"Say on—all thou hast heard!" commanded Belshazzar, sharply.
Thereupon Baba, seating herself on the floor, recounted to the two men her adventure of the afternoon. The whole council, as she had overheard it, the names or the faces of the men that took part in it, and the letter from Cyrus the Elamite, word for word, she unravelled from the warp and woof of her memory. Her auditors listened in silence, staring into each other's faces, neither of them wholly amazed, yet both strongly moved by this confirmation of their worst suspicions—the suspicions that Nabonidus would not entertain. Baba gave the story in detail, and took some time over it. She had barely finished, and there had been no time for question or comment, when the attendant eunuch reappeared at the door, saying:
"It is the hour of sunset. Nergal-Yukin craves admittance to my lord and to the divine Lady Istar."
"Come thou hither," said Belshazzar, beckoning the eunuch to his side. "Let Nergal-Yukin come hither to this room," he said, softly, "and as soon as he shall be within, summon thou six soldiers of the guard and command them to wait my call outside in the hall. Let them bring ropes of stout cactus and a gag of wood, and cause them to keep silence there without until I shall summon them. Now, behold, I have spoken. Go thy way and obey my word."
The eunuch departed obediently, and a moment later Nergal-Yukin entered the bedchamber of the lady of Babylon. He was a tall fellow, this rab-mag of the king; lean and withered in body, black-robed, and wearing the peaked hat that belonged to the livery of the royal household. Around his waist was a golden cord, at the end of which dangled a narrow-bladed knife of Indian steel, its handle inlaid with lapis-lazuli and gold. In his hand he bore a golden phial of rare workmanship. His salute to the prince was markedly obsequious, but he regarded the two others in the room with great disfavor.
"Let the prince my lord command every one to be dismissed from his presence. Otherwise my spell must lose its potency."
"These are my friends. Let them remain here," returned Belshazzar, shortly.
"Then let my lord give me leave to depart out of his presence. The work will be useless," said the old man, with something like a sneer, beginning to back towards the door.
But Belshazzar was master of himself and of the situation. He lifted his hand, and the physician halted. "Nergal-Yukin, on pain of death, get thee to thy work. Pronounce the spell; and may the gods take heed of it."
The words were spoken quietly enough; and yet there could be no disobeying that tone. Nergal-Yukin's face darkened; but, however unwillingly, he advanced to Istar's side. Lifting over her both his long, withered hands, he began to pray in the Accadian tongue to Nergal, the god of health. Belshazzar, Ribâta, and Baba stood listening stolidly, while the high-pitched voice went on and on, from prayers to exorcisms, and finally into mystic exclamations and phrases. Here the man's manner changed, and he gave symptoms of a working into religious frenzy. His auditors, however, remained painfully unresponsive, and the final "Amanû" was succeeded by a biting silence. It was then, with a resentful satisfaction, that the rab-mag began the consummation of his work. He commanded a basin of water and a fine towel. These provided, he lifted Istar's right hand from the coverlet, and proceeded to wash and dry it during the repetition of further prayers. Then he turned to Belshazzar.