Nabu-Nahid had ceased to eat, and sat regarding his son with an air of petulant displeasure. "Now speak to me quickly," he said, in his mildly injured fashion. "The season is too late for lion-hunting; your command over the treasury equals mine; I have at present not one dancer that would please you; and for the matter of soldiers—go to Nânâ-Babilû at Sippar. I am not the commanding general. What, then, seeing these things, canst thou ask of me?"
Belshazzar snapped his fingers and frowned mightily. The fears in his mind might be vague and ill-defined as yet; but when he did consider, in some presentient fashion, the scenes of terror that were soon to be enacted in the Great City, and when he imagined his father, weak, gentle, yielding as he was, swept into that furious vortex of blood and of death, what could there be but pity for the old man and dread for his inevitable end? Now, for a moment, indeed, Belshazzar wondered how it was that his father had held his throne even one little twelvemonth, after the strife that had preceded his coronation. Yet for seventeen prosperous years this one ruler had held city and state together peaceably; and there were few Chaldean kings that had done as much.
"My father," said Bit-Shamash at last, "it is for no matter of pleasure or mine own affluence that I seek thee to-night. It is for thee, for thy throne, for the sake of thy kingdom, of ancient Babylonia, that I would take council with thee here."
Hearing these words, Nabu-Nahid's face assumed an expression that was unexpectedly complex—a little inscrutable, indeed. "Since what time, O my son, have thy thoughts turned towards the welfare of the throne? Since when hath thy mind been more engaged with affairs of the state than with wines and with feasting, dancing-girls and hunters—thou and thy companion, Ribâta of Shumukin?"
Belshazzar flushed slightly. "My father hath judged me," was his only answer.
Nabu-Nahid merely nodded his head a trifle, and then sat looking at his son with a stupid expression, waiting for him to depart, as at this stage he usually did. In point of fact, Belshazzar had a strong impulse to turn on the instant and leave his father to his supper and his poetry. But for once his anxiety was stronger than his pride, and he fought back the angry taunt that had risen to his lips, and asked, bluntly:
"Know you, O king, that letters of invitation pass from our city to Kurush, king of Elam, to come and take his place on the throne of Babylon?"
"Letters from the hands of Amraphel of Bel and Beltishazzar the Jew? Ay, Bit-Shamash. Think you I do not know my city?"
Belshazzar was first astonished, then inexpressibly relieved. Was it possible that he had so long misjudged his father? Was it possible that this shambling and vacant manner concealed a sound mind and a great understanding? Had he for so long kept his own best self from the king to find out his grave mistake when it was almost too late? He bent his head more humbly than he had ever bent it before to any man. "I crave pardon of my lord," he said. "Behold, I go my way."
But Belshazzar had not all the magnanimity of the family. Nabu-Nahid suddenly straightened up, and commanded a couch to be moved to the table. Wines of Lebanon and Helbon were brought from the cellars, and Belshazzar was waved into his place with a gesture that admitted of no refusal. The prince obeyed the invitation rather reluctantly. He dreaded the return of the poet, and had no desire now to discuss affairs of state with his father. However, Nabonidus opened such a discussion in a very tactful way.