BEFORE THE ALTAR
But for priest, as for warrior, there is no respite from daily duty, to
be discharged with scrupulous care and unfailing zeal, however sore may
be the heart within, aching under linen garment or proven harness of
steel. Assarac must needs officiate at the altar of his god an hour
before the sun went down, even had a victorious enemy been wasting the
city with fire and sword, or had his own life been about to terminate
with the first shadows of night.
How he loathed the mummery, that yet made him all he was; the machinery
of which he knew so well each cog-wheel, catch, and lever; the false
glare and sparkle that seemed so poor a substitute for the steady rays
of truth! And yet he dared not whisper, even to his own heart, how mean
and paltry was all this artifice by which he climbed to power.
He had a new religion now--that religion of the heart which sweeps wiser
creeds away in a flood of blind unreasoning devotion; which degenerates,
without a misgiving, into the wildest fanaticism, and can number its
martyrs, as compared with those sacrificed to any other superstition, at
the rate of a hundred to one.
He did not conceal from himself that he loved the queen--he, for whom
the love of woman must ever be as the blind man's desire for light,
fiercer, perhaps, and more ungovernable, because of the very
impossibility that it should be realised. Cruel are the pangs of a
hunger which is not even fed by hope. Intolerable is a thirst to which
the very offer of water seems but mockery and aggravation. Nevertheless,
he did not care to strive against his folly now. For a time, he had
believed himself invulnerable--thought his very nature kept him
safe--and that, for him at least, there must ever be an insuperable bar
between admiration, regard, sympathy, and the slavish devotion which
others call love. After admiration had become indiscriminating, regard
unreasoning, and sympathy painful, he shut his eyes to the truth for
about a day; but when he opened them, yielded without effort, plunging
wildly into the abyss, owning a certain morbid pride, in the
consciousness of his self-immolation, the while.
And now heart, brain, and faculties were all saturated with the poison.
His strong will yielded gladly to the spell; his keen intellect was
content to follow where it ought to lead; and had the queen bid him help
her, as she said, to wrap the world in flames, his own hands would have
brought the fire, though it scorched him to the bone.
To say that he loved is to say that he was jealous; but the torture he
suffered was to that of other men as a cancer feeding on the vitals to a
flesh-wound lacerating the skin. _They_ might fret and struggle,
gnashing their teeth, raving vengeance, threatening reprisals,
alternately worsting the rival and reproaching the idol; but _he_ must
suffer in silence, smiling however sad, erect however crushed and
humbled, outwardly serene though troubled to very madness within.
And all unvisited by a ray of light, a glimpse of hope, even by the
dream of what _might_ be, which has gilded so many a weary night-watch
with fleeting visions of the dawn. Surely, through its very degradation,
there was something sublime in such utter self-abasement, such complete
self-sacrifice of love!
And yet his port was never more assured, his step firmer, his aspect
more dignified, than when, after this interview with Semiramis, that had
stung him to the core, he took his place at the altar to offer the usual
evening sacrifice to his god.
The sun was sinking, and its level beams shed a crimson flush on the
white garments of a band of priests, as on the spotless alabaster
columns that crowned the lower story of the temple, supporting those
upper chambers, of which the mysteries were veiled to eyes profane. A
hundred steps, broken by five stately terraces, led down to an open
space, in which thousands were crowded to witness the ceremony with
upturned faces, that glowed no less vividly than did altar, shrine, and
priests in the warm red lustre of a setting sun.
As in the morning to the east, so in the evening sacrifice the people
turned themselves to the west.
A score of oxen stood lowing behind the altar. It seemed the poor beasts
felt some forebodings of the fate that awaited them; though not till
incense had been burned and drink-offerings poured out were their
throats to be cut, at a given signal, and their flesh roasted for the
consumption of that lavish god, whose daily service thus required the
presence of a thousand satellites. These stood, marshalled like
warriors, in rear of Assarac and Beladon, who assisted him in his
functions. Swinging their censers, they continued chanting, or rather
muttering, in a low voice and a minor key, certain formal repetitions,
detailing the names and quality of their deity.
After a short delay, during which Assarac kept his eyes steadily fixed
on the setting sun, he advanced before the altar, followed by Beladon,
who waved above his superior's head the mystic ring, which, enclosing a
representation of wings, formed the emblem of that incomprehensible
power whose attributes were ubiquity and eternity. The eunuch's gait and
gestures were solemn and imposing in the extreme; his ornaments of
massive gold, his spotless robes, deeply embroidered, falling in heavy
folds about his person, his fine stature and noble bearing--all were
calculated to enhance his own dignity and that of the sacred office he
fulfilled. Turning slowly to Beladon, he received at the hands of that
assistant a golden cup filled with wine to the brim, and poured from it
gravely a libation to the four quarters of heaven, finishing with the
west. A hundred priests then advanced, chanting their hymns in time to a
measured march, a hundred timbrels rang in sounding strains to the
praise of Baal; and while fires were kindled, while smoke went up, and
music swelled, the blood of twenty oxen flowed round the altar, filling
the channels cut to receive it with a bubbling crimson stream.
Assarac and Beladon stood on each side, facing the people, wrapt, as it
were, in a holy trance. Men looked on them in awe-struck wonder as
votaries under the immediate influence of the god, whom Ashur himself,
coming down from his throne, might address face to face, who were
communing even now in spirit with the souls of departed heroes, with all
the powers of all the host of heaven.
Little did they think how the eunuch's whole being was possessed at that
very moment by a human vision of the brightest eye that ever shone in
promise, the sweetest lips that ever kissed or smiled; while his
attendant, yielding to desires yet more of earth, earthly, pierced the
crowd with a gaze that, for all its semblance of holy preoccupation, did
but seek a well-known female figure, alluring of form, lavishly attired,
and not too closely veiled.
No sooner had the sun gone down, the stars come out, than Beladon, whose
time was now his own, sought one of those courts which formed a
communication between the temple of Baal and the king's palace, supposed
by the people of Babylon to be occupied by Ninyas in a retirement from
which their present temper would have rendered it extremely dangerous
for him to emerge. Semiramis had returned to live in her own royal
dwelling, where she held such state as caused all former magnificence to
pale. The king's house, therefore, as it was called, became
comparatively deserted; and with the exception of its wooded parks or
paradises, fenced off for game, no spot in the whole city could have
been so secluded as that in which Beladon lingered, pacing to and fro,
stopping, muttering, glancing about him in fretful perturbation of
spirit, peculiar to one waiting for a woman on whom he cannot quite
depend. "At last!" he exclaimed, catching sight of a veiled figure
gliding amongst the arches that skirted the court, like a ghost in the
dubious starlight. "At last! And I saw you in the midst of the multitude
before the sun went down, looking on at the sacrifices. Where have you
lingered, woman, and what have you been doing since?"
Kalmim, for it was none other, raised her veil and laughed in his face.
"Who hunts learns cunning," said she. "Who toils learns skill. Who waits
learns patience. With cunning, skill, and patience, even a priest may
come at what he desires."
"Kalmim," he exclaimed earnestly, "do you believe there is nothing I
would shrink from that you bade me undertake? Are you assured that I am
constant and true as your own shadow on the wall? Do you trust me as I
trust _you_?"
She had an object; and laid her hand on his arm with a pressure that
implied a world of confidence, while she answered,
"Stanch as string to bow, hound to slot, a woman to her mirror, and a
man to his desire. We have never been less than friends, Beladon, why
should we? Perhaps, at last, we may be something more."
He had an object too; therefore, resisting the impulse that prompted him
to pass his arm round her waist without farther ceremony, he assumed an
air of respectful devotion and observed,
"I have no secrets from Kalmim; I trust her without reserve. There is
not a question she could ask me I would hesitate to answer from my
heart. Will she do as much for me in return?"
"Of course!" she burst out frankly, while her bold black eyes looked him
through and through. "What do you desire to know?"
"Arbaces was my friend," he replied abruptly. "The Great King's chief
captain fell shamefully murdered in his own dwelling. His daughter was
carried off by force into the desert. What has become of her now?"
"You love her!" she exclaimed, turning her head away in feigned
vexation. "You love Ishtar, the cunning white-faced wanton! I ought to
have known it; I _did_ know it all along! And yet _you_, Beladon--I
thought you so different from the others. O, it is hard to bear! How
could I have been so weak? How can I be so foolish now?"
She had put him thoroughly in the wrong. Surprised, alarmed, perplexed,
perhaps not a little softened and flattered, he hastened to excuse
himself with more ardour than discretion.
"It is for Assarac," he stammered, "not for me. The chief priest saw her
awhile ago in the market, and she has escaped him--_him_ who can track a
bird in the air surely as a camel on the sand! He bade me trace her.
That is why I came to _you_."
It passed through Kalmim's mind, that if Assarac set such store by the
discovery of Ishtar's refuge, the information she had power to give
would only be of value so long as it was withheld. If she would get her
price, she must beware of submitting her merchandise to the light of
day. The good-will of her customer too must obviously be secured in the
first instance.
"And you do not love her yourself, Beladon?" she sobbed. "You are sure of
it--you will swear it--on--on--the altar of your god!"
The storm had lulled--yet not too suddenly. The heaving bosom,
half-unveiled, though somewhat deep in colour, was not without its
charms.
"By every altar of every god that reigns," answered the deluded priest.
"By Ashtaroth, queen of love and light; by Baal, in whose very presence
even now I stood; and by your own sweet self, whom I worship perhaps
more fervently than all the host of heaven put together!"
"I cannot but believe you," she answered, smiling sweetly, while she
abandoned her hand to his caresses. "Nay, it would make me very sad
_not_ to believe you, Beladon. Will you always be true to me?"
"Always!" he exclaimed, with an appearance of sincerity that might
perhaps be attributed to his habit of making the same profession to
every woman who was kind and fair.
She, too, was not without practice, and accepted the assurance calmly
enough.
"You _do_ love me," she whispered, "and, indeed, if ever I could bring
myself to think of a priest, it should be one like--well, like Beladon,
perhaps, though I sought in every temple through the land of Shinar till
I found him. And now, if I tell you all I know, frankly and freely, will
you promise me what I ask in return?"
"I promise," said he, pressing her hand to his lips.
"Will you swear?" she asked.
"Can you not trust me without an oath?" he pleaded.
"Freely," was her answer. "But you must swear it nevertheless, to please
_me_."
"I _do_ swear!" he exclaimed. "By the Seven Stars--the Consulting
Judges--the might of Baal--the blood of Nisroch himself!"
"And by the three wings in the circle," she added impressively.
He hesitated; but the dark eyes, softer and sadder than their wont, were
looking straight into his own, the balmy breath was on his cheek. Kalmim
had never before seemed so kind, so womanly, so lovable, and he
committed himself to his promise by swearing that solemn oath which,
neither in letter nor in spirit, did a son of Ashur ever dare to break.
She looked more than satisfied. "I can tell you all about Ishtar," said
she, "so long as she remained within the city walls, because I, who
speak with you now, accompanied the girl, for old friendship's sake,
beyond the southern gate, even to the Well of Palms, when she departed.
She rode an old and sorry camel, bearing but a skin of water and a lump
of dates. She was veiled and clothed for a long journey. I had nursed
her on my knees when I was scarcely more than a babe myself; and I
helped her, I own (for she is poor and lonely now), to beast, clothes,
and provisions--though I begged hard of her to remain, little believing
her earnest assurance, that if she could but find them, she had powerful
friends in the wilderness. Nevertheless, even at the Well of Palms a
tall rider had stopped to water his horse, and she did but speak a word
in his ear, when he dropped on the sand to do obeisance at her feet. I
was frightened, and fled to hide myself in the vineyards; but when I
raised my head, they were riding away together into the desert with
their faces towards the east. My own opinion is, that she has vanished
from the earth like her mysterious mother, and gone back to the stars
from which she traces her descent. And now, Beladon, that I have told
you all I know, I claim from you the fulfilment of your promise and your
oath."