Now after the king for the third time had refused the prayer of all the
great merchants of Babylon, to accept their security and release Daniel
from his prison, Ruth the Jewess declined more and more. Zabini, the
motherly wife of Imbi-Ilu, went one day to her husband with no little
concern, and told him how the girl was daily becoming pale and languid,
her appetite was failing, she took no interest in the songs and dances of
the temple women, and how every time a mule-cart rumbled in the streets
outside the gates, she would start and shiver, fearing lest it was a new
visit from the king to drag her from sanctuary.
Imbi was a kind-hearted man. He directed Bel-Nuri, the oldest and
wisest of the temple doctors, to examine the Jewess, and prescribe.
The physician did his duty carefully, and announced that the girl
suffered from “the wasting sickness,” perhaps aggravated by an attack of
formidable demons. Ruth accordingly was duly medicined with a paste of
“white dogs’ brains,” supplemented by a most powerful spell, which was
chanted over her one whole afternoon by Zabini and six other priests’
wives. Privately, however, Bel-Nuri had a long conference with Imbi-Ilu.
“Nought ails the girl,” declared the doctor, “except anxiety for her
father, now mewed up in ‘The House of Walls,’ for her betrothed, who
you know is now in hiding, and whose arrest has been ordered, and for
herself. She trembles every moment lest the king lay hand on her;
besides, as a Jewess, our temple rites are most displeasing. She fears
the anger of her god if she continues to witness them. We cannot change
his Majesty’s purpose to imprison Daniel, although, now that Gudea
and the other accusers have utterly vanished from sight, it is gross
persecution to hold him without cause. But assuredly we may rid her of
the last evil influence. Send her away from Babylon and Borsippa; beyond
doubt there are some safe and pleasant hiding spots in the country, where
she will be happier.”
Imbi meditated long on this advice, and consulted Zabini; they both
agreed it were best for Ruth that she should be sent quietly away.
Day passed into day, however, with no opportunity presenting, and Ruth
drooped yet more. All the bloom had vanished from her cheeks. She spoke
little, slept long, yet wakened unrefreshed: therefore it was with a very
glad heart that one afternoon Imbi-Ilu went up upon his house roof, where
the Jewess was languidly aiding Zabini at her weaving.
“Beloved child,” he announced, “I have to tell you that Nabu’s house will
shelter you no longer. Isaiah your betrothed has communicated with me,
and desires to take you out of Borsippa this very night.”
“Away from Babylon and Borsippa? Oh, joy!” And it did Zabini’s heart good
to see the colour return to the Jewess’s wan face.
“But how is it to be managed?” questioned the wife.
“I scarce know myself,” confessed Imbi; “a strange slave lad left this
sealed tablet at the temple gate. You see it is Isaiah’s own signet, and
cannot be doubted.”
Zabini surveyed the tablet critically. “The king may have secured the
seal, or it may have been forged by his orders,” she objected.
Imbi shook his head. “Between ourselves, I dare not deny that his Majesty
is capable of many strange things; but his strokes are those of a lion,
not of a fox. I do not believe he would descend to theft or forgery,
especially in a matter where Avil-Marduk does not thrust him on. For this
pursuit of the girl is against Avil’s express advice, as I am surely
informed.”
Zabini accordingly handed the tablet to Ruth, who read:—
“Isaiah writing secretly to Imbi-Ilu by the hands of a trusty
messenger. I have heard how Ruth my betrothed is unhappy in
the temple of Nabu, and am resolved to take her to a safe,
agreeable hiding spot at a distance from Babylon. Deliver her
to-night, at the first ‘double-hour’ after sunset, to the three
persons who shall meet her by the clump of five palm trees
before the gate of your temple. They are to be trusted in all
things, and will show my signet as voucher. I will be at hand
with a closed carriage, to take her away. Farewell.”
“Isaiah’s seal!” exclaimed Ruth, joyously, recognizing the likeness of
the hero Eabani, “and the characters are like those from his hand.”
“I have consulted with Hasba,” added Imbi, “and we have decided it is
best for you to go. Doubtless these persons are faithful servants of your
father, though Isaiah would not mention them by name, lest the letter
should fall into unfriendly hands.”
Accordingly, the rest of the day Ruth passed in delightful impatience.
She was to be taken from Babylon. She was to see her betrothed. She was
to be put beyond the power of the hated king. Zabini had to urge her
that this one time, at least, she should eat heartily; for doubtless she
would have to journey the night long, and would need all her strength.
When twilight fell, Ruth had gathered her little bundle, said farewell
to Zabini and the friendly priests’ wives, and restlessly counted the
stars as they twinkled forth one by one above the great tower. The time
seemed endless before Imbi and Hasba conducted her stealthily through the
silently opened gate, and she quitted the refuge that had sheltered so
long and well. The five palm trees were just visible in the thickening
gloom. Fifty paces brought her to them, and there, as promised,
were waiting three figures, the capes of their long mantles drawn so
completely across their faces that in the starlight no features were
visible. Imbi peered about to see that there were no unfriendly watchers.
“Your business?” he demanded of the three; and one answered, in a husky
voice that Ruth did not in the slightest recognize:—
“We are the servants of the good Lord Daniel, and act for his excellent
friend Isaiah. Jehovah grant,” the wish sounded exceedingly fervent,
“that you have brought our adorable young mistress with you.”
“You answer well,” replied Imbi, “but I must see your token.”
The speaker drew back his mantle far enough to uncover a faint rushlight
that he concealed, burning in a small earthen jar.
“See this, then,” he answered, and held up something in the glimmer.
“It is Isaiah’s seal,” admitted Imbi; “you are vouched for. Take the girl
and guard her well.” He was turning to go, when some monitor prompted him
to add sharply, “And beware of faithlessness; or, as Nabu liveth, I will
make your fate no merry one, though the king himself befriend you!”
“The Lord God of Israel forbid that we should fail even to lay down our
lives for our dear mistress!” protested the other.
“Go with these people, Ruth,” commanded the pontiff; “and when next
we meet, may it be in happier days for your father. And let Nabu and
Jehovah, my god and yours, protect and prosper you.”
The Jewess murmured a low farewell. The two priests hurriedly returned
to the temple gate. She heard it closed and bolted. One of her new
companions caught her by the hand.
“Come, little lady; Isaiah is near by with the carriage.”
But at that touch, instinct, surer than knowledge, flashed a warning. The
Jewess did not follow.
“Who are you?” she demanded, for the first time wavering, “which of my
father’s servants? Your voices are strange.”
“Merciful Jehovah!” protested the other, tightening his grasp at the
word, “do you not know the voice of your dear Simeon?”
“You are not Simeon,” cried the girl, startled now in truth. “I do not
understand. I will not go with you.”
But a woman’s cracked voice piped at her elbow. “Come, pretty gosling;
the carriage is ready. No fears; your friends provide everything!”
It needed no more to make Ruth’s lips open in a piercing scream, a
second, a third, before three pairs of rude hands plucked her round the
throat and almost throttled her.
“Curses on you, Binit,” the first speaker was muttering, “for croaking so
soon! Off with her; the priests are rousing!”
Force irresistible swept Ruth from her feet. She was carried away by
main strength, still struggling feebly, and gasping out little shrieks
whenever the grip on her throat relaxed the slightest. There was indeed
need of haste, for the gate was opening, while Imbi’s voice sounded,
“Torches! After the kidnappers!” and a great clamour was rising from the
temple compound.
The weakest animal is terrible at bay, and so was the Jewess. Once she
almost writhed out of the arms that gripped so fast; but long before the
bewildered priests could do more than rush blindly hither and thither in
the dark, her captors had hurried her to a closed carriage that awaited
under the shadow of the long wall of a granary. The three flung her
inside, and two leaped in after, while the first speaker, whom the woman
had addressed as Gudea, bounded upon the driver’s stand and lashed the
horses furiously.
It was some moments before Ruth lay back on the cushions, silent,
helpless, too stricken and terrified to shed one tear, but quaking with
dry sobs of impotent agony. The carriage flew through the night at a
terrific pace, Gudea never sparing the horses. For a time the abductors
were content to let their prize lie quiet; then, when the distance from
the _ziggurat_ seemed great enough to defy all pursuit, and speech became
audible, the cracked voice of Binit sounded again.
“Now, my little lady, be reasonable. Harm you? Binit and Gudea and their
dear friend Tabni harm a pretty dove like you? We would not ruffle a
feather for a talent of gold. Cease crying, then; listen.”
Ruth’s spasms of sobbing ended; not because she was in the least
comforted, but through utter exhaustion.
“You are driving me to the palace, are you not?” was her trembling
question. “Are you servants of Mermaza?”
Even in the dark she could see Binit throw up her nose in a crackling
laugh.
“Servants of Mermaza? The last person in Babylon we wish to see at
present is the ‘Master of the Eunuchs.’ Eh, Tabni?”
“You are right, by Nergal!” snickered the charmer.
“Where, then, are you taking me?” moaned Ruth, in nowise reassured.
“To a river boat that waits us.”
Ruth made a desperate effort to speak calmly. “You imagine I am handsome,
and will fetch a great price as a slave. My father is in prison, but he
has rich friends. They will pay any ransom you can ask within reason.”
“You a slave?” howled Binit; “Istar forefend the thought! Do you think us
as heartless as Ninkigal?”
“By any god or demon you fear, if indeed you fear any,” implored the
Jewess, “tell me, then, for what you have seized me?”
Binit laughed and screamed again. “Verily, you _are_ affrighted. Why have
we taken you? Because his Majesty loves you, to be sure.”
Ruth was smitten dumb by her agony. Binit merely grinned through the
gloom, and continued: “You are asking why we make for the river boat.
Hearken, then. From the time my pious Gudea parted with Avil-Marduk,
after most surly threats on the high priest’s part, somewhat has
seemed needful to restore us to the king’s good graces; for since the
examination of your most noble father—” A faint groan from the Jewess
induced even Binit to forbear, and she changed her thread of narration.
“Now, if we were to drive you straight to the palace, what would happen?
Out would bustle my lord Mermaza, and take you from us, and away you
would vanish in the king’s harem,—while we would be left with cold thanks
and perchance a poor gift of five shekels. But my Gudea is rightly called
‘The Wise.’ His design is this: Tabni and I put you on a river barge, and
embark, professing that you are my slave-maid. We take you up-stream to a
quiet village near Sippar, where Tabni has a brother-in-law who will be
hospitable. When we are well on our way, Gudea, who remains in Babylon,
goes straight to the king. ‘Lord,’ he will say, ‘I can get you your
Jewess. She is no longer at Borsippa.’ His Majesty questions, and Gudea
will answer, ‘Lord, I cannot tell you where the maid is hidden, but pay
me ten talents and I swear I can produce her.’ The king rejoices to get
you thus cheaply; you will too rejoice, as soon as you learn the sweets
of being his favourite; and we rejoice, dividing the riches. Surely,
Gudea is a most wise man!”
If a second groan from Ruth meant assent to this assertion, Binit was
rewarded. Not iron, but ice, had entered into the young girl’s soul. She
sat on the cushions, in helpless misery, while Gudea lashed and cursed at
the horses.
“But the seal—the letter from Isaiah?” Ruth at last plucked up courage to
ask.
“Ah!” chirruped Binit, “for that we must thank the excellent Tabni. Luck
sent him a letter from Isaiah his way; and even you must confess that he
imitated the hand cleverly, and cut a new seal that would pass in the
faint light when we showed it to Imbi-Ilu.”
A third groan, and for a long time Ruth gave not another sound. It was a
long drive across the breadth of Babylon, from the Borsippa suburb on the
extreme southwest, to the river. Ruth hoped against hope that there might
be a rescue. Imbi-Ilu was not a man to sit down helpless before a fraud
like this. But as the carriage sped onward, this tiny gleam of hope sank
to a faint spark indeed.
Once, in fact, as the horses’ hoofs beat hollow upon the bridge crossing
a canal, they were suddenly halted. It was the guard-house marking the
octroi limit to the inner city. Voices sounded and a lantern light
flashed through the wicker body of the carriage.
“You are late,” a gruff soldier’s voice was grumbling. “Few honest people
drive at such an hour. I must search your carriage, lest you bring in
something liable to ‘gate money.’”
Ruth started from her lethargy, opened her lips for a scream, when,
before a sound could escape, Binit’s fingers squeezed her neck.
“Not a twitter!” murmured the wailer, hoarsely, “though you strangle.”
“Friend,” spoke Gudea, naught abashed, “I have nothing taxable and am in
great haste.”
They heard the chink of a bit of silver, an appeased grunt from the
official, the lash whistled, and the horses went forward with a bound.
Ruth was gasping before Binit relaxed her hold.
“Fool,” snapped the latter, “had the guard taken you, what profit to you?
Would he not have sent you straight to the king?”
So they hastened onward, Ruth seeing nothing of all the silent streets
and market squares they threaded. Presently they rattled over brick
pavements, and she knew they were on the quays. Then the carriage halted
with a jerk, voices sounded again, and Gudea thrust open the door.
“Out with you,” he ordered, “the boat has waited long, and the captain is
cursing and impatient!”
“But the girl must be painted,” objected Binit.
“Haste, then. Ea knows what will befall if Imbi raises the alarm.”
They were in the muddy courtyard of a warehouse, the thatched lofts and
storerooms rising in the blackness on every side; two or three swarthy
boatmen were standing by in the light of a pair of flickering torches.
Binit drew her prisoner’s mantle until it covered the face.
“Now, my gosling,” squeaked she in an ear, “one little cry, and you feel
this tingle!” And she followed up her word by pricking the Jewess’s neck
with the tip of a very keen knife.
Ruth was silent while Binit hurried her up a dark stairway to an upper
loft, full of straw. And there, by an uncertain rushlight, she tore
off the girl’s white dress, not neglecting to appropriate two valuable
rings on Ruth’s fingers, smeared the Jewess’s body with a red cosmetic
that gave her the hue of a sun-tanned peasant; and finally, to complete
a transformation, which she accomplished with a dexterity worthy of a
loftier cause, threw over her the soiled and sombre garments suitable to
a slave-girl.
“A proper serving-maid in truth, by Istar!” asserted Binit, surveying her
work, while Gudea summoned from below, “Haste! The boat is departing.”
Binit let the cold edge of the knife touch Ruth’s throat yet a second
time. “Remember,” was her warning, “to the boatmen you are my maid.
Chatter otherwise—” but she did not complete the promise; the dumb,
scared expression on Ruth’s face was token that the threat had gone home.
From the warehouse Tabni and Gudea accompanied them to the quay, where,
amid a score of dark masts and hulks, they sought a low-lying, clumsy
river barge. The exorcist aided the others aboard, while the six boatmen
were loosing the tackling.
“We have waited two ‘double hours,’” swore the master, “for your wife and
her accursed wench. Another half shekel, or I thrust you all ashore!”
“With gladness, good captain,” quoth Gudea, complying, and feeling very
generous with so much of the king’s silver prospectively his own.
“And you will not promise to give the king our treasure,” enjoined Binit,
in a whisper, “for less than ten talents, not though he rage, and talk of
calling for Khatin.”
“By Nergal, surely not! I will begin by demanding twenty—”
His words ended with a cry. There was a splash over the low gunwale into
the sluggish water that crept around the quay, and a wide ripple spread
out under the starlight. In a trice the three friends began to tear their
hair and howl piteously.
“Overboard!” groaned Tabni, rending his mantle. “Lost!”
“No, madness,” exhorted the captain, coolly, “it was only your maid that
missed her balance. She will drift beneath the quay and drown. But
another as good is only ten shekels in the market!”
“Ten talents!” shrieked Binit; and she would have leaped in after, but
the boatman dragged her back fiercely.
“Do not rave,” he commanded; “none of you can swim. She rises yonder a
second time. Well, I will save her for five shekels.”
“Yours! Yours! Only save!” came from the three in a breath; while Binit
threw her mantle over her head, and screamed and moaned.
The boatman flung off his garment, plunged overboard, and
presently,—though it taxed all his art,—he was seen plashing alongside,
upbearing the Jewess. She was unconscious when they laid her on the deck,
and it was no easy matter to revive her. At the first gasps of returning
life, Binit hastened her down into the little stern cabin, rejoicing all
the while that, thanks to the excellence of the cosmetic, it had not
yielded to the water, and the boatman could have discovered nothing.
“She is safe?” demanded Gudea, anxiously, when his wife reappeared,
leaving Tabni down below.
“Safe, praised be Istar; but she must hate the king terribly to prefer
suicide to his harem. How we must watch her! And remember the price,—ten
talents, nothing less.”
“Nothing less,” assented Gudea; then he gave the master his promised
bounty, and leaped ashore.
The hawsers were cast loose; the six sturdy boatmen thrust out their
long sweeps, and worked the barge slowly into the current, where the soft
night wind, puffing from the distant southern gulf, bellied out the huge
square sail, and the barge began crawling northward over the black water.
Soon it would be past the river gates, and furlongs away from Babylon.
The exorcist stood watching the receding boat for a long time, from the
deserted quay.
“Ten talents,” he repeated, “are ours as surely as Samas will rise with
his sun to-morrow. Verily, O Gudea, the gods have planted in you a most
clever heart!”
And then, being a very pious man, he vowed three white heifers to Marduk
out of gratitude for this high favour.
[Illustration: GUDEA FARES ON A JOURNEY]