THE FEAST OF BAAL
With the last rays of the sinking sun, as its crimson disk went down into the desert, there rose from the echoing temple such a clang of cymbals, such a bray of trumpets, such a wild burst of loud triumphant music, as caused to ring again her hundred brazen gates, and warned Great Babylon, through all her countless palaces, that the sacrifice by fire was now to be perfected before their god, and the sacred feast of Baal consummated with the close of day.
At this given signal, thousands of torches flared out on balcony and terrace, innumerable lamps gleamed and twinkled in bower, grove, and garden; while from the beacon-fire that crowned the tower of Belus a thin red flame shot up into the night, like the tongue of an angry serpent reared on end to strike. Far below, in street and square, were massed the eager expectant multitude, their white garments and dark faces brought into strong relief under that fitful glare; while above them, in grand imposing perspective, loomed long avenues of the mighty bulls of granite, with wings unfurled and stately human mien, calm, stern, colossal, types of majesty and strength.
Not a warrior was to be seen; not a bow nor spear, nor so much as the glitter of a headpiece; but every tower at every gate, every stronghold and place of concealment within the walls, swarmed with armed men; while in the paradise that surrounded the palace of the Great Queen was arrayed such a force as would have sufficed to sack the whole city in an hour.
Semiramis, dressed in royal robes, with the royal tiara on her head, saw them served with food and wine ere she went down their ranks in person; while every captain of a thousand, for himself and his command, swore fidelity to the queen, to Ninus, to the dynasty of Nimrod, especially to the young prince, who was destined hereafter for the throne of the Great King.
In all her varying moods, the present seemed to suit her best; and many a fierce bowman remembered afterwards how lovely the queen had looked under the shade, as of coming sorrow, that clouded her gentle brow—with how tender a grace she seemed to take leave of each man individually, as if something warned her she was bidding them a last farewell. When she retired into her palace, not one but looked on its walls with something of that sweet sad longing which thrills a lover's heart who gazes on the dwelling of his mistress, on the casket that contains his priceless pearl.
But it was whispered in the rank that she had been seen afterwards in the direction of the temple, disguised and unattended, desirous perhaps of witnessing unrecognised the procession and ceremonies in which her sex forbade her to take part.
The pageant began on the very threshold of the Great King's palace, from which Ninus emerged at sundown, arrayed in his royal robes, with the royal tiara round his brows, the royal parasol held above his head. He wore a long flowing garment of silk reaching to his ankles, embroidered in mystic characters, edged with fringes and tassels of gold. Over this a second robe or mantle, trailing behind him, of the sacred violet colour, open in front, and bordered, a palm's-breadth deep, with an edging of gold. His long gaunt arms were bare, save for the shining bracelets that twined like serpents round his mighty wrists. He wore his sword also and two daggers, being the only man armed in the whole procession, except his shield-hearer, who, on the present occasion, in right of his office, bore the state parasol even at night, and was bound to attend his king as far as the upper story of the temple, on which the Talar was reared, but not a step farther for his life.
Those of his friends who were near enough to observe Sargon's face hardly recognised him. Usually so swarthy, he had now turned deadly pale, and the strong warrior's limbs dragged under him, as if he too, like his worn old master, were closely approaching the end.
Though men cast down their eyes before his splendour, appearing only to study the hem of his garment, they yet knew that the Great King looked very sad and weary; that his feet bore with difficulty that towering frame, which was still so massive a ruin; that the brave old face had grown wofully livid and sunken, the fierce eyes dull and tame and dim. Even the martial spirit of his race seemed to have died within him.
But it blazed up yet once more ere it went out for ever. When Assarac, at the head of twenty thousand priests, prostrated himself in the entrance of the temple, with a welcome, as it were, to his royal visitor, there passed over the Great King's face a light of sudden wrath and scorn.
"To-morrow!" he muttered. "To-morrow! When a fire hath licked up the locusts, mine oxen shall tread out the corn!"
And Assarac, bending low in deepest reverence, heard the implacable threat, accepting it calmly, without a quiver of pity, remorse, or fear.
Shouts louder than any that had preceded them rose from his people as the Assyrian king went up into the temple of his god. He never turned to mark it. The dull listless apathy had come over him again, as if some instinct told him that not thus, amongst odours of incense and oblation, sounds of harp and tabor, lute and viol, in the mellow lustre of festive lamps, gaudy with blazing gems and robes of shining silk, bearing peaceful offerings, surrounded by white-robed priests, should a warrior-king look his last on the nation of warriors he had ruled!
At this point the cymbals clashed in a yet wilder burst of melody; a chant, sweet, measured, and monotonous, was taken up by a thousand practised voices; while in every part of Babylon, where shrine had been adorned or altar raised, torch was laid to fagot, steel to victim; streams of blood filled the new-cut trenches, fumes of sacrifice rose on the evening breeze, loud shrieks and yells went up from his maddened worshippers, while, leaping like demons in the fire and smoke, naked priests of Baal raved and writhed and cut themselves with knives in honour of their god.
One man alone stood looking on unmoved. He was dressed as if for a journey, with a long staff in his hand. His attendants, much interested in the proceedings, held a few asses, large powerful animals of their kind, at a short distance off. It was the Israelite out of the land of Egypt, whom Assarac had released from his bonds, at liberty, and about to depart. He looked very sad and thoughtful; there was less of scorn and pity in his eye, though once, roused, as it appeared, by some unusually intemperate outbreak, a cloud of resentment passed over his face, and he muttered—
"Infinite mercy! Infinite patience! How long, Lord, how long?"
Then he withdrew from the crowd to place himself in the centre of his little band, where, formally and solemnly, he shook the dust from off his feet ere he mounted an ass; and so, followed by his handful of countrymen, proceeded gravely through the Southern Gate, outward to the desert.
Within the wide area that encircled the temple of Baal, his priests, though so numerous, were drawn out in orderly array that must have gratified the military eye of the Great King. Terrace by terrace the long lines of white stretched in endless perspective, every votary, from bearded patriarch to boy-faced eunuch, with a lotus-flower in his hand. To the image of each deity in turn, as it was borne before the monarch, they prostrated themselves with devout obeisance; while at every prostration clouds of smoke ascended from the altars, golden cups were emptied in drink-offerings, and blood spouted from the throats of fresh victims as sheep and oxen fell prostrate at the propitious moment under one well-directed blow.
Shamash passed on—the god of light, with his burnished disk representing the sun's dazzling surface, and identifying that statue of solid gold, under the weight of which its bearers, tall stalwart priests, seemed to fail and labour; Ishtar too, with her pale reflected beauty, like the moon she typified, gentle sister to the Lord of Day; and Bar and Nebo, versatile, pliant, representations of progress, improvement, human intelligence and skill; Merodach, king of battles, bold, defiant, standing on the lion's back bending his bow; and Ashtaroth, spirit of beauty, love, and light, peerless, radiant, alluring, with the bright star on her forehead and the serpent in her hand. Other images followed, of different minor influences: winged monsters threatening man, or coerced in turn by some superior spirit—the beetle, the scorpion, lions with human faces, wild bulls fighting head to head, or flying from each other heel to heel; Dagon, with more than human beauty to the girdle, foul, hideous in fins and scales below; Ashur too, monarch of the godlike circle; and Baal himself; Nisroch with the eagle's head, the burnished pinions, supreme, all-powerful, immutable, the Destiny from whose award there was no appeal, from whose vengeance no escape. Lastly, the symbolical and mystic representation of some power that must yet be superior even to Fate, some abstract essence, some intelligence infinite, inconceivable, expressed, vaguely enough, by a circle of gold encompassing a wheel of wings.
Only on such solemn occasions as the present was this emblem carried in the place of honour, immediately preceding the monarch, when he officiated in the sacred capacity of priest as well as king. It seemed to be regarded with an awe-struck reverence by all; and even Ninus, impatient as he was of such ceremonies, believing in little but his queen and his sword, could not forbear a gesture of respect while he passed beneath it, at the lowest of the steps he was about to ascend into the secluded precincts of the Talar.
Here Assarac, with another prostration, laid at the royal feet a square casket of gold, and a representation of the fir-cone, worked in the same metal, emblematic, as it were, of the two elements, fire and water; the inflammable properties of the fir-cone, with its reproductive vitality, representing the generative powers of heat; while the golden vessel seemed suggestive of that fluid which, pervading all nature and embracing the whole earth, tempering and allaying the ardour of its opposite, may be considered as the feminine influence in creation.
Thus flung down before him, these offerings signified that the Great King in his present capacity assumed vicariously the attributes of Ashur, or even Baal himself. Assarac, with considerable ceremony, now presented a cup of wine, for his sovereign to pour out in drink-offering to the host of heaven so soon as he should have reached the summit of the temple. While Ninus took it from the high-priest's hand another look of immeasureable scorn passed over the old lion face—a look that seemed lost on the eunuch, whose final prostration expressed the deepest homage, the utmost devotion, that could be rendered by a subject to his king.
The Southern night had fallen; the stars came out by countless thousands in the calm fathomless sky. Once more, high above trumpet-peal and clash of cymbal, lute and viol, harp and tabor, rose a deafening heart-stirring shout—irrepressible tribute of honour and admiration for the greatest warrior of a great warlike line. It was the farewell of his Assyrian people to their Assyrian king.
While it rang in his dull old ears, and brought the light back to his dim old eyes, the heavy folds of a curtain hanging at the foot of that sacred staircase he alone was privileged to ascend, parted, to close again for ever on the grand old form, noble even in its last decline, and majestic in the very ruin of its decay.
Assarac drew a long breath of relief; and Beladon, at the extremity of one of the lower terraces, whispered to the priest standing next him,
"What think you, brother—will they come down for him to-night in chariots of fire, as it is written in the stars?"
To which the other replied:
"Sacrifices and drink-offerings have been rendered, enough to propitiate a thousand gods; and surely brother, the stars cannot lie."
But on the face of his people, from which he had never turned in fear nor scorn, it was the Great King's destiny to look no more. Ascending into the seclusion of the Talar, he had no sooner entered its cedar-house than a strange lethargy and drowsiness enwrapped his senses. Ere he could pour out his drink-offering to the four quarters of heaven, his eyes grew heavy, his perceptions failed, his feet seemed glued amidst the rushes, strewed ankle-deep on the wooden floor, and he sank wearily into the throne prepared for him, like a man overcome with sleep.
He must have been dreaming surely, when in a corner of that chamber, at the level of his feet, he saw a dark face, brought out by a sudden glare of light—a face of which the stern lineaments, familiar surely, yet now so distorted as to be unrecognised, denoted some set purpose inassailable by pity or remorse. In the gleaming eyes, fixed steadfastly on his own, he read a horror that seemed to freeze his blood; but even then in his ghastly trance the stout old heart laughed within him, to acknowledge no sense of fear.
Yes; he must be dreaming. What else could mean these gathering shadows that oppressed his lungs, that smarted in his eyes, that numbed his faculties? He was in a glow of torpid warmth now, conscious but of a heavy drowsiness, broken by leaping flashes of light; while there passed before him, like a spirit floating across a sea of fire, the delicate head, the pale proud face, the matchless beauty of his queen. He stretched his gaunt old arms, he strove to rise, to cry out; but his limbs failed him, his head drooped, his tongue clove to his mouth.
"A dream," he thought again; "surely a dream."
But it was the last dream of the Great King, fallen into that sleep from which he never woke on earth again.