom. Now, in my evening, Jehovah sends me one ewe lamb, Ruth, who now waits for me in Babylon. But alas! her mother is dead.”

“Ahura pity you, good father,” protested the Persian, thrilling in sympathy; “in Persia there is no greater woe than to lack a son. You have much to mourn.”

But the other answered steadily, “And much to rejoice over.” Then, raising his head, he pointed forward.

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 “See! We are before the great water-gate of the outer wall. The king waits in his yacht inside the barrier. We are sighted from the walls; they raise flags and parade the garrison in honour of the daughter of Cyrus.”

Darius gazed not forward, but upward; for though not yet within the fortifications, the walls of brown brick lowered above his head like beetling mountains. The mast of the bireme was dwarfed as it stood against the bulwark. Steep and sheer reared the wall; a precipice, so high that Darius could well believe Hanno’s tale that the city folk boasted its height two hundred cubits. At intervals square flanking towers jutted and rose yet higher, faced with tiles of bright blue and vermilion; and behind this “rampart of the gods” rose a second, even loftier; while Daniel professed that inside of this ran still a third, not so high, yet nigh impregnable. As the current swept them nearer they saw the water-gates, ponderous cages of bronze, hung from the towers by ingenious chainwork, ready to drop in a twinkling, and seal all ingress to the “Lady of Kingdoms.”

Then, while Darius looked, suddenly the sun flashed on the armour of many soldiers pacing the airy parapets. He heard the bray of trumpets, the clangor of kettle-drums, the tinkling of harps, and soft flutes breathing; while, as the vessel sped between the guardian towers, a great shower of blossoms rained upon her deck, of rose, lily, scarlet pomegranate; and a cheer out-thundered “Hail,

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 Atossa! Hail, Queen of Akkad! Hail, Lady of Babylon!”

Daniel knelt at the princess’s feet. “My sovereign,” said he, with courtly grace, “behold your city and your slaves. We have passed the water-gate of Nimitti-Bel; before us lies the inner barrier of Imgur-Bel. Except Belshazzar order otherwise, your wish is law to all Babylon and Chaldea.”

And at sight of this might and glory, Atossa forgot for a moment her father and the love of Darius. “Yes, by Mithra!” cried she in awe, “this city is built, not by man, but by God Most High.”

But Daniel, while he rose, answered softly, as if to himself, “No, not by God. Blood and violence have builded it. And Imgur-Bel and Nimitti-Bel shall be helpless guardians when Jehovah’s will is otherwise.”

Another shout from Hanno, and Daniel cut short his soliloquy.

“My lady,” said the Jew, in a changed tone, “the royal galley comes to greet us. Prepare to meet Belshazzar.”