"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.
CHAPTER XXIX.
The fugitives from Apheca rode as rapidly as the sure-footed horses could pick their way in the moonlight up the side of the western range of Lebanon, and at dawn looked down upon the majestic valley of the Litany. The weariness of the journey, and the attendant excitement, could not altogether destroy the impressiveness of the marvellous scene.
Thousands of feet below them lay the green meadows. Far across to the east rose the other range of Lebanon, a mighty wall delaying the sunrise. Among its snow-covered peaks the rays of morning poured, as the white foam surges over the breakers and between the jagged rocks on the Syrian coast. Tongues of snow filled the high ravines, and, diminishing as they descended, carried the illusion of an overflowing reservoir of light. Below the lustral crest, the rocky sides of Lebanon were black in shadow; here gashed by the ceaseless plunging of cataracts, there beetling with crags, like castles which had borne the assaulting storms since chaos. High against the mountain's base the immense amount of detritus made a sloping mound of soil, rich and green like a bank of emerald.
The valley of the Litany which lay between the two Lebanon ranges had been for ages the gateway of Syria from the north. Down through it had poured the vast armies of Assyria and Babylon, devastating Syria and Palestine on their way to the great objective conquest, the land of Egypt. Now it was dotted with the caravansaries of traders, the camps of Persian soldiers, halting en route, and the black tent villages of the farmers who thus congregated for mutual protection in the midst of the fields and herds they were watching.
Midway across the valley was a little city, whose buildings clustered about a temple, each of whose enormous stones was clearly marked to the eye miles away, so immense were they. These stones had been consecrated by the blood of human sacrifices. This was Baal-bek, the city of Baal. Not far from it Marduk pointed out his tent, a white cone just distinguishable in the distance.