Solomon desired to see none unhappy on this day. He distributed more rewards, pensions, and gifts than he sometimes did within a whole year, and he pardoned Ahimaaz, the governor of the land of Naphtali, against whom his wrath had flamed before, because of his lawless levies; and he commuted the faults of many who had transgressed the law, nor did he overlook any of the petitions of his subjects,—save one.
When the king was passing out from the House at Lebanon through the small southern door, one in a garment of yellow leather stood up in his path,—a squat, broad-shouldered man, darkly-ruddy and morose of face, with a black, bushy beard, with a neck like a bull’s, and an austere gaze from underneath shaggy, black eyebrows. This was the high priest of Moloch’s temple. He uttered but one word in a supplicating voice:
“King!...”
In the bronze belly of his god were seven divisions: one for meal, another for doves, the third for sheep, the fourth for rams, the fifth for calves, the sixth for beeves; but the seventh, meant for living infants brought by their mothers, had long stood empty at the interdict of the king.
Solomon walked in silence past the priest, but the latter stretched out his hands after him and exclaimed with supplication:
“King! I adjure thee by thy joy!... Show me this kindness, O king, and I shall reveal to thee what danger threatens thy life.”
Solomon made no reply; and the eyes of the priest, who had clenched his powerful hands into fists, followed him to the exit with a ferocious glare.
