Long after the easy heaving of the boat on the choppy waves told that
they were well on their journey, Ruth continued to struggle and moan.
“I swear to you,” she would cry again and again to Binit, “I swear
by the awful name of my father’s God, that if the chance come again,
I will fling myself in the river. Death is sweet beside passing into
Belshazzar’s cruel clutch. Before the throne of the Most High God, whose
ear is open to the cry of the innocent, I will stand and curse you!”
“Hush!” vainly exhorted Binit; “think of being his Majesty’s
favourite,—the jewels, the dresses, the eunuchs to serve you!”
“Away with them!” groaned the Jewess; “if indeed Belshazzar shall love me
so well as to grant me one boon, it shall be this, to ask the heads of
you two, and of Gudea.”
“Be still!” warned the wailer, producing her knife; “the boatmen will
hear you.”
But, helpless as Ruth seemed, she was not utterly devoid of
understanding. “You dare not!” she challenged defiantly, “dare not! Will
the king give a shekel for my dead body?”
Tabni produced from his girdle a little flask of blue Phœnician vitrium.
“We must quiet her,” he remarked grimly to Binit, “or there is trouble
yet. She must sleep.”
The captive resisted, but her guards forced down the liquor by thrusting
a blade betwixt her teeth. The draught burned like fire on Ruth’s tongue,
but, once swallowed, she felt a fearful languor creeping over her. Vain
to resist it: her eyelids became heavy as lead, and even the pain in her
heart ceased galling. It was not long before her heavy breathing told
that she slumbered.
“What has ailed your maid?” demanded a surly boatman from above. “You
made wondrous ado over such a slattern!”
“Alas,” whimpered Binit, “the poor thing is tormented by most horrible
‘sickness-fiends’; I feel for her as for my own daughter.”
Then the good woman, having arranged with Tabni to take turns watching
their precious charge through the night, composed herself also for
slumber.
But Ruth, as she slept, had all the fair and lovely things that had
hitherto made up the gladsome world of her guileless life, return to her.
Her father, her mother, who had become only a memory while she was yet
a little child, and Isaiah,—all were there. Then she dreamed that some
one spoke to her, “Belshazzar the sinful lies with the dead; his power
is vanished forever.” And she walked in a strange city, not Babylon; and
Isaiah was at her side, while all around were fair and lofty mountains.
Isaiah’s hand was in hers, she knew she was his wife, and he said to
her, “Behold Jerusalem! the city which God gives back to us! Here is our
home, and let us be glad together!” Before them was a stately temple, but
not that of Nabu or Marduk. Whereupon Isaiah said: “Let us enter in and
give thanks to the good Lord God.” But just as she was passing within
the gates, her whole being quivering with rapturous joy, the sweet dream
ended; and she was lying on a rude straw pallet, and awakening—where?...
A sudden rasping of tackling plucked her down from paradise to the
nethermost abyss. There was a thin streak of twilight stealing through
the open hatch. Near her was stretched Tabni, snoring a little louder
than a bull. Her misery returned to the Jewess in one awful surge;
she pressed her hands to her face. “Lord God, if indeed Thou hast any
power at all, have pity,” was her murmured prayer, “and let me die!”
But a rustle at her side proclaimed the presence of Binit. “The little
mistress,” purred the woman, “is awaking refreshed and happy?”
Ruth did not answer. “Be comforted,” continued the wailer; “we shall
reach our destination by noon, and there we shall all delight to serve
you. Here, Tabni,” rousing the “charmer” with a kick, “go on deck, bring
the lady some sweet wine and the cakes of fine barley I provided. She is
faint.”
Grumbling, and rubbing his eyes, the other was about to comply, when
a frightful howl from the deck above made captors and captive startle
together. A second howl was followed by a distant shout and yell, then in
turn by a furious clatter of the oars upon their thole-pins.
“Marduk defend us!” cried Binit, the most frightened of the three, “what
happens? Up, Tabni—” more words were drowned by the simultaneous bellows
of the six boatmen, “Save, O Nergal, save!” all the time they were
working their sweeps like madmen, while the great sail came down with a
crash that made the barge quiver from stem to stern.
Tabni thrust his head from the hatchway, cast his single eye about in the
morning half-light, then added his voice to the yell of terror.
“Will you destroy me?” implored Binit. “What has befallen?” But Ruth lay
perfectly still; at that moment she was thinking that no human ill could
make her condition worse.
Tabni dropped from his station, his face the colour of a whited tile. His
jaws twitched so that he could scarce utter a syllable; then came two
words, “River thieves!”
“River thieves?” groaned Binit, leaping up as if she had sat on an adder.
“Their boats are hard after us. Two skiffs, ten men in each. The
bargemen are straining to make for shore. Then they will only lose the
boat. Woe! woe! If we are taken—”
A prolonged screech from Binit, who practised her art in very earnest
now, drowned out Tabni’s own noise. In the first instant of silence the
voice of the barge captain thundered: “Up, all of you, if you would save
liberty. Fling these wine-jars overboard, as quickly as if the Maskim
were following!”
With feverish haste Binit led or rather carried the Jewess to the deck. A
glance told the whole story. Out from the bank of gray morning mist that
clung over a stagnant lagoon near the eastern bank were shooting two long
reed boats, full of armed men, who came straight on toward the luckless
barge. The boatmen had dropped the sail, as useless in the morning calm,
and were pulling with despairing energy toward the western shore, in
hopes of escaping to land, where they could save their freedom, though
the barge was doomed as plunder.
“Every plague-fiend pounce on you, woman,” was the captain’s greeting
to Binit, while he sweated over his oar; “it was waiting for you that
delayed us and gave these scorpions their chance.” And even while he
spoke, a whoop of triumph pealed across the glassy river, and two arrows
splashed under the barge’s stern.
Yet, despite all the master’s cursings and rage, Binit would not aid
Tabni in thrusting the cargo overboard, but simply sat on a bale,
clutching tight hold of Ruth.
“Ten talents,” the wailer was repeating, even while her knees beat
together, “ten talents, if only I can hold you fast!”
A third arrow dug into the deck, and the boatmen put forth their last
strength. But the two skiffs were flying three cubits to their two.
Already they could see the white teeth and wolfish bright eyes of the
bandits.
“Yield, yield as you love your lives!” bawled many shrill voices. A
new flight of arrows smote down a rower, but at this instant the barge
thumped on a mud-bank close to the western shore, and stuck fast.
“Save yourselves!” was the last shout of the captain, and he with his
remaining men dashed through the shallow water, and, scrambling up the
low bank, were soon on shore, flying inland at full speed, leaving their
passengers to the mercy of fate.
“Come, little lady!” Binit commanded; but Ruth hung perfectly limp on her
arms, and Tabni and the woman lifted her and tugged her to the shore.
“Run!” exhorted they, setting the Jewess on her feet.
There was no time to be lost. The bandits, leaving the barge to plunder
later, paddled straight up to the embankment, and were in pursuit in a
twinkling. “Three prizes! After them!” was the general yell.
“Run!” commanded Binit again, when Ruth still dragged helplessly. And at
the word she relaxed for a trifle her grasp. In an instant the Jewess
had glided out of it, and wheeled, as if in bewildered terror, straight
toward the robbers.
“Ten talents lost!” And Binit gave the loudest screech of all her noisy
life.
By instinct she and Tabni turned to recover their prisoner, but arrows
flew out to greet them, and in a moment Binit was moaning in a heap, as
a shaft grazed her shoulder, while ten rough hands were securing the
charmer, and as many more were holding Ruth. Then twenty tongues wagged
all together, shouting, cursing, laughing, questioning; until, the breath
of the robbers having failed, they dragged their three captives back to
the barge, which they speedily rifled with a thoroughness born of long
experience.
Only when the first flush of victory had spent itself did some order
become apparent, and the late kidnappers, with their victims, were ranged
before an enormous Amorite, rings in nose and ears, jewels all over his
tawdry dress, a tremendous spiked mace flourishing in his fingers.
Binit was so frightened that she had ceased howling; Tabni held down his
head as if avoiding scrutiny; while Ruth remained in perfect silence, as
if dumbness were her last refuge.
“Well, my brothers,” commented the leader, surveying the three, and
pulling reflectively at his nose ring, “the gods reward us for the
morning’s toil. These good folk seem to be worth little for ransoms,
but, praised be Moloch! there are Arabian caravan merchants in the next
village ahead, who, if they have not started for Egypt, will give silver
shekels for three such likely slaves.”
The announcement drew forth a new spasm of screams from Binit, who cast
herself at the Amorite’s feet.
“Oh, kind, handsome, generous lord!” she entreated, “do not sell to
Egypt. See, I am wounded; I cannot work; I shall die under the whip!”
“Now, by the Maskim,” swore the giant, “this is the first time for long
I have been ‘kind or handsome’ to man or maid!” And he with his fellows
brayed together with laughter.
“Pity us,” thrust in Tabni, stretching forth his hands beseechingly. “I
cannot labour. Alas! I am old; soon I must make my peace with Ea, and
prepare to die.”
But as he spoke, a bandit leaped forth before the rest. “Do you not know
me, Tabni, you half-blind coney?—Eri-Aku the Elamite, whom you drove into
this life by your false accusations of murder. Great mercy if I do not
commit murder in truth! Give me leave, comrades—”
He brandished his sword over the quivering charmer’s head, but his
companions plucked him back, while the leader set eyes on Ruth.
“Comely for a swart peasant maiden,” he remarked, “but her limbs are
frail as lily stems. She cannot work.”
“Deliver her to me, noble captain,” suggested Eri-Aku; “my hut in the
marshes needs a likely wench like her.”
The blood came tingling into the Jewess’s face, and crimsoned almost
under her reddened skin, as the Elamite’s words and leer smote her. But
the captain shook his head.
“All captives must be sold for the good of the band. She goes to the
Arabians like the rest.”
Binit commenced to bawl out something to the effect that this was no
ordinary serving-maid, and that the king would give for her riches
untold. But alas for the wailer’s craftiness, Ruth looked anything but
the favourite of Belshazzar, thanks to the cosmetic; while to Binit’s
signs and grimaces to her to declare herself, she answered not one word.
“The woman raves!” declared the Amorite, and he ordered his men to gag
Binit and Tabni, and haste away, for there was no telling how soon a
king’s bireme might be up the river, and their situation become awkward.
Therefore three captives spent the morning very disconsolately, paddling
northward by hidden canals and watercourses in the bandits’ skiffs. The
sun was broiling them at noon when the robbers landed at a squalid mud
village, where the Arab caravan train was halting. Fifty odd grumbling,
dirty-brown camels were kneeling on the slough of the little square,
while their drivers adjusted the last bales of Babylonish carpets and
Indian muslins that had just come up from the gulf. The Amorite marched
his prisoners before the master of the troop, and the bargain was not
long in making.
“These people were come by honestly?” quoth the merchant, with one eye in
his head, for he knew his man.
“Honestly, by Moloch!” and the Amorite swore an oath loud enough to make
up for all its other shortcomings.
“But these two,” objected the Arab, jerking a thumb towards Binit and
Tabni, “are too old for hard toil. The risk on the desert is great. I can
spare little water. Of the three, one is sure to die.”
“Consider how cheaply you get them. The three, and only forty shekels!”
“Not unreasonable, but they look most sluggish for field work.”
“‘Much scourging, much labour!’” answered the chief, “so runs the old
proverb.”
“The Egyptian taskmasters remember that, by Baal!” cried the Arab,
gleefully, while he counted out the sum; then, with a sudden glance at
one of his subordinates, a low-browed young fellow: “Verily, what ails
you, Shaphat? Have these creatures the evil eye, that you gape at them
so?”
The man addressed only shuffled away, remarking “that he had known
something about the prisoners in Babylon, and would tell the leader
later.”
The Amorite and his following went their ways, rejoicing in the good
fortune the god of gain had sent them. The Arabs tied their new
passengers upon the backs of camels, and the caravan started; but it did
not move rapidly. First a camel went lame, then a girth broke and let
a heavy load tumble, then a donkey broke loose and was captured with
difficulty. Night caught the caravan at a second little village only a
few furlongs above the first.
The master of the Arabs was a discerning man, and he presently called
Shaphat aside, and pointed to the youngest prisoner,
“You act strangely, fellow,” declared the merchant; “did you know this
girl in Babylon? When I engaged you, I understood you were a Jew, once
servant of the imprisoned minister, Daniel. To my mind, this maid is of
your own race.”
“You are right,” was the seemingly frank answer. “She is a Jewess, and
at some time I have met her in the city; but I forget at whose house she
may have been servant. As you see, she is comely. Treat her well, and she
will bring twice the price of the two others. And do not bind her. Who
dreams that a frail thing such as she can run away?”
“You speak well; she shall not be bound; but cease making eyes at her.
Her good looks are not for such as you.” Whereupon Shaphat professed
himself all obedience.
That night Ruth lay alone upon a dirty truss of straw in a village hut,
while without great camels grunted, dogs bayed the moon, and watchmen
trolled coarse ditties. First one calamity had thronged upon her, then
another, from the moment Isaiah took her from her father’s house, only
an hour ago it seemed. She had long since passed beyond the solace of
tears. She had striven to pray. Her whispered words seemed only to
awaken echoes of mockery. Either Jehovah was Himself a fiend, or He was
helpless, Bel-Marduk His master. Once a terrible thought crossed her
mind. She would curse Jehovah, she would cry to Marduk, to Istar, and
to Ramman; the Babylonians called on them and prospered, why might not
she?—what good thing had Jehovah granted, that she should love Him? But
at the suggestion all the strong forces of the Jewess’s nature rose in
rebellion within her. Should she, the daughter of Daniel, the betrothed
of Isaiah, near and dear to two men who were perilling their lives for
the sake of Jehovah, be the one to doubt? No, though the present ills
waxed tenfold worse, if such a thing might be! And presently, it seemed
as if out of the night a voice was speaking, and she heard it, while an
awful stillness was reigning in her heart,—the words of the psalm of her
people, the song of David when God delivered him from the murderous hand
of Saul.
“The Lord is my rock, and my fortress and my deliverer:
My God, my strength, in whom I will trust,
My buckler and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.
I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised,
So shall I be saved from mine enemies.
He bowed down the heavens also, and came down:
And darkness was under his feet.
He delivered me from my strong enemy, and from them that hated me.”
The voice was gone. The camp had become very still. A wondrous peace and
hope seemed to have stolen over Ruth. She was about to let herself drift
away into the arms of sleep, knowing by her pure, unreasoning woman’s
faith, that One stronger than father or lover was at her side to shield
from all real harm, when she heard a guarded footfall on the earthen
floor. A figure of a man darkened the little patch of black violet that
marked the door; then he spoke:—
“Lady Ruth, dearest mistress, do you not know me?”
It was the voice of Shaphat.
* * * * *
The next morning the master of the caravan and his fellow merchants and
camel drivers were scouring all the country round about. They began at
last to give some ear to the frenzied protestations of Binit, that the
youngest captive was indeed a prize for the king. The Jewish servant,
who had hired himself to them at Babylon, had vanished from all sight,
taking with him his fellow countrywoman and a round little bag of money.
But the merchants could not push their search too far, for the village
bailiffs might ask them to explain how it was the maid had passed into
their possession; and if they admitted the Amorites’ share in the matter,
there might be more disagreeable questions to answer. Accordingly, after
a bootless search through another day, they set off across the desert,
and in due time Binit and Tabni found employers in the Sais slave-market,
who taught them the inconveniences of sloth in Egyptian field labour.
But long before these twain had reached the end of their wanderings,
their confederate Gudea had been started on a yet longer journey, with
even scantier prospects of return. Promptly on the morning after the
kidnapping, he had bribed his way through the chamberlains to a private
audience with Belshazzar himself. As expected, the king had been stormy
at first, but ended by paying the exorcist two talents as earnest money,
with promise of eight more when the girl Ruth was delivered. Gudea
promptly sent a letter up river, bidding Tabni and Binit return with
their booty in all haste. No answer; and a second letter had no better
reply. When a third message brought nothing, Gudea began to realize that
his associates had miscarried in some unknown manner; while the king
waxed impatient, and hinted that the earnest money was best back in the
treasury. Then Gudea, being at his wit’s end, let all wisdom forsake him.
He turned the two talents into gold, and strove to steal out of the city
by night, hoping to save at least this fraction of the expected booty.
But the crafty gods that had thus far prospered him, at this moment
abandoned him. He was arrested at the Gate of the Chaldees, by command
of Avil-Marduk, who had not forgotten the affair of the trial, and was
not slow in informing Belshazzar that the exorcist had tried to cheat
the monarch himself. The case before the high justiciar was brought to a
speedy issue, for the defence was the lamest.
“Let Gudea, the exorcist,” sounded the sentence, “die the death by the
iron sword. Let his head be set above the Gate of Ilu, and let his body
be flung to the hyenas and ravens; so shall all men fear to extort money
deceitfully from our lord the king.”
“Hearken,” the despairing exorcist had howled, while Khatin and two
assistants pinioned him, before haling him from the tribunal: “Am I not
the most pious wizard in Babylon? Shall I sacrifice to all the gods for
nought?”
“Off, off!” commanded the justiciar, quitting his seat; “silence this
babble!”
Gudea turned to Khatin, struggling vainly to free his hands.
“Ah, dearest Khatin, surely you will not let me die. Remember all the
pleasant pots we have drained together at Nur-Samas’s; remember our
pledges of friendship, and how often I have professed that I love you!”
“And do I not love _you_, my precious jackal?” said the headsman, with a
snort. “Have I not many a time said, ‘The more love I bear a man, the
more joy to see him safely ended.’ Bethink you, sweet friend, is it not
pleasanter to slip out of the world with the delightful whir of my sword
singing in your ears, than to depart as did the lamented Saruch, with
Binit and yourself howling above him?”
“Ah,” whimpered the exorcist, so limp now that the others had to keep him
on his legs, “it is not the dying only, though that is most fearful; but
woe! alas! despite all my sacrifices, what will not the gods do to me?
How may I justify myself to Ea? Allat will torture me eternally!”
“Fie, my lovely Gudea,” belched the headsman, “what expectations for a
man of your piety! Yet be consoled; Ea sends every soul to its proper
place, and even Allat can be little less handsome than your dearest wife,
especially when Binit’s palm-wine was heady.”
“Cursed be you! cursed with a dying man’s last curse!” howled Gudea, all
hope vanishing now, as they dragged him away. But Khatin only answered
with his mildest chuckle: “I have heard that music whistled by stouter
asses than you, comrade. But no grudge; I must drink a double pot
to-night at the beer-house,—one for you, one for me,—as token of how I
shall miss you.”
But Gudea’s only answers came in wordless chatterings. And how it
prospered him on the rest of his long journey is not written, even in the
wisest book.
[Illustration: BELSHAZZAR CHOOSES HIS PATH]