"Now, O prince, I return with Baba to my house. Thou hast heard all that my slave learned of the treachery lurking in the Great City. It is to you that Babylon looks for her defence. Her people are yours. Do with us all as you will. We are in your hands." Ribâta made the lowest obeisance, something not due from his rank to any one except a god; and Belshazzar hastily raised him up.
"It is to thy loyalty, O faithful one, that Babylon will owe her freedom. Baba likewise shall receive her reward. She hath saved Istar's life—that is more to me than Babylon, than myself, than all the earth. Command a litter for her now, and take thou my chariot for thy return. The council of lords sits to-morrow after sacrifice. Then we will speak of the invader. Till then—Bel keep you safely!"
Smiling, Ribâta turned back into the other apartment. He found Baba on her knees, beside Istar's couch, gazing in ecstasy into Istar's open eyes. On the other side the baby, haloed round with a soft and luminous light, slept quietly. Ribâta was reluctant to draw Baba from the scene; but the child was faint with fatigue, and so, leading her gently away, he lifted her, when they were outside the door, in both his arms, and carried her, all black and dishevelled as she was, out to the gate, where, in the face of a dozen astonished men, he placed her in a litter, himself mounted Belshazzar's chariot, and drove away in it in the direction of the canal of the Four Seasons.
If Baba's day of labor had just ended, that of Belshazzar only now began. The affair of the rab-mag had left him intensely uneasy, and this, coupled with his great anxiety over the sedition in the city, promised a sleepless night. Still, till further news of Nergal-Yukin's state should be brought him, he was powerless to act, and therefore he returned to Istar's room and seated himself there, with his head resting on his hands. The minutes passed unheeded, for his mind was full. He knew that his wife lay near him, and, though her eyes had been open when he entered the room, he believed her still incapable of sight or hearing. Presently, when his head had sunk lower still, he felt the lightest touch on his arm, and he started to his feet, to cry out in amazement as he beheld Istar, tall and white, swaying beside him.
"Thou!" he said, gasping.
"The heart of Belshazzar is troubled. From far away come I to bring thee consolation in thine hours of woe," she said, quietly, as one speaking from a great distance. "Be comforted, O my lord! That that is ordained for the Great City must come to pass. Neither thou nor any other can prevent it. But be not troubled in thy heart, my prince. In the end this world shall grow dim before thine eyes, for there will be opened before them another kingdom where there shall be no time, neither any evil-doing. Until the coming of that day, my lord, be comforted—take heart—and be comforted!"
In that one moment Istar shone forth in all her radiant glory, like some spirit from a divine sunset. And the prince fell down before her on his knees, worshipping silently. But after she ceased to speak the radiance went, and she fainted before him in her weakness of the flesh. So he caught her in his arms and brought her once more to her couch. When she woke again, only Belshazzar remembered the words that she had spoken to him. Yet he knew that the message had come from out of the silver sky, and with this knowledge peace came to him, and he went and lay down upon the divan in the room.
He had lain there for some minutes, his mind filled less with foreboding than with wonder, when, for the third time, the eunuch appeared at the door, this time wearing on his carefully trained face an untoward expression of interest.