CHAPTER XXVIII.
Zillah's soul now impelled her to hasten her flight. She must not be captured. For what could she live in Tyre but to grace the pride of Rubaal, insolent as he was insignificant? Then the memory of Layah, who had given her life to encourage her in fleeing such a fate, would be a perpetual rebuke. She would see the dead girl's face always in remonstrance. Layah would become to her a jinn, a demon, her human love turned to ghostly hate.
Nor was this all. Zillah conceived of herself as having broken faith with Astarte in not rendering the sacrifice. She could not now be a priestess of the goddess. Astarte, if a real divinity, would strike her dead the first time she attempted to minister at her altar.
But Hiram had not believed in Astarte; why should she? It was possible that Hiram was living. The scar? It must be so. If not, the circle which priest Hanno had told her to follow surely indicated his will. Her human affection led her to seek him. If he were dead to earth, and, as the priests said, taken to Baal and become a god, he surely would have prevented any misuse of the symbol he had given her. It must lead to him, to some mountain-top, or some cave where gods have been known to meet with men.
There was but one course open to her. It was flight. She knew not whither; but, if the worst came, she had the last resort still left. She could join Layah and Hiram anywhere, at any moment; and, suiting her action to her thought, she felt in her bosom for a phial containing the poison with which she had intended to accomplish her suicide if anything prevented the quicker work of the knife. It was there. Drawing it out, she looked through the ruddy liquid, and apostrophized it thus:
"You will befriend me! Red, like the blood of Layah! Red, like Hiram's circle! True friend, if men prove false! We cannot misunderstand each other!"
She kissed the phial, and put it back into her bosom.
It became quite dark, except for the lanterns that hung from the trees and the torches that the revellers were carrying. She stepped out into the night, closely veiled.
A voice, that of the stranger, greeted her. It did not startle her. She had become familiar with it, though so few words had it uttered, because they had been words of kindness and confidence. Strange though it was, it was the only voice in all the world that she dared to hear now. She must trust it. What else was there to trust on earth or in the sky?
"I am ready. Lead! I will follow," she whispered.
It was not difficult to avoid detection, there were so many veiled and masked figures flitting among the lights and shadows of the sacred grove. Zillah felt confident of safety, at least from the priests, should they seek to detain her; for her quick eyes could not fail to notice that there were others in league with her guide. Two men almost kept pace with her. Sometimes one went ahead, and, making a way for himself through the thicker throngs, left it open for her. Or, if attention seemed drawn to her, one of these mysterious attendants dropped behind her, and blocked the way until she was beyond the sight of the curious.
A little way down the ravine, where the crowd was thinner, a litter was in waiting. As she entered it, the two men she had observed lifted it, and, turning abruptly from the river, climbed the steep bank. As they reached the bluff and placed the litter upon the ground a fourth person joined the party. His stay was but for a moment. He threw his arms about one of the bearers of the litter.
"All the gods be praised, and especially Jehovah of the Jews, this time!" said he, putting his hand upon the shoulder of the guide. "But I must away. This is no place for me, the future high priest of Melkarth! Ha! ha! But now you have the goddess herself enshrined in a litter, you will have safe journey. For a while Baal and Jehovah watch between us, good Marduk." The speaker was gone.
The guide lifted Zillah from the litter; and as he held her by the hand, he placed it in that of one of the carriers.
"Marduk, have I kept my covenant with you?"
Marduk's reply was not to him. A whispered word, and Zillah lay speechless in the arms of the Phœnician merchant.
The men withdrew as from too near proximity to some holy scene. Four horses were brought. As Zillah was lifted to the saddle, the Phœnician mentioned the names of his comrades, Manasseh of Jerusalem and Elnathan of Galilee, who in turn kissed the hand of the maiden and mounted their horses—Elnathan guiding the way, and Manasseh following, while Marduk rode by Zillah's side. The moon burst brilliantly from behind a mass of clouds.
"Astarte's parting blessing!" exclaimed Elnathan.
"No, Astarte goes with us," said Manasseh, remembering the scene in the shambles. "A fairer goddess than Phœnicia ever dreamed of!"
Great was the commotion in the Grove of Adonis late that night. It was reported that Ahimelek's daughter had not been seen to come from her apartment, though her maid had returned to the pavilion. As the hours wore on, the anxiety of the priests led them to search the place. There lay the girl upon the ground. The armlets and necklace were assumed to identify her; and such was the dread the common people had of a dead body, that no one of the domestics from Ahimelek's household had ventured to look upon her face.
The priests ordered that the body should be left where it had fallen until swift couriers had run to Gebal, where Ahimelek had taken advantage of the coming exaltation of his daughter to the priesthood of Astarte, to demand the monopoly of supplying the provisions that were sold to the caterers at Apheca during the festival—a source of enormous revenues. His presence at Gebal had been sufficient to secure the discomfiture of all competitors for the trade, and many of his ships had exchanged their cargoes for the gold of the venders at the dock. Just before the priestly couriers brought him the news of Zillah's supposed death, a messenger had come from Tyre to Gebal, conveying a letter which had been discovered in her chamber after the family party had left their home. It read:
"My Father,—A daughter's obedience is sacred while the life he has given her remains. But I cannot endure the severity of your command. With your permission I once gave myself to King Hiram. I cannot recall this betrothal. To him I shall go. This will explain anything that may occur at the festival of Tammuz.
Zillah."
On reading the letter, Ahimelek's rage knew no bounds. He cursed his daughter aloud in the hearing of the bystanders. He cursed the name of Hiram, and defied him to appear to him as god or jinn or ghost. He even challenged Baal himself to thus circumvent the will of the richest man of Phœnicia—one who held the welfare of the state religion at his disposal.
"Let the Temple of Melkarth fall! Let the image of the god rot!" he exclaimed, in his insane rage.
Other couriers then arrived bringing the news of Zillah's death. "Killed by her maid, who has escaped," they explained.
The remnant of fatherly instinct asserted itself for a moment in Ahimelek's breast.
"My daughter! My daughter!" he cried, sitting upon the ground, and covering his face with his hands. But the gentler mood gave way to his wrath, as on the Fire Night the flames in the grove of Apheca caught the unburnt trees.
He held the letter in his hand, which trembled with his frenzy. Bewildered with his anger, he read it aloud.
"She has slain herself!" he cried. "Curse! curse! A father's curse upon the suicide! She has robbed me of my riches, of my honor. And you priests, see you not she has robbed you? robbed Melkarth? robbed the king? robbed Tyre?"
Then, as the fire dies down when resinous matter has been consumed, so he buried his head in his hands and moaned.
"My child! my Zillah!"
The priests waited his commands. By custom one who betrayed Astarte on such occasions was thrown into the pool of Apheca. With difficulty they aroused the wretched man to understand the situation. He stared stupidly at them for a time. His mind was evidently giving way in the fierce contention of his grief and rage. Suddenly he rose, pale with passion.
"Her body to the pool!" he shouted, and fell as if dead upon the floor.
Upon the return of the couriers the priests held counsel. They judged that there could be no doubt of the suicide. Her letter to her father proved it. Or if she fell not by her own hand, her maid was only an accomplice, and executed her mistress's purpose. The honor of the goddess demanded some disgrace to be shown the body of one who had flung such contempt upon the entire worship of Astarte. The whole Phœnician world would hear of it; it must hear of Astarte's vengeance also. Besides, the father's command could be quoted as inspired directly by Baal. Sudden insanity was believed to be an over-exaltation of the mind due to divine influence. Surely Ahimelek's raving was sufficient evidence that the hand of the god was upon him.
The body of the supposed Zillah was lifted from the ground by men who averted their eyes, that they might not be polluted, or even blinded, by the sight of the unhallowed thing. They thrust the corpse into a sack, and plunged it into the pool. Men were deputed to watch it as it emerged from the great caldron and floated down the stream, and to follow it, carrying with them poles with which to dislodge it from the rocks and fallen timber that might obstruct the river, until the body should be lost in the waters of the Great Sea.