The Dragon of the Ishtar Gate

III – The Gate of the Gods

On the evening of the ninth, Myron and Bessas forded the Idide River. Beyond the ford, the road was paved with broad fiat bricks set in asphalt. Out of the plain before them, dotted with groves of palm, acacia, tamarisk, and poplar, rose Shushan the Palace, as the Persians called their second capital. Its hills, topped by fortresses, temples, and palaces, stood up in black silhouette against the blood-red sunset.

An indifferent guard waved them through the Persepolis Gate into Shushan. In deepening darkness they rode along an avenue until Myron said:

"I turn off here to get to my friend's house."

"I'll stay with you until you are delivered," said Bessas. "When the king is away, the cutthroats make merry."

They turned down a narrow unpaved lane, the hooves of their horses striking the mud with shapeless wet sounds. Inky blackness closed in upon them. Slinking shapes scurried out of their way, and nauseous stenches assailed their nostrils. On either side the close-set walls reared up above their heads, leaving overhead but a narrow strip of starlit sky, like a gem-studded girdle. There was no light, and no sound but the snarl of pariah dogs fighting for offal.

As Myron's eyes adjusted to the blackness, he made out an occasional window, small and barred, high up; or a small but massive door, set deep in an ancient wall. Down the walls, stinking liquids trickled over coatings of moss, mold, and grime. From one window came the snarl of an angry man, followed by the crack of a whip on flesh and a woman's scream.

Another turn, and Myron said: "Here we are." He dismounted and rapped.

"Who is that?" said a voice through the peephole.

Myron gave his name. The door opened and a shaven-headed man in white linen called out: "Come in, Myron, ere we let all the vermin of the night in with you!"

Myron untied his small bag of possessions from his horse. "This is my friend Uni, the Egyptian priest," he said. "And this wee little fellow is Bessas of Zariaspa."

"Your servant," said Uni.

"God give you long life," said Bessas. "Myron, I am for the barracks. Tomorrow I must deliver these nags and study how to get us farther along on our journey. If you cannot find me elsewhere, come to Indabigas' tavern tomorrow even. Mithra preserve you!"

"The same to you," said Myron. "I shall spend tomorrow in the archives, for ignorance to a traveler is- the same as blindness."

The priest touched noses with Myron and called to his wife to get food and drink for the traveler. He said: "A thousand welcomes, old friend! What brings you hither ahead of the Great King and his court?"

Having spilt a small libation, Myron drank deeply. Gazing at the' procession of animal-headed gods that paraded stiffly, in red and white and yellow paint, around the walls of the room, he recounted what had befallen. By the time the tale was told, he had eaten and drunk;

"Four and a half days!" said Uni. "Only the postal riders do better."

"Oimoi! At the end of the first day I feared I should die, and at the end of the second I hoped I should! However, I have toughened up since. I've led too soft a life these many years."

"How goes the City of the Persians?"

"The same as ever: plots and intrigues in the palace; Persian arrogance in the streets; peasant ignorance in the countryside. By the World Egg of the Orphics, I shall never be happy until I can dwell again in a Greek city!"

"Haven't you made a good living?"

"Yes, but the soul finds refreshment in change. True, the Persian gentry have their good points. They are all brave, mostly well-mannered, and many even honest. The trouble is, there is nobody to converse with. All I hear is court gossip, and hunting, and the great equestrian game of stick-and-ball, which means to them what the Olympics do to us. Nobody has one thought to rub against another, and those who have are looked upon as insane. Pheu!"

"You need a wife," said Uni.

"You mean I once did. But try to find one when you live in a foreign city, where there are but a handful of your own kind! Why, fifteen years ago, when I was just past thirty, I courted the daughter of Pythonax the Eretrian here in Shushan. Pythonax was willing, but his daughter would have none of it. She told him I was old, and dull, and worst of all I thought all the time! I decided that the gods preferred me to stay a widower, and now, by the Dog, I am accustomed to my single state. I am less subject to

than I was twenty years ago."

"What are your plans?"

"If I survive this journey, I will ask permission to return to Miletos."

"I am told," said Uni, "that Miletos is full of Karians, brought in to replace the enslaved Milesians."'

"Some true Milesians will have trickled back. Anyway, this hope of future return is one reason for the journey."

"How mean you?"

"I do not desire to return to Ionia as merely one more wandering Greekling, who has tutored noblemen's sons and accumulated a few shekels. I should be as much a nobody then as now. But let me come as the man who has seen lands that no other Hellenic eyes have beheld ..."

Uni pursed his lips. "It seems like a desperate risk for a doubtful gain. I had rather search for spiritual perfection in contemplation of the deathless gods."

"Please yourself; but to labor eternally for the same masters is wearisome. Don't you see, man, I might even settle the question of whether the earth is a flat disk as says Thales, or a cylinder as says Anaximandros, or boat-shaped as say the Babylonians?"

"All very interesting, no doubt; but take care that in your searching you fall not over the edge."

"With danger even danger is overcome," said Myron. "And, as says Herakleitos, who hopes for nothing wins nothing."

"I must give you letters to some of my colleagues in Egypt; for, to a traveler in a strange land, next to a well-filled purse a good introduction is the best thing. But, speaking of purses, how do you expect to gain tangible wealth from your wanderings? I would not count upon Xerxes' gratitude. A king's wrath is as lasting as the hills, but his favor is as dew upon the grass."

"You are right. But I may acquire understanding, which to me is more than darics. My master Herakleitos used to say: Most men might as well be blind and deaf, for all that they comprehend what lies about them. If you would gain wisdom, he said, get about, see things for yourself, and subject the impressions thus gained to the divine power of reason. And why should not I be the man to put Herakleitos' advice into effect?"

Later they played sacred way, on a narrow board, three cells by twelve. At length Myron threw the elongated die, cried, "Four!" and took Uni's last piece.

"May Seteh gnaw your bones!" exclaimed the shaven man. "By the rays of Amon-Ra, you have placed a spell upon that die."

"My dear Uni," said Myron, "see for yourself." He held up the die. "It is your own perfect die, and not a flattened one that I have craftily substituted for it."

"True, though a clever man could control the fall of even a perfect die." The Egyptian finished his cup of Syrian wine and yawned. "Next time we shall play tjau and I shall slaughter you. But I should be abed. I must be full of holy unction for my little flock tomorrow."

Next morning, Myron beat his way through the swarming streets to North Hill, whereon stood the palace of Darius the Great. Myron climbed the stair to the top of the hill, passing brilliant brick reliefs of fantastic animals—winged bulls, and goat-horned lions with hindlegs and wings of eagles, in blue and emerald and crimson and gold. At the top he talked himself into the royal library. The librarian, who knew Myron of old as a respectable bookworm, welcomed him warmly.

Meanwhile, in the Daduchid mansion in Shushan, Zopyrus son of Bagabyxas paced restlessly while listening to his visitor, a fresh-faced young cousin from the barracks.

"There is no doubt at all," said this one, "that it is Bessas son of Phraates. Who else comes roaring in, knocks people over with playful slaps on the back, drinks half the troop's daily allowance of wine at one draft, breaks the troop commander's collarbone in a friendly wrestle, and then snores all night like seven thunderstorms?"

"You have convinced me, cousin, though I see not how—but never mind. Slave! Run to the house of Ardigula the Babylonian and fetch him hither. I have a task for him."

The sun had passed the meridian when the slave returned with a small, mouselike, brown man, wrapped in a camel's hair cloak and a shawl. The small one glided in, bowed deeply to Zopyrus, and touched his own nose. "God increase your wealth and family!" he said in Aramaic.

Zopyrus held out his hand for the man to kiss, ordered his servants out, and closed the door himself. Long and earnestly the two conferred. At length die little man, scratching, said:

"Ari! You drive a hard bargain, my lord. It had been simpler if your highness had spoken yesterday, ere Lord Sataspes left Shushan."

"That could not be helped," said Zopyrus. "I had not found you yesterday. Mean you that you cannot catch up with Sataspes?"

"Nay; there are ways. I shall summon sprites from the sunless North ... But give my unworthy self the money at once, that your slave can get about this business. Him whom I serve"—he made a reverential gesture towards the earth—"shall take the honor of the Daduchids into his keeping. He will not fail my master. As for Bessas the Bactrian, that were as simple as spearing fish in a bathtub."

Myron ran Bessas to earth in the tavern of Indabigas. This time he could not get the giant Bactrian to leave until he had sat and drunk with him till his senses swam. Bessas improvised:

At last Bessas suffered himself to be dragged forth. They walked towards the river Khavaspa, over which a gibbous moon hung high. Bessas continued:

Myron said: "You ought to write these down, old boy. They might preserve your name for posterity."

"Nay! That were hard work; it would spoil the fun. Posterity can make up its own rhymes." As they came to the parapet overlooking the Khavaspa, Bessas added: "How did you make out?"

"I unearthed a few more details of our route. How about you?"

"I have—hist!"

"What is it?"

"I thought I heard a man moving stealthily ... Be that as it may, I have got us passage as far as Babylon, at least." Bessas hiccupped.

"How?"

"I have a friend in the postal service whose next run was to be tomorrow. He's sick with a cold in the head, and they are short of spare drivers for the mail carts that run from here to Babylon. So the postmaster said I might take the car in my friend's——-"

Two shadows moved out from the houses on the landward side of the promenade and rushed towards the twain. Bessas cried:

" 'Ware knives!"

Myron gaped for a heartbeat, then snatched off his cloak, whipped it about his left arm as a shield, and fumbled for his knife. There was a rip of cloth as the man thrust at him, his blade agleam in the moonlight. Myron swept his cloak over his attacker's head and kicked. The man grunted and gave back, tearing himself loose from the folds of wool. Myron got his knife clear at last and thrust, driving his assailant back.

Looking past his assailant's head, Myron saw what happened to the other marauder. The man ran at Bessas with a short sword held out in front of him. Bessas, too, seemed to hesitate. Then he made a tremendous leap, which carried him to the top of the four-foot parapet between the promenade and the river.

Myron expected to see the Bactrian plunge on into the water. Instead, the huge man, balancing as lightly as a dancer, spun on the balls of his feet as he swept out his long horseman's sword. As the attacker plunged in, the sword whirled in a double circle. The first stroke sheared through the wrist that held the short sword; the second came down between shoulder and neck.

The man collapsed with a hoarse, choking cry. Bessas leaped down from his perch and started towards Myron. Myron's opponent, who was still trying to get past Myron's guard, turned and ran. Bessas ran after, but the man vanished. Presently Bessas came back.

"Ducked into an alley and lost me," he growled. "Let's see who this druj is."

He turned the dead assassin over. "I cannot be sure in this light, but I don't think I know him. Do you?"

Myron, breathing hard, said: "Not I." They searched in vain for marks of identification. Bessas said:

"We'd better get rid of him, or the watch will hale us into court, and we shall spend a year fighting a murder charge instead of getting to Kush. Take his sword."

Seizing the dead man's collar in one hand and his girdle in the other, Bessas picked up the corpse, swung it in a circle, and tossed it over the parapet. As it struck the river with a splash, shattering the moon's reflection into silvery shards, he threw the severed hand after it. Glancing warily to right and left, he said softly:

"Now I am damned to the Land of Silence for polluting running water. But my fravashi tells me that these were no ordinary footpads. Probably, like Puzur, they are creatures of Zopyrus. Let's get home."

Next morning, in the Daduchid mansion, Zopyrus snarled: "Well, Master Ardigula, what have you to say, aside from the fact that you have failed?"

The Babylonian spread his hands. "Take it not so to heart, my master. It is but a temporary check. It cost me a good man to learn that Bessas' guardian spirit, or fravashi as you call it, is of outstanding power and must be neutralized by mighty spells—"

"How will you neutralize his spirit when he is on his way to Babylon?"

"Fear not, noble sir. Your slave will communicate with his colleagues in that city, by the same method that I have used in the case of Sataspes."

"And what is that?"

"A secret cantrip, handed down in my family from the days before the Flood. As seven rare ingredients are required, however, you had better pay me an additional daric—"

"Not another farthing, scum!" said Zopyrus. "You know our bargain."

"Alas, good my lord, too well do I know it! Very well, I will do what I can with cheap ingredients; but blame me not if—"

"Here, take it," growled Zopyrus, tossing a heavy golden coin. "But that is all, do you understand?"

"I wist that my master would see reason. May the earth spirits aid us!"

Back in his own quarters, biting his fingers in anger over Zopyrus' arrogance, Ardigula went to his cabinet and got out writing materials. He penned a letter in tiny writing on a strip of papyrus smaller than his palm. The writing would have baffled any Persian, Elamite, or Babylonian into whose hands it fell. But Uni, the priest who ministered to the religious wants of the small Egyptian colony of Shushan, could have read it at once, for it was in Egyptian demotic.

Ardigula called his servant, saying: "Fetch one of Labashi's birds; a strong one."

Presently the servant appeared with a gray pigeon cradled in his hands. Ardigula rolled the strip of papyrus around the bird's leg, tied it fast with a length of thread, and secured it with a dab of gum. He went to the roof and tossed the bird into the air. The pigeon circled over the city three times and flew off to westward.

Ardigula went back to his cabinet and began mixing powders for a mighty incantation. This, he thought, should do the work without the pigeon; likewise the pigeon should do the work without the spell. But there was no point in taking chances.

Night, like a black cloak spangled with diamonds, lay across the vast Euphratean plain. The wind from the desert rustled the fronds of the date palms, which marched along the banks of the irrigation canals in endless rows, like King Xerxes' Immortals.

Along the royal road from Shusan, at a lively trot, came a two-mule chariot. The nailheads that studded its bronzen tires rumbled along the paving of brick. Ever and anon, the rumble was hushed as the vehicle crossed a patch of drifted sand.

Moonlight showed the towering form of Bessas at the reins, while the smaller Myron sat on a roll of baggage with his back against the side of the car. He chewed on a biscuit. Other sacks and rolls of gear, including a royal mailbag, heaped the floor behind the driver's wide-braced feet.

As the chariot neared the town of Kish, three leagues short of Babylon, cultivation became thicker and houses more frequent. Some houses clustered in hamlets.

As the car entered one of these villages, there was a stir in the darkness. From two houses facing each other across the highway, men darted out. Torches in the hands of two of them stabbed the dark with fluttering yellow beams.

The torchbearers dashed in front of the team, thrusting their torches into the animals' faces. The mules skidded and reared, snorting, squealing, and pawing.

Other men scurried in from the sides. Some reached for the animals' bridles, others for the men in the car.

"Mithra smite you!" roared Bessas. His right arm flew out. The long whip cracked like a thunderbolt. One of the torch-bearers dropped his stick and reeled off, screaming, with both hands clapped over one eye.

The others continued to close. They needed but a few steps to swarm over the chariot and its occupants.

Again the whip cracked. The other torch was snatched from its holder's hand and flew into the air with a shower of sparks.

A lariat hissed out of the darkness and settled over Bessas' shoulders. As the giant Bactrian clutched the fore-wall of the chariot, Myron, who had risen unsteadily, made a wild, half-blind swipe with the sword he had taken from the assassin in Shushan.

The lariat parted, and Myron shouted: "Iai!"

Bessas, recovering his balance, lashed his mules with frenzied force. They screamed and bounded forward. The jerk unbalanced Myron, who had to drop his sword to the floor of the car and clutch with both hands at the chariot's side to save himself. Several attackers, who had reached the vehicle and grasped its sides, were thrown to the road. One shrieked as a wheel crunched over his foot.

Bessas cried: "Yâ ahî!" and the mules broke away at a wild gallop. Behind, the two dropped torches dwindled to ruddy specks, while the shadowy forms of the waylayers faded into the darkness. Night resumed its rule.

On the east branch of the Euphrates, three leagues beyond Kish, rose mighty Babylon—Bâb-ilâni, the Gate of the Gods, the metropolis of the world, the center of the universe. To Myron, approaching it at night, it seemed an immense, angular black mass—mysterious, illimitable, overwhelming.

Although he had been here before, the sight of this city inspired in Myron a curious mixture of feelings, compounded of awe, repulsion, and fascination. It differed so utterly from his bright little Ionian cities with their theaters, their tight civic organization, and their intense political life.

Although laid out in more orderly fashion than any Greek city, Babylon had no true civic life and so was not, in the strict Greek sense of the word, a city at all. Here were hundreds of thousands of human beings, whose only concern with the government of their city was to avoid the police and cheat the tax gatherers. It reminded Myron of the swarming life sometimes found under a flat stone.

A few pinpoints of ruddy light winked from the towering walls, where Persian sentries paced with torches. These walls had been one of the world's wonders. Now they were partly demolished. As punishment for Babylon's revolt, King Xerxes had razed several sections. Thus the remaining stretches of wall, while still a mighty monument to the great Nebuchadrezzar, were useless for defense.

Before the chariot reached the outer wall of the city, a row of crosses loomed up in the moonlight beside the road. On these crosses hung the bodies of felons, in various stage of disrepair. Myron held his nose until they passed the place.

They entered the gate in the outer wall with no more than a wave from the guards. For ten furlongs they trotted along Zababa Street, through sprawling suburbs and across a canal. Betimes a little square of yellow light appeared amid the blackness of the buildings, where a small, high-set window of a lighted chamber fronted on the avenue. Otherwise the suburbs were dark, and Bessas guided his car by moonlight. Now and then the furtive figure of a prowler slunk out of sight as the chariot neared it.

Then the more massive inner wall loomed across the moat. The stench of stagnant water came to Myron's nostrils as the bridge timbers boomed beneath their wheels. At the Zababa Gate the guards halted them to peer by torchlight at the golden eagle on the end of the chariot pole and the golden winged disks on the sides of the car before waving them on. Myron said:

"I think the Post Office is in the citadels. Take a fork to the right; there's a diagonal street along the canal ..."

In the central city, lights were more frequent. They rumbled past late-closing wineshops and brothels. Apartment houses of three or four stories rose like black cliffs on either hand.

Half an hour after they passed the inner wall, they sat in the office of Earimut, chief clerk of the postmaster of Babylon. Earimut, wearing an old robe and with hair and beard uncombed, squinted sourly in the lamplight.

"We did not look for this car until the morrow," he said.

Bessas shrugged. "We had made such good time by sunset that I saw no reason not to continue on. Does not the motto of the service say we stop not for snow, rain, heat, or gloom of night?"

Earimut yawned. "And the mules are lathered. Even if you are but a substitute driver, you should know better than to race these costly governmental animals."

"Race, plague!" Bessas burst out. "We were attacked near Kish. What do you expect me to do, sit down to throw dice with the robbers?"

"Attacked!" cried Earimut. "Ari! This is serious. Tell me what befell."

When Bessas had told his tale, Earimut said: "Well then, we will excuse your haste. Did you know these rogues? We must get the soldiers out to search for them."

"It happened so fast that I do not think I should have known my own brother, even with a moon," said Bessas.

"Wait here," said the Babylonian. When Earimut returned, he went on: "The soldiers' have been sent out. Now, Master Bessas, what of this other man, this Hellene who came with you? Nought in the rules allows you to carry private passengers. What have you to say?"

"Postmaster Haraspas in Shushan said it were allowable, because of their urgent need for a driver and ours for carriage. Besides, we are both on a mission from the king. Argue with Haraspas, not with me."

Earimut clucked in an agitated manner. "It is not right to twist the regulations thus. Haraspas will get himself into trouble. But I have too many other cares to press the matter, so I bid you good-night—"

"One more thing," said Bessas. "My pay."

"Ask me in the morning—"

"No; right now, my friend! In the morning we may be on our way to Egypt."

"Oh, very well, though I think you are inconsiderate. Will you have it in barley, wheat, or wine?"

"In silver. I am for far countries, and I cannot carry a year's harvest on my back."

"Silver? But, my dear Captain Bessas, that is not how things are done. There is a shortage of silver, and all payments are made in kind. Withal, there will be a deduction for the fare of Master Myron—"

"May Ghu skin you alive and dip you in salt!" Taking the mailbag in one hand and the lamp in the other, Bessas said: "I have here the day's official mail from Shushan to Babylon. I shall count ten, and if by then I do not have my whole shekel, in silver, I shall begin to burn the dispatches, one by one. Take your choice."

"You—would burn the king's mail?" said Earimut, eyes popping.

"Aye, and if you call your men I'll burn the whole lot and cut my way out." Bessas took out a letter and squinted in the yellow lamplight. "This is addressed to—hmm—General Pacoras, commander of the garrison. One—two—three—"

"Stop, madman! Here is your money, and may your canal be filled with sand! You shall certainly never be hired as a driver by this office, not whilst I draw breath."

"That's better. And now to find a pallet." Bessas grinned at Myron and said in Greek: "Do not look so terrified, teacher. We must needs take a firm stand with these clerkly types."

The barracks at Babylon were like all the others in the great cities of the Empire: a row of cubical, graceless brick structures without, dirty and dingy within. Bessas' status as an officer on inactive duty entitled him to a room for himself and one slave in the officers' quarters. As he and Myron were making do without servants, Myron shared Bessas' room, no larger or more luxurious than the cubicle that Myron had rented in Persepolis.

"The king believes," said Bessas, "that officers and men should not be tempted into indolence by luxurious quarters. He would have them spend their free hours out-of-doors—preferably in hearty sports, like racing, hunting, and stick-and-ball. Yâ ahî!" He whirled an imaginary polo mallet.

The next morning Myron and Bessas came out of the barracks and wound their way through many alleys and passages, with much asking of directions, to the mighty Ishtar Gate.

This colossal portal, on the northern side of the inner wall, comprised an immense square tower of brick, seventy feet high and even larger in plan. Processional Way led through an archway in this tower, closed by two pairs of huge wooden doors reinforced with bronze. On the northward side of the gate proper, flanking the approach, were two lofty, slender towers. North of these, as a first line of defense, stood two smaller towers.

The entire structure was finished with enameled bricks, of a deep-sea blue on the towers and of grass greens and delicate pinks on the connecting curtain walls. On each tower were several vertical rows of bulls and dragons in low brick relief, repelling hostile supernatural forces from the city by their frowning glance. The beasts alternated in each row; they also alternated as to color. Half the animals were a gleaming white with golden claws, hooves, manes, and other parts, while the other half were a rich reddish brown with blue-green parts. Around the upper levels of the towers ran a row of glowing rosettes.

Myron and Bessas strolled about this vast structure, avoiding the traffic that streamed in and out. They ignored the cripples who, having been convicted of misdemeanors, had been deprived of eyes, hands, or feet by Xerxes' judges, and who now squatted and begged about the great gate.

Myron fixed his attention on one sirrush at eye level and got out his writing materials. "O Bessas," he said, "you will have to kneel."

"Why?"

"We require some sketches of this dragon, and I have no table whereon to rest my parchment. So your broad back will have to serve."

"Well, tan my hide for shoe leather, if this be not a fine occupation for a noble Aryan'" grumbled Bessas. But he knelt.

The relief was about five feet long and four feet high. The slender white body and forelegs were like those of a cheetah except that the body was covered with reptilian scales. The hindlegs terminated in the talons of a bird of prey. A long tail, catlike but for its scales, ended in a small scorpion's sting, while a slender scaly neck supported a small serpentine head.

Above the large, round, black, lustrous eye rose a golden spike of a horn. Myron surmised that, as in the case of the bulls, one horn did artistic service for two, for the beast was shown in pure profile. Behind the eye were several projecting appendages: a curly crest, like that of some bird, and dangling wattle-like parts. A forked tongue played about the creature's scaly snout. Tongue, wattles, mane, and claws, as well as the horn, were picked out in golden yellow.

"Must you take all day?" complained Bessas.

"Perhaps. Rejoice; you're no worse off than standing at attention in front of the Apadana, and you serve a more useful end."

Finished at last, the twain strolled through the Ishtar Gate and south along Processional Way. On either hand, rows of life-sized lions in bright enameled brick relief prowled along the walls that flanked the street, red-maned yellow lions alternating with yellow-maned white lions.

The travelers dodged chariots, ox carts, and camel trains. Some of the camels, to cure them of the mange, had been shaved all over and painted black with mineral pitch of Id, so that they looked like animals made of asphalt.

The swarming Babylonians, in long tunics and knitted caps with dangling tails, were leavened by a sprinkling of trousered Persians and other Aryans, shaven Egyptians, Syrians in tall spiral hats, cloaked and skirted Arabs, robed Judaeans, booted Sakas in pointed hoods, turbaned Carduchians, felt-capped Armenians, Greeks in broad-brimmed hats, and men in the garb of even more distant lands. Beggars whined, catamites smirked, hawkers cried their wares, and pimps extolled the beauty and cleanliness of their girls. Persian soldiers strolled in pairs, arrogantly shouldering other folk out of the way.

"People, people, people!" growled Bessas, plowing through the ruck of .officials and tradesfolk, soldiers and slaves, peasants and prostitutes. "I feel as if I were being smothered in people."

Now and then Myron caught a scowl or a sneer from one of the Babylonians. For Persians had been hated in Babylon ever since the great rebellion, when Xerxes had opened breaches in the city's magnificent walls, carried off the golden eight-hundred-talent statue of Marduk, confiscated the property of the leading citizens, given their houses and lands to Persians, and degraded Babylonia from a kingdom in its own right to a mere province.

King Xerxes, returning the Babylonians' dislike, no longer spent his entire winters there, as had the great Darius. In fact, Xerxes seldom visited the city at all. Each successive year he passed more of his time at remote Persepolis, overseeing his grandiose building projects: the mighty Hall of a Hundred Columns and the new private palace.

There were many signs of dire poverty among Babylon's swarming thousands. A man lay dead of starvation in the gutter. People stepped around the corpse until a Persian soldier shouted to a patrolling member of the civic guard:

"You there! Fetch a detail to remove this offal!" Begging children thrust out arms of. skin and bone. Myron gave a slug of trade copper to one. She at once set off at a run, with several older children pelting after her in hopes of possessing themselves of Myron's alms.

At the same time, hundreds of other children converged on the travelers, all screaming, "Give!" Myron found himself surrounded by a seething crowd. Older beggars, too, came shuffling and hobbling forward, kicking and beating the children out of their way.

"Now see what you did!" said Bessas.

At last the two took refuge in a tavern, where they sat drinking beer while waiting for the mendicatory horde to go away.

"This," said Bessas, "should be a lesson to you."

"But I cannot bear to see the little creatures starve!"

"If you save one, it will only grow up to beget more beggars. Babylonia has more people now than it knows what to do with."

They had to wait a full Babylonian double hour before the last of the suppliants drifted off and they could resume their walk unmolested.

On Myron's right rose the great ziggurat of Babylon. This was Etemenanki, the Cornerstone of the Universe, towering two hundred cubits into a bright blue sky flecked with streamers of thin white cloud. The tower gleamed with enameled bricks in dazzling patterns of white and gold and blue and green and scarlet, as if it had been covered with the scaly hide of some fabulous reptile. A closer view showed that many of the gaily colored tiles had fallen out, exposing the brown mud brick beneath. The neglected structure was fast decaying into shabbiness. Myron said:

"I should like to learn more about that edifice. When I was here before, I studied the Babylonian system of arithmetic under the great Nabu-rimanni. I could look the old boy up, if he is still—"

"We have no time for such leisurely pursuits," snapped Bessas. "Come along."

South of the ziggurat, also on Myron's right, stretched the temenos of Marduk of Babylon. Myron entered, followed by an apprehensive-looking Bessas.

"These foreign gods make me nervous," grumbled the Bactrian. "I am never sure of the right way to handle them."

Myron brushed aside the swarm of beggars and sellers of votive offerings and headed for the naos, which rose amid the groves. He stared at the temple. As usual when Myron was on the track of knowledge, his faculties were alert and keyed up. Whereas he tended to become vague and absent-minded when bored by the ordinary routines of life, the promise of discovery roused him to foxy keenness.

The huge old temple of Marduk was well kept. Gilded ornaments gleamed from its cornices. Dragons in reliefs of white and gold paraded around its walls, lashing their scorpion tails. Myron compared these reliefs to the drawings of the sirrush that he had made at the Ishtar Gate.

"I don't think we need any more pictures," he said, "but—Oh, Father!" he cried in Aramaic.

A Babylonian, distinguishable as a priest by his vestments and shaven face, turned. "What is it?" he said in no very friendly tone.

"May I ask Your Holiness some questions about this reptile, pray?"

The priest pulled himself together and touched his ivory-headed walking stick to his nose. "Your pardon, my son. Yesterday was the last day of our New Year's festival, and some of us suffer from an excess of—ah—holy spirit." He cleared his throat. "This is the sirrush, the sacred beast of the supreme god Marduk, symbolizing the powers of Marduk as the lion does those of our Lady Ishtar and the bull those of the mighty Adad—"

"Yes, sir, this I know. But I seek to learn about the living, earthly sirrush." Myron explained the quest on which he and Bessas were embarked.

The priest looked thoughtful. "This calls for consideration. I cannot ask you into the temple, since you are not purified initiates. But perchance you will do me the honor to step into the presbytery where we can talk. I am Father Nadinnu."

The presbytery was a building on the edge of the temenos, or sacred precinct, wherein dwelt several minor priests with their families. Nadinnu led the twain to a reception room and ordered a temple servant to bring wine, which was poured into light, gracefully curved silver cups. A taste showed Myron that it was date wine, which he did not much like; but he drank it with good grace. After a long silence the priest began, seeming to pick his words with care.

"Once upon a time," said he, "according to our ancient records, the sirrush abounded in the Land of the Two Rivers, as the lion does today. In those days, I suppose, the priests of Marduk had no trouble in keeping a living sirrush for the edification of the faithful.

"But then came the Flood, and all the animals perished save those that could reach the tops of mountains, or those that Ziusudra, the protected of the gods, had with him in the Ark. The sirrush vanished forever from Babylonia. Howsomever, after the Flood, as civilization revived and travel and trade spread geographical knowledge among mankind, it transpired that these beasts still lived in Africa, at the headwaters of the Nile.

"Now, no man in Babylonia, to my knowledge, has ever seen this fabled region. So I cannot forewarn you of what you will find there. But once in a century, more or less, some trader obtains a young sirrush that has been taken alive by the black barbarians of that land. Knowing that we pay well for the beast, the trader brings it by river raft and camel train and ox wain for many hundreds of leagues to holy Babylon.

"The last live sirrush that we possessed arrived here early in King Xerxes' reign. It was this one that the king saw, whilst it was still but a chick. But alas! During the sack, the beast disappeared. For aught we know, it may have escaped to the river, or it may have been eaten by some starving citizen. And we have not yet found another to take its place. If you can fetch back two, we will gladly buy the one that the king wants not."

Myron, staring at the distorted reflection of his face in the polished, curving surface of the silver cup, asked a few more questions. But Nadinnu made it plain that he had told all he knew, or at least all he would admit. Then Myron asked:

"Is it true that the temple lends money?"

"Aye. What sort of loan had you in mind?"

When Myron explained about the security that Bessas had to offer—an estate in Bactria now overrun by hostile nomads—Nadinnu said: "I fear me that such a loan were too speculative for us. Try the private bankers."

"Who are they?"

"The two leading firms are Iranu and Murashu of Nippur. Iranu's office is in the New City, at the corner of Adad and Shamash streets. Murashu you will find in the old business center, near Marduk and Enlil."

The travelers took a ceremonious leave. As soon as they had gone, Nadinnu dropped his air of benign imperturbability. Without trying to hide his agitation, he hitched up his robe, ran to the manse of the high priest, and sought out his superior, to whom he told the events just past.

Belkishir, high priest of Marduk of Babylon, said: "Aye, it behooved you to say something. But why are you so fearful?"

"See you not, sir, what will happen? These barbarians will go to Africa, reach the headwaters of the Nile, learn that no such beast exists, return, and discover this fact to the king. The king, resenting the tale we told him—"

"What mean you, we told him?" interrupted Belkishir. "That conceit was wholly yours."

"Well, who installed that accursed Chaldean marsh lizard in the first place? So when the king asked me about it, I could not say: O King, this is but a wile of guile, wherewith to chouse our gullible worshipers of a few more ha'pence—"

"Nadinnu! I forbid you to use such unseemly language about our holy church!"

"Well, it is true natheless. But let us not waste time in futile recriminations. The king, enraged at having been befooled, will come down upon us like a winter tempest. He loves us not and would like nought better than a pretext to crush us utterly."

Belkishir mused: "Mayhap on their godless quest they will perish."

"Oh, aye, and mayhap they will find that the sirrush does forsooth dwell in the lands beyond Kush after all. But let us not upon either alternative count. They seemed to me a pair of hardy and resolute masterless rogues."

"Then belike we had better help them perish."

"My thought also, sir. One of our worshipers has underworld connections—"

Belkishir: "Nay, not in Babylon."

"It could be so arranged that the deed could not be traced to us."

"That is not the point. If some infortune befall our friends so close to their starting point, the king will hear of it and, like as not, send forth another expedition. But if it happen a goodly distance hence—in Africa, let us say—His Majesty may never hear of it at all. By the time he has waxed inquisitive enough to look into his explorers' evanescence, or to send out another party, many things may have occurred. He might even forget the whole business."

"How can we arrange such a disappearance at such a distance?"

Belkishir smiled. "Have I spoken to you of Kothar of Qadesh?"

"Nay."

"He is—ah—a political correspondent of mine in Syria. Through him I ofttimes know of developments in the western region or ever the king himself does. Kothar is a queer individual but useful in his way. I would ask him to do the deed himself did I not know him for an arrant coward. But if any man can arrange that things shall fall out as we wish, it is he. And the gods will forgive us, because the blow will be struck in defense of our sacred faith."

"How will you get word to him ere the barbarians have passed through Syria?"

"Through Shaykh Alman of Thadamora, who carries our letters across the Syrian desert. Marduk strengthen his camels' sinews!"