Istar of Babylon: A Phantasy

by Margaret Horton Potter

Now Baba was in a sudden agony to escape, for she felt that the life of Istar rested in her hands. Yet sunset was still many hours away, and the talk that was beginning gave signs of proving exactly what Ribâta had told her to hear. Therefore from minute to minute she lingered on in her place, while the story of treachery and blood-guiltiness was made clear to her, and it seemed as if, with the evidence in her hands, it must soon be possible to have these men put to death without imprisonment and with a mere form of trial. And had it been two centuries earlier this might perhaps have been arranged. But Babylon was not Nineveh, and the power of Nabonidus was not that of the old monarchs of Chaldea; neither was the king by nature a tyrant, or even a strict ruler. And possibly because of these things, and only because of them, these councils were ventured at all.

"What is the last word from Kurush?" demanded Salathiel the Jew, of Amraphel.

There was a general little murmur of interest, and a settling down upon the cushions as if for a lengthy talk.

"Kurush," said Amraphel, with all the authority of Cyrus himself, "is now in the marsh country south of Teredou, and from there he despatches a letter to us. Ye shall hear it."

Amraphel drew from the pocket of his broad girdle a clay tablet, slightly larger than those in general use for letters, and covered with neatly pressed cuneiform characters. This, with the aid of a small, round magnifying-glass, always used in correspondence, he read aloud to those assembled—and to Baba above:

"'Unto Amraphel, high servant of the ancient gods of Babylon, and to those that are with him, thus saith Kurush the Achæmenian: With me it is well. With thee and thy houses may it be exceeding well. Now I, the king, lie secretly in the country to the south of the city of Teredou, not far from the gulf of the setting sun. And here, from the east and from the north, the army will assemble about me. The people in the land are poor and ill-content. Little grain have they to eat, and short measure of milk to drink. The king their lord knows them not. To me they turn, in their extremity. Soon shall ye learn of revolts among the dwellers in the lowlands: know, then, that it will be by my hand. After this we will march northward, towards the gates of the Great City.

"'Gobryas, my general, the governor of Gutium, is in the north. Before him, in the month of Duzu (June), Sippar and its works shall fall.

"'Look to it only that ye hold Babylon estranged from its king. She whom we have feared—doth she bear herself yet divinely? The captive Jews that are in the city, greet them well for me. Tell them that, after my coming, those that open to me the Great City shall know again the land of their fathers and their fathers' fathers. And those of the Babylonians that shall acclaim me master, to each of these shall be given out of the public moneys thirty shekels of silver; but to the great that bow before shall be given high offices, honor, and much wealth. And in the month of Ab, Queen of the Bow, shall Babylon know me.'"

The seal of Cyrus was affixed to the end of the epistle; and the brick was passed round the circle, that each man present might be sure that it was genuine.

Now began a discussion that proved tedious and scarcely comprehensible to Baba. It was about numbers and divisions of men, and was accompanied by the reading of endless lists of names, and the checking of each as true or untrue to the cause of rebellion. And after listening to this talk until she found that it would be utterly hopeless for her to attempt to remember anything valuable in it, Baba rose, pulled the rug carefully back to its original place, listened for a moment to make sure that she was undiscovered, and then, with the utmost caution, made her way to the rear door of the house, which she unfastened, and through which she safely passed. Once outside, in the glare of day, her heart afire with anxiety for Istar, she started away, in a light-running pace, up through the city that she knew so well. Through the Traders' square, across the canal of the Prophet, along the river-bank for an endless distance she ran, till she came to the great bridge, across which loomed the high, blue walls of the new palace.