X.

In the temple of Isis, upon Mount Beth-El-Khav, the first part of the

great mystery, to which the faithful of the lesser initiation were

admitted, was just over. The priest on duty,--an ancient elder in white

vestment, with shaven head, and neither moustache nor beard,--had turned

from the elevation of the altar toward the people, and pronounced in a

quiet, tired voice:

“Dwell in peace, my sons and daughters. Wax perfect through deeds.

Extoll the name of the goddess. And may her blessings be over ye for

ever and aye.”

He raised his hands on high over the people, in benediction. And

immediately all the initiates into the lesser rank of the mysteries

prostrated themselves on the floor, and then, arising, softly and in

silence made their way to the exit.

To-day was the seventh day of the month Phamenoth, sacred to the

mysteries of Osiris and Isis. Since evening the solemn procession had

thrice made the circuit of the temple with lamps, palm-leaves, and

amphoræ; with the occult symbols of the gods and the sacred images of

the Phallus. In the midst of the procession, upon the shoulders of the

priests and the minor prophets, was reared the closed _naos_ of costly

wood, ornamented with pearl, ivory, and gold. Therein dwelt the goddess

herself,--She, The Invisible, The Bestower of Fecundity, The Mysterious;

Mother, Sister, and Wife of gods.

The evil Seth had enticed his brother, the divine Osiris, to a feast;

through craftiness he made him to lie down in a magnificent sarcophagus,

and, having clapped down the lid over him, cast the sarcophagus with the

body of the great god into the Nile. Isis, who had just given birth to

Horus, with yearning and tears searches all the world over for the body

of her spouse, and for long can not find it. Finally, slaves inform her

that the body had been borne out to sea by the waves, and that it had

been cast up at Byblos, where an enormous tree had sprung up about

it, enclosing within its trunk the body of the god and his floating

dwelling. The king of that domain had commanded a mighty column to be

made out of the enormous tree, not knowing that within it reposed the

god Osiris himself, the great bestower of life. Isis goes to Byblos;

she arrives there fatigued with sultriness, thirst, and the toilsome,

stony road. She liberates the sarcophagus out of the midst of the tree,

carries it with her, and buries it in the earth near the city wall.

But Seth again secretly steals away the body of Osiris, cuts it up into

fourteen parts, and strews them over all the towns and settlements of

Upper and Lower Ægpyt.

And again with great grief and lamentations Isis set out in search of

the sacred members of her spouse and brother. Her sister, the goddess

Nephthys, and the mighty Thoth, and the son of the goddess, the radiant

Horus,--Horus of the Horizon,--all join their plaints to her weeping.

Such was the hidden meaning of the present procession in the first half

of the sacred service. Now, upon the departure of the common believers,

and after a short rest, the second part of the great mystery was about

to be consummated. In the temple were left only those initiated into the

higher degrees,--mystagogues, epopts, prophets and sacrificators.

Boys in white vestments bore about, upon salvers of silver, flesh,

bread, dried fruits, and sweet wine of Pelusium. Others poured hippocras

out of narrow-necked Tyrian vessels,--a drink given in those days to

condemned criminals before execution, to arouse their manhood, but which

also possessed the great virtue of generating and sustaining in men the

fire of a sacred madness.

At a sign from the priest on duty the boys withdrew. A priest who was

also the keeper of the gates locked all doors. Then he attentively made

the rounds of all those who remained, scrutinizing their faces and

testing them with secret words that constituted the pass-orders for this

night. Two other priests drew a silvern thurible upon wheels down the

length of the temple and around each of its columns. The temple filled

with the blue, thick, heady, aromatic fumes of incense, and through the

layers of smoke grew barely visible the vari-coloured flames of the

lamp,--lamps made of translucent stones, lamps set in carved gold and

suspended from the ceiling upon long chains of silver. In the times of

eld this temple of Osiris and Isis was known for its small extent and

its poverty, and was hollowed out like a cavern in the heart of the

mountain. A narrow subterranean corridor led to it from without. But in

the days of the reign of Solomon, who had taken under his protection

all religions save those which permitted the offering of children in

sacrifice, and thanks to the zeal of Queen Astis, an Ægyptian born, the

temple had expanded in depth and height, and had become adorned with

rich offerings.

The former altar still remained inviolate in its primordial, austere

simplicity, together with a great number of small chambers surrounding

it and serving for the keeping of treasures, sacrificial objects, and

priestly appurtenances, as well as for special secret purposes during

the most occult mystic orgies.

But then, the outer court was truly magnificent, with its pylons in

honour of the goddess Hathor, and with a four-sided colonnade of four

and twenty columns. The inner, subterranean, hypostylic hall for

worshippers was built still more magnificently. Its mosaic floor was all

adorned with cunningly wrought images of fishes, beasts, amphibians

and reptiles; while the ceiling was overlaid with blue lazure, and

upon it shone a sun of gold, glowed a moon of silver, innumerable

stars twinkled, and birds soared upon outspread wings. The floor was

the earth, the ceiling the sky, and they were joined by round and

many-sided columns, like mighty tree trunks; and since all the columns

were surmounted by capitals in the form of the tender flowers of lotus

or the slender cylinders of the papyrus, the ceiling they supported did

in reality seem as light and æthereal as the sky.

The walls to the height of a man were faced with plates of red granite,

brought at the desire of Queen Astis out of Thebes, where the local

master workers could impart to the granite a smoothness like that of a

mirror, together with an amazing polish. Higher, to the very ceiling,

the walls, as well as the columns, were gay with graven and limned

images with the symbols of the gods of both Ægypts. Here was Sebekh,

honoured in Fayum in the form of a crocodile; and Thoth, the god of the

moon, depicted as an ibis in the city of Khmunu; and the sun-god Horus,

to whom a small idol-temple was consecrated in Edfu; and Bast of

Bubastis, in the form of a cat; Shu, the god of the air, as a lion;

Ptah,--an Apis; Hathor, the goddess of mirth,--a heifer; Anubis, the

god of embalming, with the head of a jackal; and Menthu out of Hermon;

and the Coptic Minu; and Neith of Sais, the goddess of the sky; and,

finally, in the form of a ram,--the dread god whose name was never

uttered, and who was called Khenti-Amentiu, which signifieth: The

Dweller in the West.

The half-dark altar reared above the entire temple, and the gold upon

the walls of the sanctuary that hid the images of Isis gleamed within

its depths. Three gates,--a large one in the middle, and two small ones

flanking it,--opened into the sanctuary. Before the middle one stood a

small sacrificial altar with a sacred stone knife of Æthiopian obsidian.

Steps led up to the altar, and upon them were disposed young priests and

priestesses with tympani and sistrums, with flutes and tabours.

Queen Astis was reclining within a little, secret chamber. A small

quadrangular opening, artfully concealed by a large curtain, led

directly to the altar, and permitted one to follow all the details

of the sacred service without betraying one’s presence. A light,

closely-fitting dress of linen gauze, interwoven with silver, tightly

enveloped the body of the queen, leaving the arms bare up to the

shoulders, and the legs half-way to the calf. Her skin gleamed pinkly

through the diaphanous material, and one could see the pure lines and

elevations of her graceful body, which, despite the queen’s age of

thirty, still had lost none of its litheness, beauty and freshness. Her

hair, stained a blue colour, was spread loosely over her shoulders and

back, and was adorned with innumerable little aromatic pomanders. Her

face was much rouged and whitened; while her eyes, finely outlined by

kohl, seemed enormous and glowed in the darkness, like those of some

powerful beasts of the feline species. A sacred uræus of gold hung down

from her neck, separating the half-bared breasts.

Ever since Solomon had cooled toward Queen Astis, tired of her unbridled

sensuality, she, with all the ardour of southern love-passion, and

with all the jealousy of a woman scorned, had given herself up to those

secret orgies of perverted lust that constituted the highest cult of the

castrates’ service of Isis. She always showed herself surrounded by

priests-castrates, and, even now, as one of them fanned her head with

measured strokes of a fan made of peacock feathers, others were seated

upon the floor drinking in the beauty of the queen with eyes of insane

bliss. Their nostrils were dilating and quivering from the scent of her

body wafted to them, and they sought with trembling fingers to touch

unperceived the hem of her light raiment, barely stirring in the breeze.

Their excessive, never satiated sensuousness spurred on their imagination

to its utmost limits. Their inventiveness in the pleasures of Kybele and

Ashera surpassed all human possibilities. And being jealous of the queen

toward one another, toward all men, women, and children--being jealous

of her own self--they adored her even more than Isis, and, loving her,

hated her as an inexhaustible, fiery fountain-head of delectable and

cruel sufferings.

Dark, evil, fearful, and fascinating rumours were current about Queen

Astis in Jerusalem. The parents of beautiful boys and girls hid

their children from her gaze; men dreaded to utter her name upon the

conjugal couch, as an omen of defilement and disaster. But agitating,

irresistible curiosity drew all souls to her, and gave all bodies

up into her power. They who had but once experienced her ferocious,

sanguinary caresses could nevermore forget her, and became her lifelong,

pitiful, spurned slaves. Ready, for a renewed possession of her, to

commit every sin, to endure every degradation and crime, they came to

resemble those unfortunates who, having once tasted of the bitter drink

of the poppy from the Land of Ophir,--the drink that bestoweth sweet

dreams,--will never more draw away from it, bowing down before it only

and honouring it alone, until exhaustion and madness cut short their

life.

The fan swayed slowly in the sultry air. In silent rapture the priests

contemplated their dread sovereign. But she seemed to have forgotten

their presence. Having moved the curtain slightly aside, she was

ceaselessly gazing across toward that part of the altar where at one

time, out of the dark fissures of the ancient curtains of beaten gold,

was to be seen the beautiful, radiant countenance of the king of Israel.

Him alone did the spurned queen, the cruel and lecherous Astis, love

with all her flaming and depraved heart. His glance of a fleeting

moment, a kind word of his, the touch of his hand, did she seek

everywhere, and found not. Upon triumphal levees, court banquets, and

upon the days of judgment, did Solomon pay his respects, due a queen and

the daughter of a king; but his soul was not quick unto her. And the

proud queen would often command herself to be borne at set hours past

the House at Lebanon, to glimpse, even though afar and unnoticed, through

the heavy stuffs of her litter, the proud, unforgettably splendid visage

of Solomon, in the midst of the throng of courtiers. And long since her

flaming love had grown so closely joined to searing hatred that Astis

herself was unable to tell them apart.

In former days Solomon also had visited the temple of Isis on great

festal days, had brought the goddess offerings, and had even accepted

the title of her hierophant,--second after that of the Pharaoh of Ægypt.

But the horrible mysteries of “The Sanguine Sacrifice of Fecundation”

had turned his mind and heart from the service of the Mother of Gods.

“He that is castrated through ignorance or by force, or through accident

or disease, is not abased before God,” the king hath said. “But woe be

unto him that doth maim himself with his own hand.”

And now for a whole year his couch in the temple had remained vacant.

And in vain did the flaming eyes of the queen now gaze feverishly at the

unstirred hangings.

In the meanwhile, the wine, hippocras, and the stupefying burnt perfumes

were already having a perceptible effect upon those gathered within the

temple. Cries, and laughter, and the ring of silver vessels falling upon

the stone floor came with greater frequency. The grand, mysterious

moment of the sanguinary sacrifice was approaching. Ecstasy was overcoming

the faithful.

With an abstracted gaze the queen surveyed the temple and the believers.

Many honoured and illustrious men of Solomon’s retinue and many of his

generals were here: Ben-Geber, ruler over the region of Argob; and

Ahimaaz, who had Basmath, the daughter of the king, to wife; and the

witty Ben-Dekar; and Zabud, who bore, in accordance with eastern

customs, the high title of the King’s Friend; and the brother of Solomon

by the first marriage of David,--Dalaiah, a debilitated, half-dead man,

who had prematurely fallen into idiocy through excesses and drinking.

They were all--some through faith, some through ulterior designs, others

out of adulation, and still others for lecherous purposes,--the adorants

of Isis.

And now the eyes of the queen rested, long and attentively, intent in

thought, on the comely, youthful face of Eliab, one of the officers of

the king’s bodyguards.

The queen knew why his swarthy face was aflame with such a vivid colour,

why his eyes were directed with such passionate yearning hitherward,

upon the curtains, scarce stirring from the touch of the queen’s

beautiful hands. Once, almost in jest, submitting to a momentary

caprice, she had made Eliab to pass a whole night of felicity with her.

In the morning she had let him depart, but ever since, for many days

running, she had beheld everywhere,--in the palace, in the temple, in

the streets,--two enamoured, submissive, yearning eyes, that followed

her entranced.

The dark eyebrows of the queen contracted, and her green, elongated eyes

suddenly darkened from a fearful thought. With a barely perceptible

motion of her hand she ordered the castrate to lower the fan and said

quietly:

“Get hence, all of you. Hushai, thou shalt go and summon to me Eliab,

the officer of the king’s guard. Let him come alone.”

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