THE CHILDREN OF THE SUN.
Slowly the crowd surged back to the city, sobered by the scenes they
had just witnessed, bewildered by the sudden loss of a ruler whom they
began to really love, and who, after all, was by no means so great a
wretch as some believed. Have we not protested from the beginning,
by inference, that the proverbially good are not always angels to
the core? Have we not tried to insinuate delicately and gracefully
the opinion that the wayward and apparently wholly evil man or woman
develops sudden traits of heroism in the presence of great danger or
disaster that forever separates them in the human mind from the company
of cowards, the association of poltroons?
And some of those who constantly put forth the motive of pious devotion
to duty wear that kind of virtue merely as a mask behind which repose
arrant cowards and hypocrites.
Did you mention the names of Isidor and Abram as examples? Let us hear
them discourse to each other after the exciting scenes of the day are
past, after the accident, after the crowning of Rebecca as queen, and
Levi king, of Israel, a ceremony somewhat hastily performed lest the
people should recover from that state of bewilderment into which events
had thrown them, and after Abram had been appointed keeper of the
royal stables with more gold for salary than he had ever dreamed of,
and more honor shown him than his present capacity for adulation could
comfortably support.
“Bring forth the bond, Isidor,” said Abram gayly, “and let us compute
if we can, how much it is worth per day to work for a king. Our blessed
queen has given me a fine chariot and team, and when we drive abroad we
shall wish to locate our possessions.”
“She has remembered me bountifully, too,” said Isidor, “but in none of
thy kind, for mine is the yellow gold; but tell me, brother Abram, thou
sayest two of the noble beasts were alive when thou foundest them, why
then didst thou not spare them?”
“Why did I not spare them, fool, in exchange for our necks? Suppose
these Elimites were to learn of our little exploit, they would overturn
everything.”
“Thy training was indeed perfect, Isidor; in time thou wilt come to be
as expert in the dark art as I. Didst thou see how proudly Corinthia
viewed the new mantles upon her team, which were yet, _not_ for her
team, and how impossible it made detection even with her?”
“’Twas a marvelous thought, Abram, that sprouted in thy fertile brain,
but tell me how didst thou exchange Corinthia’s team for Rebecca’s last
night, without being seen by the minions at the royal stables?”
“That was easy,” replied Abram. “A trifle of the same power that was
so convenient to rid us of the horses to-day, made every one of the
worthless curs sleep long and deeply.”
“Thou art my elder brother, indeed Abram,” replied Isidor, “and I
reverence thy glorious talents; but how very strange to see how easily
so vast a crowd could be deceived into thinking it purely an accident.”
“It may have seemed easy to thee, my unspoiled Isidor, but if thou
couldst have seen the sleepless nights and anxious days I endured in
planning everything to work with the smoothness thou observed, it would
have seemed less simple; but together we did in a few weeks what no
other Israelite has ever accomplished, namely, undo the teachings of
years in a beast, and teach him to obey the opposite sign in a few days
so that when our beauteous queen Corinthia urged her team to stop, they
ran the more furiously, and when she would have them go to the right
by the old familiar word, they turned quickly to the left; and now we
have our reward, we shall be honorable in Israel with our palaces, in
which we shall dwell, and our chariots in which to visit the pleasant
places of the city, and we shall be as far removed from the groveler
who used to call us brother as our Queen Rebecca is above us; but
I must away to discharge the duties of that honorable office which
Corinthia the Elimite intended should fall as a prize to Rebecca, if to
any, as a stab to her pride.
“All this but yesterday, and to-day Rebecca is queen, and Corinthia
a wandering, hopeless leper, as the result of a cross training of
the horses, and a timely exchange of Rebecca’s team for Corinthia’s.
Farewell, Isidor, don’t forget thy prayers,” said Abram sneeringly,
“and remember to swear by thy elder brother who taught thee how to
drive a horse upon the highway of fortune.”
Life soon settled to its wonted groove after unwonted excitement, and
the populace shouting a moment ago for Corinthia were now just as
energetic in their demonstrations of undying fealty to Rebecca and Levi.
Although Levi had ever posed as an Israelite indeed, in whom there was
no guile, and though Rebecca was a good old Jewish name, the policy
of their reign did not appear to differ from that of their unhallowed
predecessors.
The Elimites were still the trusted advisers of the king and queen,
and the incumbents of the places of honor and emolument. The priesthood
still continued the Accadian form of worship in the temple of the sun.
But wedge and golden image, being thus associated in the minds of the
people with ideas of devotion, they gradually, as the Elimites designed
they should, came to look upon them as objects of worship themselves,
and soon a golden wedge was laid upon the altar, and the people of
Israel bowed down to the image of the sun and worshiped at sight of the
golden wedge.
Wealth was increasing rapidly in Ophir, of which the Accadians managed
to own a goodly share. Taxes were increased, rigid enforcement of the
laws to collect them followed. Tax gatherers and tithing men were given
princely salaries so that these offices were sought and obtained by the
Elimites.
Discontent began to work in the public mind, sullen murmurs were heard
and dark hints of revolt began to be dropped by the Jews themselves,
who not only saw themselves ignored in matters of government, but
their hatred toward Elim was ten times more intense by reason of the
odious offices that they occupied, for in what age or country have tax
gatherers not been regarded with something of spleen by the people?
But the favored class heeded not the tokens of a rising storm. Drunk
with prosperity, created by the labor of others, the longer they
enjoyed the ease and luxury of the present the less they cared for
the future, the more they respected but slightly the rights of their
fellows, whose ruder life rendered them repulsive to the more refined
Accadian, and the harder the toilers were oppressed the more repulsive
they became to the parasites who were at once sucking their blood for
subsistence and swearing openly at their want of spirit and refinement.
But religious superstitions interwoven with political influences are
the strongest safeguards of a ruler whether the religion be a false one
or the political bias a pernicious one or not.
In proportion as the people became restless and stricken with poverty
and their rulers rich and arrogant, the priests increased their zeal in
warning the people against the sin of not submitting to the powers that
be, and roused their patriotism by pointing with pride to the immense
public improvements, and reminded them of their glory as a nation.
In progress in all the cunning arts of the world, there were none to
surpass them, while in palaces and dwellings, in temples and gardens of
pleasure, there were none to contest with them.
So the ferment of human life went on for a year, since that day when
Rebecca and Levi had come so unexpectedly to the throne. Unexpectedly,
at least, to the outside rabble, who dreamed not of the artifices
being practiced within the charmed circle of power. It was again the
time of the great festival which has been established as a fixed
institution wherein the high rites of the sun worship were celebrated
within the most sacred and secret precincts of the temple, rites in
which lust and immorality joined hands with religion to dishonor
themselves and all human decency.
The queen became the high priestess of these orgies and the low sensual
instrument of national shame.
Again the multitude filled the streets of Ophir to choking. Again
the approaches to the outer courts of the temple of the sun were
packed. The queen was already at her altar in the temple prepared to
offer herself as a spectacle of shame before the gaze of thousands,
who trampled upon each other in their eagerness to witness this new
ceremony in their religion of which they had heard only vague rumors
and gained dim ideas.
Suddenly there seemed to be a diversion in the outer circle of the
crowd near the street. Some one whom the people called Abram the
magician staggered forward with a muttered curse, and almost fell, but
recovered himself and stood gazing down the street with fear-haunted
eyes, and with trembling lips, and sunken jaw, he exclaimed: “By the
rod of Moses! it is none other than the dogs of Elim.” Thus admonished
the crowd turned its gaze toward the spot where his was riveted, and
beheld a faded, dust-covered chariot drawn by two jaded horses and
bearing two persons whose attire was so extraordinary as to arouse
curiosity in the beholder.
These two were a man and a woman; the former was clothed in a suit
of sheepskin from head to foot, had an unkempt, bushy beard and hair
flowing in great ringlets over his shoulders. His clothes were rudely
fashioned and his headgear a sort of cap made of the skin of some wild
creature.
His companion was clad in a fashion not less striking. A jacket of fine
soft fur, dyed blue, and a skirt of equally delicate fur and white as
snow. Delicate slippers of brown, trimmed with fringe of white around
the top, and a jaunty headgear of the same kind of material made up a
costume that might make a woman of these modern days proud.
Her dress was forgotten, however, when a glimpse of her face was
obtained. It was beautiful and radiant behind its border of white furs
as the face of an houri, and the crowds through which they were making
their way gazed in undisguised admiration, mingled with a stirring of
memory that seemed to struggle for mastery, suggesting vaguely that she
was not unknown to them.
Suddenly a cry was raised by a man in the crowd! His cry had the effect
of an electric shock. Every tongue took up the word and every throat
was strained to vocalize that word. Rebecca, thrilling with triumph
in the zenith of her power, heard the commotion, and glanced into the
street to learn why she was no longer the center of all eyes, and
astounded sees the smiling countenance, and hears the resounding name
of one in whose praises the streets were vociferous. Why did she turn
pale as the ivory image beside her? Why did she shudder at the mention
of that name? Guilt was in her bosom, and Corinthia was the name in the
street that caused her to quake like an aspen.
The rabble crowded upon the chariot with the wildest demonstrations of
joy, weeping and laughing, and blessing the God of Elim that he had
brought again the beloved queen. What! their queen? What traitorous
words were these! There was no queen but Rebecca. Where was the
magician Abram with ready device in time of peril? He was not far
away, and as he was the first to act on that disastrous day one year
ago, so now he was the first to lift his voice for Rebecca, the lawful
queen. He struggled frantically toward the chariot, using all his burly
strength to push aside or trample down whoever came in his way, and
when he reached a favorable position he lifted a stentorian voice, and
a commanding hand to still the roar of voices.
As soon as he could make himself heard he cried: “Back, fools of
Ophir! Beware of these dogs of Elim. Hast thou forgotten that they are
condemned lepers? Back if ye would not have rottenness in your bones.”
Then turning, frothing and furious in his hatred toward the occupants
of the chariot, he waved them back exclaiming: “And ye, dogs of
Elimites, begone. Yonder is your home in the city of lepers. Begone or
die. Dare ye to bring your carrion flesh to the city of Ophir to be a
stench and a plague in the nostrils of our people? Beware, cursed seed
and follower of a harlot!”
Consternation struck the clamoring multitude mute for a moment, and
standing in the chariot, Jokim addressed them: “Men and women of Ophir,
ye know well who we are. Full well ye know that only twelve months ago
we celebrated with you this sacred festival. Ye know too that at that
time the queen of all Ophir was none other than she who is by my side.
The circumstances which suddenly drove us from your presence and made
us outcasts are familiar to your memory. It is true that the great
disaster of that day exposed us to the danger of the taint of leprosy.
We went forth into the mountains, looking only for a place where we
might die in peace without spreading the plague among you. For weeks
we lived in daily expectation of its coming, but thanks be to the God
of Elim, we are pure. We are in your hands and we are willing to be
tried by the law of Israel for leprosy, for we know that we are as free
from its touch as yourselves.”
Again a great shout went up from the people, but Jokim lifted up his
hand as a sign that he would speak further, and silence oppressive as
death reigned in an instant. He spoke once more: “Men and women of
Ophir; we have lived in sadness apart from our native city for many
weary weeks. To return to our people and our home has been our thought
by day and our dream by night. We shall be content to dwell among you
as the humblest citizens of all Ophir; but first, O men of Ophir! we
would make plain to you and explain the cause of disaster on that
almost fatal day.
“You had among you at that time a certain man called Abram the
magician, for he was a magician in his power over beasts of burden.”
Here a confusion arose and a man was observed trying to make his way
through the crowd from the vicinity of the chariot. “Nay, Abram the
wizard, do not slink away yet, I have something more to say to thee.”
Thus detected, Abram turned toward the chariot a countenance in which
fear, hate, and fury worked fearful contortions. “A curse on thy lying
tongue, thou dog of a Gentile,” he muttered.
Jokim continued: “This man was employed by your queen, Corinthia, to
train her team for the chariot race, and his brother Isidor was also
employed by one Rebecca, to train her team likewise. I now appeal to
your understanding and ask you why on that great day of the chariot
races did the queen’s horses refuse to obey her commands? Do ye not
remember that whenever she commanded them to go to the right they
turned to the left, and that when she commanded them to stay their
running, they ran the more madly?”
Here again Abram made a wild attempt to force a way through the crowd,
but Jokim cried out: “Whoever is for justice and Queen Corinthia, stop
him, till I have done, then ye may do with him as seems good.”
A hundred hands were ready to tear him in pieces if need be, and Abram
subsided into sullenness again.
“Do ye believe, inhabitants of Ophir, that the chariot horses of
Corinthia disobeyed her in so doing? Canst ye give any cause why they
should so forget the voice of their mistress in a day? This son of
perdition who slinks from our presence like the jackal of the plains
can tell you the reason thereof. Isidor, Rebecca, and Levi can tell why
a wicked plot was laid to kill your own beloved queen, and doubtless
seeing the present inhabitant of the throne, ye can make a guess as
to why. These four wicked people planned the murder and almost carried
it out. Isidor trained the team of Rebecca to heed the contrary sign
of command, and when the lesson was well learned under the direction
of Abram the magician, and by the knowledge of Rebecca and Levi, Abram
stole away the queen’s docile horses and put in their places the horses
of Rebecca on the night before the great chariot race, and covered them
with new mantles that the queen should not know them. That ye may know
we speak the truth, but read the evidence of guilt in the countenance
of yon sneaking jackal. We have proofs of all we say, and if ye are
for Corinthia, seize yon monster and bind him hand and foot, advance
to yonder temple and do likewise with Rebecca and Levi, and proclaim
Corinthia again queen and dethroned only by the wickedness of these
people.”
The rabble again burst into wild cheering. They seized Abram, whose
bravado melted away into contemptible cringings and pleadings for mercy
at the hands of the mob, who were near fulfilling the wishes of Jokim,
that cords and bands would have been unnecessary.
Meanwhile, Rebecca and Levi left alone in the temple with the priests,
with suspicions sharpened by guilt, mistrusted the cause of the
commotion, and hastily dispatching a priest to the palace for the
royal guard which the usurpers had found it necessary, or thought it
necessary, to provide; they then sent a second priest to the street to
ascertain what was the cause of the commotion. He soon returned, pale
as a ghost, and almost speechless. When he found words to deliver his
message he exclaimed: “It is Corinthia, O queen, and the people have
gone mad after her. They are coming toward the temple, fly, or your
lives will be less than straws before these madmen.”
“We will fight them,” said Levi, trembling and pale in spite of his
declaration of war. “Where are our fighting men?”
“I see them even now, O king, with their bows and arrows and
battleaxes; they will meet Jokim and his dogs by the temple here, and
then we shall see how long honeyed words will stand against arrows, or
the beauty of a white sepulcher against spears. It is plain that the
crisis will come when the soldiers and the followers of Corinthia meet,
which will be near the temple.”
Levi and Rebecca watched the progress of events from the eastern portal
of the great temple, nor had they long to wait. The shouting populace
advanced, led by the chariot of the travelers, until the bowmen were
within easy arrow-shot of them, and halted directly before the eastern
portal and made humble obeisance to their sovereigns, with perhaps a
trace of mockery in their salutations.
The king made as if he would address the crowd, but the people drowned
his voice by hooting and jeering, and flinging vile epithets at
Rebecca; and Levi shrank back cowed by the just wrath of the people.
Emboldened by his cowardice, one or two cries of “bring him out,”
were heard, and he hastily betook himself to the inner temple to hide
him among the sacred emblems of his chosen religion; but Rebecca came
boldly forth upon the porch of the temple and essayed to answer the
mob. Her voice was drowned in a wilder chorus than ever, and oaths and
blasphemies filled the air. Cries of harlot and murderess were freely
used, and the more frantically she strove to be heard, the louder
swelled the din of disorder. Seeing her efforts were futile, she turned
like a tigress at bay and beckoned the soldiers to discharge a flight
of arrows into the mob. But they too, standing there in the presence
of Corinthia for a few minutes, had caught the contagion of her lovely
presence, and instead of obeying the order, a few straggling arrows
were shot at Rebecca, striking the wall of the temple beside her.
Mad with rage against her rebellious subjects, and jealous hatred of
her rival, she ran to the captain of the guard and seizing a spear
from his hand she bounded like a tigress upon Corinthia, and aimed
a blow with all her might at her heart. But retribution was swift
upon her track; a man sprang forward from the crowd, and grasping the
weapon from her hand, drove it completely through her body, piercing
her heart. With a fiendish curse upon the “she-dog of Elim,” and such
a look of diabolical hatred upon her face as haunted those who saw it,
she fell to the ground a corpse, and her slayer kicked her dead body
aside exclaiming: “May the devil roast thy soul, and buzzards fatten
on thy carcass.” It was Isidor who dared to become the avenger of the
wrongs which he himself had helped to heap upon Corinthia.
But a mob is not a nice discriminator between consistent and
inconsistent justice, and the narrative of the tablets forces me,
though much against my personal wishes and feelings, to write it down
that his act was wildly applauded by the raging flood of humanity, and
as the taste of blood had whetted their appetites they began to shout
hoarsely for Levi, the false king, who had by foul measures come to
rule over them. The queen’s archers had witnessed her death without
betraying any emotion, but now they flung down their arrows and joined
in the cry of “Corinthia our Queen, God bless her forever.” Some one
shouted for a volunteer to bring out the skulking Levi, and Isidor
sprang forward, seized a spear from the ground and disappeared within
the portals. In a few moments he came forth, driving the terrified
Levi before him down to the very spot where Rebecca’s body lay in the
dust and filth of the street. Did he throw himself upon her body and
willingly share her fate? Not he. He grew so white with fear as to be
ghastly in his cowardice and starting back, he cried with an oath, “My
people, will you kill me for this harlot’s foul deeds? You have done
well to rid the earth of such scum, but I swear by Abraham, the just,
that I had nothing whatever to do with the plot of this sorceress and
her two fiendish confederates.”
Public opinion is rash, public judgment is harsh, but standing there
and witnessing the cowardly and slanderous lies of this man against
one who was at least as innocent, as guileless, as pure as he, but
who alas, could not lift up her voice to fling back with scorn the
accusations made by one who should have been bitterly upbraiding his
own folly and wickedness instead of hers, whose greatest fault had been
in trusting a craven, this surging, seething mass of excited humanity
in their fury compared this with another scene only a few moons agone
when another unfortunate woman had been hooted at, and jeered by the
same people, and whose lover, esteemed also an illicit lover, had
shared her horrible fate gladly and without a murmur, asking no greater
happiness than to die with her?
Ignorant as was the rabble, dimly as reason shone upon their feeble
intellects, they yet comprehended the vast difference in the degrees of
manhood that marked the two men, and also of womanly virtue that marked
the two women.
The pitiful cries of Levi for mercy only awakened their contempt; but
Jokim, who now perceived that in the heart of the people Corinthia
reigned supreme, and acting for her, commanded the archers to take up
again their bows, and conduct Levi to prison until his case could be
heard. Then there was another joyful coronation in which Corinthia
again was made queen of all Ophir, and speaking for her Jokim made a
great speech to the people in which he told them of all that he and
Corinthia had suffered in anticipation of death, and in hardships in
the mountains; how they had realized as scarcely to be believed, at
last, that they were safe from the taint of leprosy; and how their
experience had caused them to humble themselves greatly in the sight
of the God of the universe; how he had shown them that they had been
too much taken up with their ambitions and had thought too little of
the people of Ophir; but that they were determined by the grace of the
eternal Creator to rule more justly and to regard their own ends less.
Then a festival was proclaimed to last fourteen days, to celebrate the
return of Corinthia, and during the festival Jokim and Corinthia were
by solemn rites of the Elimites made man and wife, and so the scribes
recorded on the little brick tablets that Ophir prospered as it had
never prospered before; that a happier queen, or one more beloved
or admired, never lived; and that Jokim was the happiest and most
unselfish man in the kingdom, wholly devoted to the lovely Corinthia,
caring not in the least for power which he could have shared with her
for the asking, as she urged him to do; but he was perfectly contented
in seeing a loving and loyal people look up to one whom to praise and
love was greater happiness to Jokim than to have received the adulation
of Ophir himself.
Many other scribes took up the tablet account after the time of
Corinthia, who passed away as do all things earthly, after a long and
happy reign, but not one of them failed to speak of the glory, the
prosperity, the peacefulness and felicity, of the reign of Corinthia,
or to extol her beauty and her wisdom and her humility and to deplore
the fact that they should never again see a ruler so gifted, so fair,
and so blest as the first Queen of the Ten Tribes of Israel.
Human nature presents as many varieties as there are specimens. Some
men and women who strive with the most selfish and sordid ardor for
power, are sobered and purified by its responsibilities when they
attain it. Others who exhibit themselves before the public as pure,
high-minded beings, who accept power only because the good of their
fellows demands it, develop into monsters of haughtiness and tyranny.
Can we trust such evidence to prove that these two oppressed creatures
really underwent such a magic change, or is it proof merely that in
the first, good and benevolent qualities under favorable circumstances
would always rule, but may have been hidden and dwarfed by the evil in
his surroundings, the hardening influences of his associates against
which he could not rise to the level of his better self? And in case
of the nice moralist who nibbled delicately at the official bait,
subsequent acts of his suggest the bare possibility that he was merely
acting this part of the Christian gentleman because of the approval
it won him, and continued in his self-satisfied career only while he
deemed it policy to do so. But as soon as he rose to be the head and
ruler of a nation he could afford to ignore the opinions of his pious
associates and indulge the cold-blooded propensities that he had been
starving so long. So we see that you or I have need of nothing so much
in this world as a broad Christian charity by which to regulate our own
acts, and to judge the actions of others.
If we take pains to ferret out the cause of all the sickening bloodshed
recorded in the history of the world we shall find that much of it was
caused by religious intolerance; which means when reduced to practical
language, “Believe as I do in religion or burn.”
Unless we shall emancipate our intellects from the prejudices that
prevent our seeing a brother’s right to investigate, formulate, and
crystallize his own creed--until we admit that with equal light and
knowledge his chances of being right are at least equal to ours, we are
nothing but refined barbarians.
When we recollect that there are about one thousand different forms of
religions professed in the world, we can see that possibly on some of
the microscopic non-essential points of our religion there might by
the rarest possibility be a shade of error. Believing in the universal
fatherhood of God, and the universal motherhood of nature, why can we
not live at least so that the example of the Arctic Highlander shall
not be a standing reproof to our higher civilization, and a constant
reminder that when we reach a state of society as innocent of courts of
justice as theirs, as perfectly free from religious strife, it will be
when we shall, apparently, have progressed backward.
Many subsequent scribes recorded the story of their own time upon the
succeeding tablets; it was a history uninterrupted for a long period
by civil feuds, or foreign molestation; but not one of them failed to
celebrate the name and reign of the good, the wise, the transcendently
beautiful and beloved Queen Corinthia.