Slowly Daniel drew his knife, but Amraphel was before him. Nabonidus saw the weapon of his enemy flash in the torch-light. The gleam of it passed over his deathly face. Just at the moment of the blow, a faint cry left his lips. Then a long spurt of heart's blood shot from the body. There was a sickening gasp—a fall—and the flesh only was there with the murderers. Nabu-Nahid had gone. Belshazzar was king in Babylon.
The Jew had gone rather sick, and Amraphel himself was white to the lips. "Let us go forth," he muttered, unsteadily.
"Fool!" said Daniel, for the second time. "Wilt thou leave here the body of the king, that all Babylon may look on it at dawn? Shall thy charioteer and mine say who it was that brought Nabonidus here? Thou hast struck the blow. Hast thou lost strength to finish the work?"
Amraphel caught at his nerves and said: "What is there to be done?"
Daniel's lip curled, but he did not reply in words. Passing into a far corner of the temple, he took up two fallen bricks that lay there and brought them over to the body. At the sight Amraphel came to his senses.
"I will make fast this one to his feet if thou takest the hands," he said, quietly.
Accordingly Daniel drew from his girdle two more leathern thongs, and with them the weights were bound upon the body. Then the two stood back and looked at their work. Amraphel was satisfied. Not so the Jew. One more brick he fetched from the little heap in the corner and fastened it on Nabonidus' neck, never noticing that in the operation he loosened and dislodged something that had been around the throat of the king. The last task finished, he stood back once more, carefully examining the bloody corpse.
"Take out thy dagger," he said, finally, to his companion.
Amraphel shrank back. "I cannot!" he whispered.
Beltishazzar bent over and drew it from the wound. Blood followed it in a thick stream. The Jew wiped the weapon off on the skirt of Nabonidus' robe and silently handed it to his companion. "Now—take thou the feet," he commanded, himself lifting the shoulders of the light body.