Istar of Babylon: A Phantasy

by Margaret Horton Potter

The streets were quiet. Early though it was, lacking yet two hours to midnight, few towns-people were moving about. A general weariness had followed the merry-making of the past night, and this, added to the feeling of solemnity attendant on the actual arrival of the long-expected invading army, had closed the doors of many a house at an unwonted hour, and caused citizens of an ordinarily convivial temperament to betake themselves to an early couch. Most of those abroad in the streets were soldiers, on their way to or from the watch-towers. It was a curious condition for the first night of a siege, and Nabonidus could not but wonder, as he proceeded, at the extraordinary calm of the people; for he had known many a beleaguered city, but never one that presented a spectacle of such quiet on its first night of defence.

The night was fair, and with the coming of darkness there had sprung up a faint breeze that came from the east, across two rivers, bearing with it a breath of cooling fragrance. The moon was just past its second quarter and hung suspended, in a soft, golden aureole, over the western walls of the city. By its light the houses and towers of the town stood out in wavering outlines against the grayish, star-strewn sky. The stillness that wrapped the city trembled, when, occasionally, it was pierced by a distant shout of laughter or a command called out by one of the guards on the walls.

Nabonidus went on and on, unheeding the distance that he traversed, allowing himself to be permeated with the night. The spotless white of his robes caused him to be taken for a priest by the few whom he passed. None offered to molest him. None gave him more than a fleeting glance as he went along. After what he could hardly realize had been an hour of walking, he found himself standing before the great south gate of the city, through which he had come that morning. It was closed now, and guarded with soldiers, some of whom stood or lay on the ground before it, while others could be seen on top of the wall, walking to and from the watch-tower, whence the confused camp of Gobryas' army could be made out across the plain. No hostility had as yet passed between besieged and besiegers. Not an arrow had been shot, not a javelin hurled.

The king stood off at a little distance from the gate, reflecting on the scene before him. Presently there came a shout from some one outside the gate, a word that was heard and answered from inside. There was a question from the captain of the watch, to which an answer, inaudible to Nabonidus, was returned. Then the small door in the gate opened. A figure appeared from outside, and at sight of it Nabonidus moved swiftly back into the shadow of the wall. The door was closed and barred again. He who had come in paused to place something in the hand of one of the soldiers. Then, without a word, he moved rapidly off in the direction from which, a little while before, the king had come. Nabonidus stared after him for a moment. His thoughts were in a whirl. Considering all that he had known before, this incident had an unnecessarily strong effect on him. It was only by means of a physical effort that he finally pulled himself together and started on his return, a hundred paces back of that other. In this fashion the two traversed the length of the city, arriving at the college of the Chaldees in the same relative positions as those in which they had started.

When, a few minutes after midnight, the king re-entered the building and turned up the passage leading to his room, he found Ludar, wrapped in a gray cloak, standing in the door-way talking with Kudashû. He hailed Nabu-Nahid's appearance rather effusively.

"O king, live forever. What imprudence does he commit that wanders abroad at night in the city streets!"

"And thou—wast thou guarded on thy way?" inquired the king, rather sharply.

"Nay, truly. But for me there is no danger. I am—"

"You say well, Ludar. For you, indeed, there is no danger! Shamash guard your sleep!" And with this curt good-night, Nabonidus brushed past the priest, closed the curtain of his room, flung off his mantle and coronet, and threw himself down upon the chair that still stood before the brick table. He was in a state of tremulous anger, of discouragement, of heart-sickness, and his head drooped lower and lower, and his hands clasped themselves on the table before him in the tightness of mental pain. The light from the still burning lamp above his head fell over his white figure, and a ray of it glinted off a jewel that hung on a thin, golden chain from his neck. A refracted ray of this presently shone in his eye and caused him to look down upon the gem that he was accustomed to wear inside his tunic, next his skin. It was a charm—a holy charm, blessed and consecrated to be a sure protection against all bodily disease or danger. In some way, the fact that it came to his sight now, unexpectedly, seemed an omen of good-fortune; and with a brow less clouded, the old man rose, took the jewel in his hands, and, falling on his knees before the image of the sun-god in his room, poured forth a piteous prayer for rest and peace. And the sun-god heard him doubly well.