Another king, another council, another palace. The twilight was creeping
over Susa, the city of Cyrus, over the blue Choaspes winding southward,
over the rambling town, with its shops and bazaars, which stretched
away to eastward, and over the great mound betwixt river and city. High
above dwelling and street loomed the ramparts of the palace fortress
of the king. Complacent Babylonian envoys might sneer under breath
at the barbarism of the decorations, but under the failing light the
palace wore a glory all its own, the like of which was nowhere else
save at its prototype in Ecbatana, city of the Medes. The citadel was
natural, but strengthened by human art. Twenty furlongs and more was its
circuit; its sheer height rose for fifty cubits. On its summit spread
the Aryan palace. Original in nothing save truth-speaking, the Persian
had been a borrower from many lands. A stranger would have declared
the house of Cyrus like that of Belshazzar, yet in manner unlike it.
Endless colonnades; huge courts, unroofed save for the Tyrian purple
tapestries on great feast days; giant-winged bulls; walls brilliant
with innumerable processions of huntsmen and spearmen, wrought in blue
and green enamel,—all these from Babylon. But Greek chisels had given
delicacy and grace to the sculptures; the conceit of India had set the
four heads of griffins on the corners of each stately capital; Median
ostentation had plated the ceilings of many of the chambers, as well as
the cornice and parapet without, with the pale lustre of silver, or even
with garish gold.
He who entered would have lost himself in court after court, hall after
hall, each a-swarm with its hordes of guardsmen, eunuchs, and courtiers.
His feet would have trodden priceless Bactrian carpets; over his head
would have twinkled a thousand silver lamps and red resinous torches. Yet
had he kept onward, he would have at last come to a door guarded by a
score of watchful “eyes of the king,” and then, if some talisman suffered
him to pass them, have stood face to face with the lord of the Aryans.
The king was taking counsel with his peers. The Tartar on the chillest
steppe, the Brahmin by the hoary Indus, might quake at the name of Cyrus,
son of Cambyses; but the six princes of the tribes of Persia and of Media
were suffered at all times to speak their word to the monarch, and he
must hear them.
There was no throne in this chamber. The king sat in a ponderous
arm-chair, at the head of a long table, his fellow-councillors ranged
on lower seats at either side. They had long since cast off ceremony.
Cyrus’s cone-shaped tiara was taller than that of the others, the
embroideries on his flowing Median robe richer; these alone distinguished
him. There was no scribe present, nor other attendant. After a long
silence the king was again speaking.
“My friends,” Cyrus smote a fist on the table with a buffet weighty
enough to fell an ox, “you seem to have suffered Apaosha the
‘Drought-fiend’ to dry up all your thoughts. I called you for counsel; I
meet silence and black frowns. Have you nothing to say?” The king looked
from face to face; his own was troubled. There was care spread upon his
high, bronzed forehead, care was in the lines of his mouth under the
flowing gray beard, care was dimming the genial lustre of his keen blue
eyes.
A man at the king’s right hand made answer, and all heard respectfully,
for he was bowed with age and its wisdom.
“Live forever, King of the Aryans! Do not blame us if Ahura denies us
the presence of Vohu-Manö, angel of good counsel. What is left to say?
Yet let the king know this—determine the fate of Darius, my son, without
thought for my own private loss or grief. The honour of Persia and of
Persia’s king is more than the safety of forty sons of mine.”
But Cyrus shook his head, replying sombrely: “You are a true friend,
Hystaspes; but understand that the honour of Persia and of Cyrus demands
to-day that Darius should come harmless from that snare to which I, in
folly, sent him. The blame is mine. Belshazzar has deceived me. Would to
Ahura that I alone might bear the calamity, and not the noblest of our
youth!”
But the dark-eyed Median prince, Harpagus, who sat at the king’s left
hand, broke forth hotly: “Now as Mithra rains light from the heavens,
I protest the Babylonian will never dare to make a hair of our prince
to fall. Belshazzar and his pack of snivelling priests and paltering
corn-merchants put to death a prince of our blood royal? The Chaldeans
will love well to see our Aryan cavalrymen eating up all their dear
farmlands like locusts! Belshazzar’s was a coward’s threat. He will make
it good—never!”
“Peace,” commanded the king. “You do even that _dæva_ wrong. We
have Gobryas’s letter and cannot doubt. Belshazzar has a city nigh
impregnable. His army, if not so large as our Aryan hordes, is well
drilled, valorous. His capital is provisioned for a siege of years. Only
a man who had resolved to follow his path to the end would dare to utter
this threat.”
“True,” Hystaspes looked down, grievously tormented; “yet for the honour
of our people and our god, there is but one answer to make to this
defiance.”
Cyrus was standing erect and confronting his council.
“Do you, princes of Persia and Media, bid me to sacrifice Darius, son of
Hystaspes, proclaim instant war, and send our forces over the Tigris to
strike Belshazzar! An answer,”—the king’s voice grew hard,—“peace or war?”
Stillness for a moment, and then Harpagus was thundering:—
“War, in the name of every archangel! Tell Belshazzar that if Darius dies
we will beat down Babylon till she be a city for wolves and jackals.”
“And you, Hystaspes?” demanded the king.
“I have spoken,” replied the old prince, wearily. “Not to save my own
child can we cringe to Belshazzar, that ‘Son of the Lie.’ There is no
other way.”
Cyrus was looking wistfully from one to another.
“And is there no word for peace?” he was asking, almost eagerly. “The
power of Babylon is great. If we fail, the empire will depart from us. On
such a war we stake our all.”
“And our all truly is lost,” Harpagus replied, nigh fiercely, “if the
king of Persia crouches trembling under a threat like this!”
“Your voices then are all for war?” was Cyrus’s last appeal.
“For war,” was the sullen answer of many, none looking upward. But Cyrus
smote again upon the table, making the firm oak quiver.
“But I, Cyrus, son of Cambyses, king of Persia and all Iran, am very ill
content with your counsel. We all will be partners in Darius’s blood,
if he is left to die. I, the king, have chief blame in sending him to
Babylon, but you all were consenting. Would to Ahura I had followed my
own heart, and given him Atossa! Of her fate in the clutch of Belshazzar
I say nothing.” It was the first time he had mentioned his own child that
day. The princes saw a tear on the iron cheek of the conqueror of Mede
and Lydian. None answered him. The king ran on: “Our debate ends as it
began—in darkness. I will not act on your advice to-night. Orasmasdes,
the chief Magian, shall pour libation to the great star Tishtrya[8] and
all the other heavenly powers, that they may incline the Lord God to
favour with his wisdom. I am no ‘Father of the People,’ if, to spare my
own dignity, I suffer the bravest and choicest of our Aryan youths to die
miserably.”
The king had thrust back his chair, and motioned to the others to rise
also. They were obeying, in moody silence, when the door was flung open,
and Phraortes, the high chamberlain, was kneeling before Cyrus.
“Live forever, O Bulwark of the Nations! May your slave speak?”
The monarch good-humouredly motioned to him to say on. Phraortes arose,
and punctiliously hid his hands in his flowing sleeves—token that he
meditated no attack on the royal person.
“Your Majesty, the General Gobryas sends in advance a young man who
demands instant speech with my lord.”
“Does he come from Babylon? Who is he?”
“He brings a letter from the general, that he is in all things to be
believed. He also bears a token from the ever-to-be-reverenced Lady
Atossa.”
“From Atossa?” They saw the king’s grip on the arm of his chair grow hard
as a vise. “Bring him in instantly.”
Cyrus had reseated himself; the rest imitated perforce.
A moment later Phraortes ushered before them a young man in Babylonish
dress, handsome-visaged, but now dusty, unkempt, travel-stained. The
stranger did not cover his hands, Persian fashion, but fell on his face
and kissed the rugs at Cyrus’s feet, nor did he arise until Cyrus bade
him to fear nothing.
“Your Majesty understands Chaldee?” began the stranger, his eyes still on
the carpet.
“I understand and speak it,” was the answer. “Do not tremble. We Persians
forgive all else so long as men speak the truth. Who are you? Not a
Babylonian?”
While the king spoke he had sped a glance keen as a spear through the
newcomer, as if searching every recess of his soul. But the other,
unconfounded, lifted his own gaze and met Cyrus boldly eye to eye, a
glance in turn so penetrating, yet so winsome, that half the suspicions
of monarch and princes were disarmed.
“I am no Babylonian, O king!” The young man tossed his head proudly. “My
people are the Hebrews, whom it pleases the Omnipotent God should suffer
oppression at the hands of these servants of speechless brass and graven
marble, but who would not exchange the Lord God of their fathers for a
thousand Belshazzars and his kingdoms. Know, your Majesty, that my name
is Isaiah, son of Shadrach, the Jew, though born and bred in Babylon,
city of darkness. And in proof of what I may tell you, receive this.”
He was extending something which Cyrus caught eagerly.
“Beware,” admonished Hystaspes, in the king’s ear, “this may be but a spy
of Belshazzar.” But the young man overheard and answered boldly:—
“I a spy of Belshazzar? May Jehovah the All-Seeing smite me as I stand,
if I speak one jot or one tittle more or less than truth!”
Cyrus had raised his head, and looked on the Hebrew again.
“And I believe you,” swore the king; “for as Ahura reigns, I do not deem
he could set deceit behind so frank a face and eye. This, my lords”—he
held up the trinket—“is the locket I hung on my daughter’s neck before
you all. And now, Jew, say on.”
And long the council sat and listened while Isaiah unwound to them the
tangled web of Belshazzar’s and Avil’s intrigues and ill-doings—the sham
marriage treaty, the attempt on Darius’s life, the plottings with Egypt,
the preparations for war.
They had gathered much from the tale of the fugitive Ariathes, and the
hasty despatch from Gobryas; they saw all clearly now. But when Isaiah
had finished, Cyrus asked simply:—
“One question: By what means did you gain this locket from the Lady
Atossa? Can you enter Belshazzar’s own harem?”
Whereupon Isaiah told very modestly the manner in which he had saved the
princess during the riot; and despite his slackness in self-praise, as he
ended, the king demanded of his lords:—
“Men of Persia, do you now believe this man?”
“Every word,” came from Harpagus, and he spoke for all.
“How, then, shall the great king reward him?”
“Let the Jew take three talents of gold,” answered the councillor, and
Cyrus nodded approval.
“So be it. Son of Shadrach, you shall have as Prince Harpagus has said.”
“The king jests with his servant,” and again the Hebrew looked downward.
“Not so, on the inviolable pledge of a king of the Aryans!”
“Your Majesty,” Isaiah spoke very rapidly, as if to escape repentance for
his boldness, “if I rescue Prince Darius from his dungeon—what reward
then?”
The eyes of the Jew were very bright. They could see he was hanging on
the king’s every word. Cyrus had lifted his hand in an oath.
“The man who saves Darius shall enter my treasure-house in Ecbatana,
where are stored the jewels taken from the Assyrian by Cynaxares the
Mede, and bear thence his own weight in precious stones, though he take
rubies and diamonds only!”
They who watched Isaiah saw him sweep his hand, as if in high disdain.
“Keep the jewels, O Cyrus!” cried he, nigh passionately. “I have not come
to sell my service like a huckster, to bargain for gems or gold. Yet
would you truly see Darius free?”
His voice had risen almost to a menace, but the king was not angry.
“Good, Hebrew!” Cyrus was smiling. “I did not think riches would tempt
such as you. You seek something nobler—and by Ahura’s great name, I
declare that if you may save Darius, you may ask anything in reason, and
it is yours.”
Isaiah’s eyes glittered even brighter than before, but his voice grew
calm.
“King of the Aryans, the one God, whom you worship under the name of
Ahura-Mazda, and we as Jehovah, has given my people now for fifty years
into the power of the idol-worshipping Chaldeans. Fifty years long have
we bowed beneath this yoke, and besought our God that he would forget
our sins, would restore us to His mercy. Now at last the hour comes when
it shall be proved before all nations which is the greater, Him whom we
serve, or Nabu and Marduk and Samas, the demons of the Chaldees. For the
rage of Avil-Marduk, the chief pontiff, and of Belshazzar is gone out
against my people, and the oppression they suffer is more than most may
bear. Either my people must bow the neck, must forsake their God, must
teach their children to serve the idols of Babylon, or you, O Cyrus, must
hear the summons of the Lord Most High, and make the oppressed go free!”
“I? What are you saying, Jew?” The king had leaped from his seat. They
faced one another, monarch and prophet for the instant equals.
“Sovereign of Persia,”—Isaiah bore himself as proudly as if he were the
“King of kings,”—“the God of nations has clothed you with power, the
like of which he never shed on mortal man before, not on Assur-bani-pal,
the great Assyrian. The tribesmen on countless plains are yours; your
horsemen He alone may number. Belshazzar, the Babylonian, casts defiance
in your teeth. You hesitate, for you fear for Darius. Were he free, the
perjurer would already see from his walls the sky lit with the villages
blazing under the Persian torch. And _it is I_ that may set Darius
free. Jehovah has set in me a spirit of craft and wisdom that with His
help shall not fail. Though they seek my life in Babylon, I know how to
avoid them. Be this the reward for the rescue of Darius: you shall call
forth your myriads and dash Belshazzar from his ill-gained throne, and
then”—brighter than ever were the Jew’s eyes now—“you shall restore my
people to their own land, that they may rebuild their desolate Jerusalem.
_This_ is my reward!”
Stillness, while many heard their heart-beats. The rest saw Cyrus
approach three steps toward the Jew; the two were yet looking eye to eye.
“Hebrew,” Cyrus was striving to speak quietly, “a great thing you
propose, a great thing you ask. How long a time will you require to
return to Babylon and do this deed?”
“In forty days I pledge my head to show you Darius safe and free, here or
in your camp. In Babylon I have two fellow-countrymen who will peril all
to aid me.” And Isaiah thought of Zerubbabel and of Shaphat.
“By Mithra! you speak of return to Babylon as of returning to a feast!”
“Fairer than a feast, my lord. I return to the fulfilment of my heart’s
desire—the winning of freedom for my people.”
“Yet though you prosper, what if we fail? We may drive Belshazzar from
the field, but the ramparts of Babylon—”
Isaiah took the words from the king’s mouth.
“Shall lie smooth as the plain to the feet of Cyrus, the called of
Jehovah!”
Cyrus looked again, and very earnestly. “One thing more, Hebrew—my
daughter, in Belshazzar’s harem?” His voice sank exceeding low. “What
will be her treatment? Answer me truly this.”
“Your Majesty,” was the unfaltering reply, “even the Babylonian is not in
all things a fiend. Belshazzar does not carry his villany so far, that
if Darius escape, he would wreak vengeance on his own betrothed wife. I
grieve for the Lady Atossa, but the swords of the Aryans are the only
talismans that will make her lot less wretched.”
Cyrus moved another step nearer. He had raised his hand toward heaven.
“Then in the name of Ahura, One God of All, and the Ameshaspentas, His
archangels, I swear that if you save Darius, I will lay low Babylon and
set your people free. And you, princes of the Persians, are my witnesses.”
When he looked downward, he saw Isaiah kneeling before him, kissing the
hem of his mantle.
“Do not fear, my king,” he was declaring; “Jehovah, who has plucked me
from so many perils, will not fail me now, when I speed upon His service.”
But Cyrus had turned to his council.
“Men of Iran,” said he, simply, “Ahura has not forsaken us. He has sent
us Vohu-Manö, the spirit of wise council. We need linger no more here.”
[Illustration: BELSHAZZAR’S GUESTS FORSAKE HIM]