Since first dusk the army of Cyrus had been in motion: the horse-archers
of Tartary, the Hindoo infantry, the Persian lancers. The army marched in
silence, no kettle-drums thundering, no war-horns blaring, the commands
sent softly down the long line, from officer to officer. When the last
bars of light had flickered out in the west, there had come a halt; bread
and wine were passed among the men, the horses were watered in a canal:
and Orasmasdes, chief of the Magians, shook incense into the portable
altar carried beside the king, and offered prayer. Softly yet clearly
rose the song in praise of Mithra, the great minister of Ahura-Mazda:—
“His chariot is borne onward by Holiness.
The law of Ahura shall open the way for him;
At his right hand speeds Obedience the holy,
At his left hand flies powerful Justice,
Behind him drives lie-smiting Fire!”
When the chant was finished the General Gobryas rode up beside the royal
chariot.
“Lord of the Aryans, what shall be the battle-cry to-night?”
And Cyrus, leaning from the car, made answer, “Give this battle-cry to
the host, as it shall enter Babylon,—‘For Ahura, for Atossa!’”
The officer bowed, vanished in the deepening gloom. Cyrus turned to his
charioteer. “Forward!” he commanded softly.
The reins shook over the white Nisæans. As the chariot moved
onward, the thousands made haste to follow. Once Atrobanes, the
“handkerchief-bearer,” who cantered beside his lord, ventured
remonstrance.
“Will not your Majesty take your litter? My lord is not so young as once.
If he drive all night, he will grow weary.”
Cyrus stood erect upon the car, taller seemingly than ever.
“Peace, good friend; the king of the Aryans has at least the strength to
ride when his children are marching, and with such a prize before!”
“True,” quoth the other, as he rode beside, “even your Majesty does not
often stretch forth his hands to take a Babylon.”
“Do you think I ride for Babylon this night?” demanded the king, almost
angrily.
But Atrobanes did not reply; he knew the guerdon of all the deeds that
night would not be “The Lady of Kingdoms” but the Lady Atossa.
So onward in the darkness, the trailing host keeping wondrously still.
They had wound wisps of hay around shield and scabbard and over the
horses’ hoofs to deaden all noise. As the night advanced, the sense of
awe sank deeper. Even the beasts gave no whinny; only as one clapped an
ear close to the earth would he have caught the jar and rhythm of many
men marching. The sky along one horizon was just beginning to overcast
and hide a few stars. Soldier muttered to soldier, “There will be a
storm,—lightning and thunder.” But for the hour all the elements kept
silence, with no wind creeping across the plain or lifting the lifeless
pennons.
Cyrus had ridden long without speaking, when the muffled canter of two
horsemen sounded, approaching from ahead. A moment later Darius and
Isaiah were reining beside the monarch’s car.
“You meet nothing? no alarm? no watchers?” asked the king in a whisper.
“None, lord,” answered Darius; “we rode to the shadow of the outer wall;
there was no sentry to challenge us.”
“The stillness may be ominous,” remarked Cyrus, shrewdly—“a pretended
carelessness to lure us under the walls, when Belshazzar can fling wide
his sally-ports and dash on us with his thousands. And you did grievous
wrong in perilling your lives so near.”
“Am I not a Persian too, your Majesty?” answered the prince in his pride;
“have I not learned to dare and to do from you and from none other?”
“True,” they knew Cyrus was smiling, “but Belshazzar may nevertheless
have set a trap.”
“Then the Babylonians’ guile is deeper yet,” replied Darius; “you do not
see, my lord, in the darkness, who it is Isaiah has mounted behind him.”
“A deserter from Babylon?”
“Imbi-Ilu, the exiled pontiff of Borsippa, just come from the city. Let
him speak for himself.”
The chariot halted, while a figure leaped to the ground from behind the
Jew, and salaamed before the king.
“May every god shine on your Majesty,” Imbi reported; “at no small peril
your slave disguised himself as commanded and entered Babylon. He has
communicated with Bilsandan the vizier, and Sirusur the _Tartan_. They
accept your Majesty’s promises, and rejoice to become your servants,—the
more because Avil-Marduk works hourly on Belshazzar to gain their ruin.
The guards on the gates have been withdrawn by Sirusur, the rest of the
garrison is nigh drunken to a man. My priests at Borsippa swear they will
not fail.”
“The garrison drunken? Is Belshazzar mad; does he think my power
shattered so utterly?” asked Cyrus, marvelling.
“Be that as it may, my king,” interposed Isaiah, “while we awaited
Imbi-Ilu under the walls, we heard from within nothing else than the
sound of music and of revelling. The Chaldees are not Persians. Their god
is the wine-cup, if the truth be told. Jehovah has caught them in their
wickedness. He has led them into the net prepared by His servants.”
“So be it,” remarked Cyrus; then to the priest he hinted sternly, “Your
friends will do well to keep troth. Let there be treachery in this,
and I swear by your gods and by mine, I will lift your head from your
shoulders!”
The Babylonian was not discomposed. “And I accept the warning; if I or
my priests of Nabu play false, do to me as you will. But if Babylon is
taken—”
“You shall not fail in your reward,” declared Cyrus, “on the word of a
Persian king; I renew my promise of the high priesthood of Bel-Marduk in
Avil’s stead.”
“Forward then,” urged the Chaldee; “let the king possess his city.”
The charioteer made the lash whistle, the car whirled forward. The shadow
of the great walls was above them now; speed, not silence, demanded; the
guards about the king pricked with the spur to keep beside. Darius spoke
again to Cyrus:—
“Lord, Imbi-Ilu tells us that at midnight Belshazzar quits his bridal
feast.”
Cyrus shot a glance up at the heavens, where the advancing clouds had not
yet quenched all the starlight.
“By the movement of the stars, it lacks three hours of midnight,” he
answered.
“We must therefore take all Babylon in three hours. Away with prudence;
haste, oh, haste!” cried the prince.
But Cyrus spoke back to him, “If so Ahura willeth, in three twinklings of
an eye we could yet save Atossa!”
But, notwithstanding, they heard the king’s great voice swell out in a
shout that was music in the ears of all the army.
“Forward, men of Iran!”
It was the word that let the hounds slip from the leash, that uncaged the
lion. Directly above their heads was the beetling rampart; they saw the
glassy shimmer of the broad canal under the vanishing stars, and they
heard—from within the vast bulwark, even as Isaiah had said—the sound
of mirth and of harping. The footmen burst into a run, every horseman
pricked deeper, while one shout, though in many tongues, echoed against
the fortress.
“The Father! The Father! Let us die for Cyrus our king!”
Then the battlements surely quivered while a second shout smote them,
“For Ahura, for Atossa!”
The echoes died; no battle-cry from behind the walls pealed in answer.
The column was skirting the southern rampart, when yet another messenger
flew up beside the king.
“I come from the Princes Harpagus and Hystaspes; their troopers are in
station before the northern city. They attack as soon as the uproar
proclaims that the king is assaulting.”
No answer from Cyrus, for the van was beside the water-gate of the great
canal of Borsippa. The column perforce had halted. The last stars had
fled. It was very dark. The walls above seemed barriers lifted to the
very gates of heaven; undefended, might not Belshazzar’s city mock its
mightiest foe? The canal was creeping through the dark cage-work of the
bronze water-gate. For an instant was stillness, while king and soldier
waited; and then, all vaguely, they saw the great fabric of metal rising,
crawling like a sluggish monster from its slimy bed. Unseen chains and
pulleys strained, grated; the gate rose higher; now the canal coursed
freely under, now it was lifted to the height of a mounted man. Close
under the wall lay a causeway, wide enough for a single cavalryman to
enter. Nimitti-Bel was unsealed!
Out of the darkness appeared figures and flickering torches.
“Live forever, O king,” spoke Sirusur the betrayer, “the city is sunken
in mirth and drunkenness. Forward boldly—you will dash the wine-cup from
Belshazzar’s own hand.”
Cyrus started to descend from the chariot.
“A horse,” he commanded abruptly; “there is no space for the car to
enter.”
But at his words one cry of protest arose from Darius and all the
officers, “The king will not _himself_ enter the city!”
“Not enter?” Cyrus’s voice became stern and high. “Am I not king? To whom
may I give account?”
None stirred to obey him. Moments were rubies; the monarch was swelling
with anger.
“Have I not commanded? I can yet be terrible to the disobedient. I am
still the ‘Giver of Breath’ to all Iran!”
But the others stood mute and motionless. The preciousness of the hour
made Cyrus blind to all save his desires. He bounded from the car, and
snatched a mounted officer with a giant’s clutch.
“Down! Your horse!” he commanded thickly. The man was helpless in that
grasp, but suddenly a dozen hands were put forth upon the king himself.
“Lord,” said Gobryas, the senior general present, “we cannot suffer this
thing. Your Majesty must remain without the gates till your slaves have
mastered the city.”
The king struggled to be free.
“Must? Not even you may use that word to me. As Ahura liveth, you shall
die for this madness.”
But the others did not release him.
“Lord,” repeated Gobryas, “when your Majesty wills, I bow my neck to the
stroke; but till then, I love the ‘Light of the Aryans’ too well to see
it quenched, even at its wish.”
“But I implore you—” protested the king, for commands were useless.
And Gobryas answered, “We love the king too well even to heed his
prayers.”
Cyrus gave one bitter groan, but he remounted the chariot and said no
more.
“Advance,” entreated Sirusur; “every instant gives Belshazzar chance to
take alarm, and my work is undone!”
“We will enter,” spoke Darius; and in the faint torchlight they saw Cyrus
bow his head. Then every officer bent low in the saddle, saluting the
king. The host behind was fretting and wondering at the strange delay.
But once more the king’s command rang out strong. “Forward, my children!
And swiftly—your father prays it!”
“For Ahura, for Atossa!”
So thundered Darius, and as all the rest rolled on the cry, he sent his
steed at headlong gallop straight through the narrow portal; after him
Isaiah, after him the choicest of the Aryan cavalry. Within the gate the
priests of Nabu met them with more horses and torches to guide them on
their way; for the Borsippa folk’s hatred of Avil-Marduk passed their
dread of the Persian. Darius glanced over his shoulder,—the gate had been
forced wide open, the sword-hands and lancers of his people were pouring
in by tens, by hundreds. The gate of Imgur-Bel opened wide for them. Let
Belshazzar defend his inner barrier as he might, the strongest were lost
him. The night was darker yet, the storm was rumbling nearer. But far
away, down the long vista of Nana Street shone a dull redness against an
inky sky—the torches and bonfires of the palace, where the Lord of the
Chaldees sat at feast.
Darius pressed the spur until his good beast almost screamed with the
pain.
“The City of the Lie is ours!” he cried to Isaiah, who flew beside him,
while a thousand raged close behind. “Ours! And Belshazzar is ours!—and
Atossa!”
[Illustration: FULFILMENT OF JEHOVAH]