CHAPTER XXXVI
THE POWER OF THE DOG
Towards sunset, Ishtar wandered into Babylon anxious, forlorn, and desolate, yet carefully nursing in her breast that spark of true courage she inherited from a line of warriors. In plain attire, travel-worn and dejected, she passed on among a crowd of wayfarers heeded by none. Desirous of escaping observation, she yet could not help reflecting bitterly how everything about her was changed, herself perhaps most of all.
It seemed but yesterday that the daughter of Arbaces moved abroad attended by a retinue of servants, escorted by a troop of horsemen. Even when most she affected privacy, she could not stir without women, camels, foot-cloths, fan-bearers, all the encumbrances of rank. Eager eyes were fain to pierce her veil, that they might gaze on her beauty; kind voices wafted after her their welcome or good wishes, because of her own graces and her father's fame. She was flattered, admired—above all, loved. And now she must shrink beneath the wall, to avoid the rude camel-driver and his ungainly charge. The water-carrier, tottering under his jars, gruffly bade her stand aside to let him pass; and the only courtesy she experienced amongst that hurrying, shifting throng was from a curled and bearded bowman, who would fain have lifted her veil as the price of his protection, and whose good offices she repulsed with a scornful energy that put him to flight in considerable dismay.
She wept a little after this effort, and hurried on faster to the shelter of what had once been her home.
In the days of mourning that succeeded his death, or, as his subjects were taught to believe, the enthronement amongst the stars of the Great King, a strange repressive power had made itself felt amongst all classes in the city of Babylon. An unseen hand, cold, weighty, and irresistible, seemed laid upon the whole people, forbidding any demonstration of sympathy and indeed all expression of feeling whatever, public or private. The king's host, as it was still termed, had been recalled within the walls, and amalgamated cordially enough with their comrades of that army which was avowedly in the interests of the queen; but the citizens gained little from such an alliance, save more mouths to feed, more prejudices to consult, and it might almost be said more masters to serve. The priests of Baal too, with whom, in the reign of Ninus, his men of war had been covertly at variance, seemed now on terms of the closest brotherhood with all who handled bow and spear. Such a fusion of two non-productive classes boded little good to those whose industry supported both; and the thoughtless Babylonian, usually so light-hearted, found himself saddened and depressed when he had fondly expected to eat, drink, and be merry, under the easy rule of a lord who preferred feast to fray, bubble of wine-cup to clash of sword and spear. From a change of rulers Babylon had expected a change of those principles which constitute government itself. Ninus, though firm and impartial, was severe, and reined her with a strong hand; she had therefore always looked forward to the day when his son should sway the sceptre, as a time of ease and luxury, with license for every man to think and speak and act as seemed good in his own eyes. But Ninus went to the stars, Ninyas reigned in his stead; and the citizens wondered, with blank faces, why bread was dear and water scarce, the priest covetous, the warrior oppressive, and the royal yoke harder than ever to be borne.
Under such circumstances none thought it worth while to bestir himself for the bettering of his own position, or the assistance of his neighbour. If a well was choked, he cared not to clear it: if a wall fell down, he let it lie. There was a shadow over the city, and its inhabitants already regretted the wise foresight and judicious government of the Great Queen.
Ishtar felt very weary before she reached the portals of her father's house, very sad and friendless when she crossed its threshold and looked round on the precincts of her home. The sun was down, but a clear cold moon poured its beams over the scene of desolation and decay. It was obvious that the palace must have been abandoned on the night of its attack, and that no friend or servant of Arbaces had revisited it since. The assailants, having another object than plunder, carried away from his dwelling only that one of his possessions the chief captain most dearly valued, which they took with them to Ascalon. But an unguarded house could scarce remain unspoiled for a single night in such a city as Babylon. And Ishtar found her father's dwelling rifled and sacked from roof-tree to door-stone completely, as though an enemy had taken it by storm. In the court-yard remnants of shawls, silks, precious arms, costly flagons, strewed the inlaid pavement, dinted and defaced by marks of struggling feet; but the shreds were frayed and torn, stained with wine or stiff with blood, the weapons bent or broken; the flagons lay crushed and battered where they had been emptied and dashed down. Pushing aside some rent hangings at the entrance of the court, night-hawks shrieked and night-owls hooted, while a bat, flying out, struck cold and clammy against Ishtar's cheek. Her flesh crept with horror; but that sorrow mastered fear, she must have cried aloud for help.
The moon shone brighter as it mounted in the sky. Patches of dried blood stained courts and passages, a splintered javelin and a naked sword, lay at her feet—fragments of alabaster and gilding broken from the sculptures on the walls strewed the floor; but whatever loss the assailants might have sustained, it seemed that they had borne away their wounded and their dead. As yet she was spared the ghastly presence of a corpse.
Cold and faint, she leaned against the wall to take breath. It had come to this. Amongst all that shattered splendour in those very halls where her father feasted scores of warriors, every one a captain of ten thousand, there was now neither bread to eat nor wine to drink—no, nor the means of purchasing so much as a draught of fair water; though so short a while ago the palace of Arbaces had been stored with royal gifts and costly merchandise, meat and drink, gold, precious stones, and spoil of war.