Belshazzar

Chapter XX The End of Obil

The little door clanged to behind me and with a fluttering of my heart I heard the bronze bolts rattle as they went home in their marble sockets. Then I was led down narrow passages, many of them that turned and forked and turned again till I lost all count of how they ran. At length I reached cedar doors before which stood guards. The doors opened and out came other servants who took me from those by whom I had been brought thus far, and led me into a lofty room that was separated from an inner chamber by broidered curtains.

Here I stood for a space while, passing between the curtains, one of the servants made some report that seemed to cause a man within to laugh loudly. Then he returned and I was led, or rather pushed through the curtains, on the farther side of which I halted bewildered, being dazzled by the multitude and brightness of the lights. A voice said in my ear,

"Down! Be prostrate before the King of kings!" but still I stood bewildered, seeing no king.

When presently my eyes grew accustomed to the blaze of light I perceived that I was in a large chamber, cedar–roofed and adorned with gold–worked hangings. At the end of this chamber, seated in a gilded and jewelled chair, was a large, hook–nosed, bearded man with unwinking eyes that reminded me of those of a vulture, whom I knew to be Belshazzar the King.

He stared at me with those bold, fixed eyes, then said in a voice as soft as though his throat had been soaked in oil,

"Let him alone. These barbarian foreign lords do not understand the customs of our court. If he does not prostrate himself of his own courtesy, I say—let him alone who may ere long learn to mend his manners. Bring him here. I would speak with him."

So I was led forward and stood before the king.

"How are you named?" he asked, eyeing me up and down with his vulture stare.

"I am called Ptahmes, O King," I answered who did not dare to give my own name, and I noted that a scribe who stood by, wrote down the words.

"Is it so? I think that I have heard otherwise. What are you doing in Babylon and what are you?"

"I am a man of learning, O King, of whom the late king, your father, was pleased to make a friend when we discussed the attributes of the gods. He gave me this robe in which I stand."

"Did he? Then a fool made presents to a knave," he replied coarsely, and the courtiers laughed. "Where are you living?" he went on.

"I am the guest of the prophet Belteshazzar, O King, he whom the late king Nebuchadnezzar made governor of Babylon."

"Indeed. Then as I suspected, that old Hebrew dream–doctor keeps bad company. By Marduk! he shall answer for it to me who do not fear his spells as did Nebuchadnezzar the Madman. Are you also one of the men of Judah?"

"I am a worshipper of the God of Judah, O King."

"And therefore an enemy of the gods of Babylon. Well, let the gods fight their own battles. I mock them all who have served me ill of late and chiefly this cheat of Judah, whose temple we have plundered and whose golden vessels are my wash–pots. He has cursed me, so say his priests, but as he has no statue to be defiled, I spit upon his name and will show him that the King of Babylon is greater than the Heavenly Cheat of Judah, as did the kings who went before me. What say you, man?"

Now when I heard these blasphemies I shivered, nor, as I think, were they pleasing to the ears of the courtiers, for I saw some of them turn their heads and make the sign that Babylonians use to avert evil.

"Is it for me to reason with the King, or to revile Him Whom I worship? As the King said, let the gods fight their own battles, which doubtless they will do," I answered slowly.

"So in veiled words you threaten me with this god of yours, do you? Yet I think that before long you will revile his name, and loudly, in all our ears. How came you here and for what purpose, O Ptahmes?"

"A woman brought me, O King."

"Her name?"

"I am not sure of it, but one of the guards called her Adna."

All those present smiled and Belshazzar answered with a brutal laugh,

"Oh! Adna. We all know the beautiful Adna. Did you then propose to use my palace as a house of ill fame?"

"Not so, O King. I was told that I was among those bidden to a feast because the late king Nabonidus had favoured me."

"Were you? Then learn that I do not pick my feasters from among my father's toadies tricked out in his old clothes," and he pointed to my cloak which I now noticed was of a different make and stuff from those worn by the officers around him.

I was silent, not knowing what to say. For a while he sat staring at me, his face alive with hate as though I were his bitterest foe. Then he spoke again, changing his soft voice, as he had the power to do, for one like to the roar of a lion.

"Let us have done with all these lies," he said, "for I weary of the play and time grows short. Captain, bring in the man Obil, that we may refresh ourselves with a breath of truth."

Now the officer addressed hesitated, seeing which the king struck the arm of the chair with his sceptre and shouted again,

"Do you not hear me? Bring in the spy Obil."

So sharply did he strike that the ivory sceptre snapped in two and the golden head in which was set a great emerald, rolled along the floor till it lay still between my feet. A gasp of fear at this most evil omen rose from those who saw it, and even the king's wine–flushed face paled for a moment. Recovering himself, he turned on them snarling and asked,

"Are you afraid? Do you think that the cheat Jehovah answers me by a sign worked upon this rod of power that all the gods of Babylon have blessed? I tell you that with half a sceptre I will hunt him out of heaven, yes, and shatter Cyrus, whom the men of Judah call his Sword. Aye, I will thrust it down the Persian's throat and watch it choke him."

"May the King live for ever!" said the courtiers bowing. "The King is greater than all the conquered gods of all the peoples!"

I saw, I heard, and for the first time some comfort crept into my scared soul as I set my foot upon that sceptre–head beneath the hem of my robe where it lay hidden, and spurned it. For well I knew that this beast king was but as dust before the breath of Jehovah the Holy One of Judah. Then I stepped back and showed the great jewel flashing on the ground like to a tiger's evil eye.

A door at the side of the chamber was opened and through it came four bloodstained black men, naked save for loin cloths, who bore a stretcher covered with a cloth.

"May it please the King, Obil is here as the King commanded," said the captain.

At a sign from the king he threw back the cloth revealing a hideous sight, from which even those cruel Babylonians shrank back. For there lay Obil, mutilated, torn to pieces, scarred with fire and bathed in blood. More I will not write; it is enough.

"Bid the dog speak, if he would not taste of a worse torment, and tell me what he knows of this man who bribed him to corrupt my servants and carry letters from a lady of my household," said Belshazzar.

"May it please the King," said the captain in a trembling voice, "Obil cannot speak. He is dead!"

"Dead!" roared Belshazzar. "How comes it that he is dead when I commanded that he should be kept alive?" and he glared at the black slaves who shook in their terror.

"May it please the King," went on the captain, "the scribe here whose office it is to be present at tormentings and take down the words uttered by the victims—I mean by the wicked sentenced to punishment, says that this obstinate man of Judah, Obil, snatched a heated knife from the hand of one of the slaves and drove it into his own heart. See, it stands there in his breast."

"And what said the fellow before he died?" asked Belshazzar of the scribe, who answered,

"May it please the King, he said nothing save that he believed this man here was an Egyptian of royal blood and that the King could never harm him as he was protected by the spirit of Belteshazzar, the great prophet of Judah. Naught else could be wrung from him by any torment that is known. Indeed with his last words he denied all the little he had uttered."

"Did he tell you naught of Belus or Azar, my enemy in whose pay he was, and whither he has gone?"

"Naught, O King."

"Take that carrion away and let those clumsy slaves await my punishment under guard, for I think that presently they shall taste of their own medicine," said the king, glaring again at the black men.

So the body of the steadfast Obil was carried off and as it went I prostrated my heart before him whom unwittingly I had brought to death, and blessed his spirit, praying its pardon and that of God. When it was gone and slaves had scattered perfume over the spot where the tormentors and the litter had stood, the king spoke again, saying,

"We have learned little of this man from that dead Hebrew, save that he is an Egyptian of royal blood, and even this he denied again before his end. Nor is it of any use to ask the fellow himself, except under torment, for doubtless he will lie as all Egyptians do. Yet if, as is reported, he be really of the blood of Amasis we must go softly, for at this moment Babylon does not wish to make a foe of Pharaoh. Now I have heard rumours concerning the man and I would put them to the proof, as happily I have the means to do. What say you, my counsellors?"

"The King is wise. May the King live for ever!" answered these reptiles, bowing like snakes before the rod of their charmer.

Then Belshazzar turned to a chamberlain who stood upon his right with a wand in his hand, and said,

"Admit those ladies who await an audience of my Majesty, and be silent everyone while I talk with them. Remember all, also you, Egyptian, that whoever speaks before I open his mouth, dies," and without moving his head he turned his flashing eyes towards the door through which the torturers had departed with their horrible burden, then fixed them threateningly upon me.

Presently the curtains that hung over another of the entrances to that great chamber were drawn and from between them appeared two ladies draped in long veils, of whom because of these veils little could be seen, except that they were tall and walked gracefully. After them came other women whom I took to be attendants because their heads were bowed. Also I noted that the pair who came first seemed to be strangers or enemies, for they exchanged no word and edged away from each other. Having made their obeisance to the king, they were halted by the chamberlain at a little distance from where I stood. Then they looked at me and I perceived that both of them began to sway and tremble like papyrus reeds beneath the weight of a breath of wind, seeing which I grew suddenly afraid. Indeed from the moment that they entered I had been afraid, because there was something which came from them to me that stirred my spirit and awoke memories of I knew not what.

"Be pleased, Ladies, as this is no public court, to put off ceremony and to unveil yourselves," said Belshazzar in his softest voice.

Thereon the waiting women sprang forward and loosed the wrappings from the heads of the two ladies whom I watched intently, wondering whether I should know them.

The veils fell and were snatched away and next moment I too nearly fell down. For before me stood Myra and my mother! Both of them were wonderfully arrayed and, as a man sees in a dream, I noted that on my mother's head was a royal ornament, at least from it, fashioned in gems, rose something that resembled the uraeus snake of Egypt, that only might be worn by kings, their spouses and their children of the true blood.

Myra bent forward as though to speak but in a stern voice Belshazzar bade her to be silent. Then addressing my mother, he said,

"Royal Lady, for so from our brother Pharaoh's letters I understand you are, who for your own reasons have been pleased to favour me by accompanying Egypt's embassy to Babylon, as, if you were so minded, I prayed that you would do; tell me, I pray, whether you know this man who stands before me, and if so, who and what he is."

These words the king spoke in his own language, but an interpreter who must have been waiting there for the purpose, rendered them in Greek.

"Know him!" she answered with a cry, using that same tongue, for indeed she had never learned any other very well. "Can a mother forget the child she bore? Great King, he is my own and only son begotten by the good god, Pharaoh Apries, when I was his wife. Yes, my son of the royal blood, a Count of Egypt and a governor of Memphis, whom having lost, by Pharaoh's leave I have travelled so far to seek, as you invited me to do through your envoy, O King of kings. Amasis, the present divine Pharaoh, sent him as an ambassador to Cyrus the Persian, after which he vanished, O King; wherefore, hearing from your envoy that he was rumoured to be still in Babylon hidden away, I came to seek him and—am here."

"Is he named Ptahmes, Lady?"

"Nay, O King, his name is Ramose," she exclaimed astonished.

"I thank you, Lady, for this makes certain what we had heard elsewhere, that Ptahmes is a false name under which it has pleased the noble but modest Ramose to hide himself in Babylon. Now, royal Chloe, as I believe that you are called, be pleased to tell me whether you know the lady who stands near to you?"

"Yes, O King, though I have not seen her since she left Egypt to be wed to the King Nabonidus, a marriage, I am told, that did not take place because of some falsehood that was published concerning her, although now she is to become your queen, O King, a glorious destiny indeed. Yes, the wife of the greatest monarch in all the world!" and she lifted her eyes as though in adoration of a god.

"You are right, Lady, and it is for this reason that we have petitioned of you to honour us with your presence here in Babylon if only for a while, that we may bestow upon you such gifts and titles as become one who is said to be the grandmother of a lady whom its king takes as wife. We beg you, therefore, to tell us here and now whether this is so, as in his letters Amasis, the Pharaoh of Egypt declares, because if I may say it, in your person you are still so young and beautiful, that doubts have arisen as to this matter."

Now I fell into an agony, or rather into a deeper agony, who knew not what words would come from the mouth of this foolish mother of mine in the madness of her vanity. I who remembering Belshazzar's terrible threat, dared not speak, fixed my eyes upon her face, as I saw Myra did also, striving to send a message from my heart to hers, warning her of my peril. But she took no heed. Indeed she only blushed and bowed, then answered in a pleased voice,

"O King, my son Ramose was born when I was still very young, nor is he himself so far advanced in years as might be thought from his face, that has grown lined with study of deep things I do not understand."

Now Belshazzar leaned forward and said in a measured voice,

"Then this lady is the daughter of your son, Ramose?"

"So I believe, O King, although I never knew her mother, as I told Pharaoh Amasis in the past. Years ago a queen named Atyra came from Syria on an embassy to Apries my lord, a beautiful woman who, I heard, fell in love with my son and—the King will spare me, for we in Egypt are modest and it is not our custom to talk of such matters to men."

Now able to bear no more I was about to cry out that she lied, when a eunuch who had drawn near to me, gripped my arm and handling his dagger, whispered in my ear,

"Unless you seek instant death, be silent."

Then I refrained my lips, bethinking me that while I lived there was still hope. In death there could be none.

"All of us understand, royal Chloe," said the king with a false smile; "indeed I remember hearing of this Queen Atyra, a very fair woman who went to stir up Egypt against us of Babylon and returned no more. So enough of her. Now one more question, my royal guest, and I will cease to trouble you. A man called Belus, an evil–doer who fled from Babylon when I was young because of some crime he had committed, appeared here not long ago and was pardoned through the foolishness of the late king, my father, to whom he was a cousin. This man having been reinstalled in his offices, for by trade he is a priest and a necromancer, stated to the king in my presence that the lady Myra yonder was not a princess of the royal blood of Egypt as Pharaoh Amasis had declared, but the low–born wife of an Egyptian named Ramose, a son of Pharaoh Apries and the lady Chloe, believing which, my father publicly put away the lady Myra and from that day till his death never looked upon her face again. Is this tale true or false, royal Chloe?"

"How can it be other than false, O King?" cried my mother in a high and rapid voice, "seeing that for years Myra dwelt with my son as his acknowledged daughter, first in Cyprus and afterwards in Egypt, where she herself often spoke to me of him as her father and where he suffered suitors to ask her hand as that of his daughter? Moreover did they not live in my house at Memphis as father and daughter? Lastly, if this were not so, should I have told Pharaoh Amasis that she was my son's daughter when he sought for a lady of the royal blood to be sent as a wife to the King Nabonidus? Further, if they were wed, how comes it that I, his mother, was never asked to be present when he took her as his bride?"

Thus she spoke in a torrent of words until she ceased from want of breath.

"It is enough," said Belshazzar, when the interpreter had rendered them all. "I thank you who with the wind of truth have blown away certain mists of falsehood which perplexed me, who purpose both for reasons of policy and of love," here he devoured Myra with his fierce and greedy eyes, "to repair the wrong done in error to your son's daughter by my father Nabonidus, one ever easy to deceive, by taking her to wife, thus wiping away that insult with the highest honour I can bestow. Be pleased to withdraw, royal Chloe, till we meet again presently at my feast when these nuptials will be declared. In your chamber you will find certain gifts not unworthy of her from whom sprang a queen of Babylon, with which I trust you will adorn your beauty at the feast; also the decrees conferring upon you titles of nobility which in Chaldea we think high."

When these words had been translated, Belshazzar rose and bowed to my mother, and she—poor besotted creature, prostrated herself before him as in her youth she was wont to do before Pharaoh whose woman she had been. Then muttering thanks, she withdrew with her following, forgetting in her joy and triumph even so much as to look at me, her son, who, although she guessed it not, she had condemned to death.

When she was gone Belshazzar dismissed most of those who stood about him, so that there remained only a scribe, a captain and four soldiers, three eunuchs, big, fat fellows with villainous, wrinkled countenances who, as I heard afterwards, were the chosen ministers of his pleasures; and some veiled women attending upon Myra, who from the way in which they moved, to me appeared to be jailers rather than waiting–maids. They went and there followed a space of heavy silence like to that which precedes the bursting of a tempest. All there felt, I think, that something terrible was about to happen, for even the soldiers and the hard–faced eunuchs looked moved and expectant.

Belshazzar descended from his high chair and stood in front of me, glowering, his evil face full of hate and jealous rage.

"You have heard," he said in that horrible soft voice of his. "Now what have you to say, half–bred dog of an Egyptian whose mother was a Grecian strumpet, you who came to Babylon upon a vile errand? Before you speak, learn that all this while you have been known and watched, aye, even while I was absent. After you were taken spying for Cyrus under a false name, the king my father protected you because you have some smatterings of learning and flattered him. He died and you and the traitor who is known as Belus, strove to escape with yonder lady under an order that you had cheated from him. But my officers outwitted you. The lady was taken in the gate, though owing to a storm bred of the wizardry of Belus, you and he vanished, as I think after killing my officer. Then you took shelter under the robe of the Hebrew prophet who is called Belteshazzar, knowing that none dare touch you there because of the superstitions of the Babylonians who believe that his house is fenced by spirits from the underworld. There, perhaps, you might have stayed safe enough, had it not pleased you to make use of that poor wretch whose corpse you saw but now, as a go–between with the lady Myra.

"In answer to your messages she wrote you a letter which was seized, copied and then delivered by your tool, Obil. To–day, another letter was forged and given to you to serve as bait to draw the jackal from his hole. You came out of your lair and were met by a woman, because to have sent soldiers to take you would have been dangerous in a city that is full of treachery, thanks to your friend Belus and others, though that woman, the wanton Adna, knew not why she was sent, thinking only that she played a part in some love business from which she would draw gold. So through your own blind folly at last you came into my hands, where there is no prophet to protect you with the magic of the devil that he worships."

He paused a while, glaring and gnashing his teeth. Then he went on,

"And now from the lips of that vain painted hag, your mother, lured here for this purpose, we have learned the truth, or what will serve as well, for who can doubt a mother's testimony concerning the son she bore? The lady whom you pretend to be your wife, is certified by your mother to be your own daughter and you are a wretch unfit to live, as all here and in Egypt will acknowledge, yes, even Amasis himself. Therefore I doom you to die, who on the head of your private crimes, have piled that of making trouble between Babylon and Egypt at a time when Babylon needs Egypt's help. Do you hear that you are condemned to die?"

"I hear, O King, that like every man—even the King himself—I am condemned to die," I answered slowly, for these words came to me. "Yet before I die I would say to you what you know already, that all this tale is false. Whatever my mother may have told you in her vanity and delusion, yonder woman is not my daughter but my wife."

"Dog!" he answered, smiting me in the face, "will you also defile your own mother? Well, soon we shall hear another story from you. Doubtless you think to pass hence swiftly and without pain. It is not so. You shall perish very slowly, as a monster who would take his own daughter for a wife and who slanders his mother is doomed to do under our ancient law. There is much that I would learn from you ere you yield your breath, concerning the doings of your familiar Belus who is reported to have gone hence to plot against me and Babylon with Cyrus the accursed Persian. Soldiers, away with him to the torment!" and he clapped his hands.

Then Myra who all this while had listened immovable, sprang forward and threw herself into my arms.

"He is my husband, not my father. If he must die, let me die with him," she cried.

"Drag her away," said the king, and they obeyed him.

Yet as she was torn from me, she thrust something into my hand which swiftly I hid in my robe, guessing that it was poison.

"Farewell, beloved wife," I said. "Soon we shall meet before God's judgment seat, we and this king."

As the soldiers haled me towards the curtains the captain who had departed to give orders returned.

"O King," he said, "the King's command cannot be carried out on the instant."

"Why not?" shouted Belshazzar.

"O King, the tormentors, fearing the just vengeance of the King that he had promised to them because of the death of Obil, are themselves all dead. Yes, there they lie dead, the four of them, having, as I think, swallowed their own tongues after the Ethiopian fashion."

"Send for others instantly," said the king.

Then the private scribe prostrated himself, saying,

"O King, the business will be long, for such instructed, devilish folk live by themselves at a distance and it is almost the hour of the great feast. Shall we not behead this man at once and make an end?"

"Nay," Belshazzar answered, "for I would court this daughter of his to the music of his groans. It will be sweet!"

He thought a while, then added,

"Bring him to the feast and guard him well, placing him under my own eye that I may be sure of him, who perhaps is also a magician and can vanish away like Belus. When the feast is over lead him here again where I and my new–made wife will talk with him. Bid more tormentors await us here with their instruments and see to it that they are the masters of their filthy company. On your heads be it!"