Revolting as it all was, Amraphel could not but obey the word of the Jew. Together they bore the body out of the temple, into the still moonlight, down to the edge of the quietly flowing river. For an instant they held it over the brink. Then, at a whisper from the Jew, they let go together. There was a splash, an eddy in the water, a little red stain on the clear stream, and then only a widening circle of ripples remained to mark the resting-place of Babylon's last king.
Late on the afternoon of the next day, Belitsum, the low-born second wife of Nabonidus, sat, as usual, in the court-yard of her part of the seraglio, in her usual canopied idleness. Morning prayers and exorcisms had been said; the daily omens looked to; all the endless details of superstition finished; and now the queen of Babylon was free to dream away the rest of the day in comparative quiet. Beside her lay a piece of unfinished embroidery, badly done; for her plebeian fingers had never taken kindly to this work of the gentle-born. Two eunuchs waved over her huge feather fans, of which the extreme size denoted her rank. Beside her sat a pretty slave with a lute in her hand, though Belitsum was paying no attention to the sweet monotony of the tune she played. The queen was lost in one of those vacant reveries in which long years of idleness and neglect had taught her to remain for hours.
Suddenly there came an interruption upon this quiet scene. A eunuch of the outer palace hurriedly entered the court, and, prostrating himself profoundly before Belitsum, asked permission to speak.
The queen was a moment or two coming out of her dreams, but she presently recovered enough to find her curiosity, and to say with some eagerness: "Speak, slave! Deliver thy message. Is it from the king?"
"May it be pleasing to the queen my lady! No word hath come from Nabu-Nahid. It is a soothsayer that comes in royal state, beseeching the ears of the queen to incline to him."
"A soothsayer?" Belitsum relapsed into tranquillity. "Let him be taken into the shrine. But also cause him to know that for this day the gods have been propitiated."
As the eunuch departed, Belitsum, who had long since lost claim to youth and the slenderness thereof, rose with an effort to her feet. "Kudûa," she said to the slave, who had also scrambled up, "wait thou my return. I am going to the shrine."
Kudûa fell back willingly enough, while the queen, followed by her fan-bearers, waddled slowly across the court-yard towards the specially consecrated room in which any member of the royal harem might hold conference with men of the outer world. In spite of her slow pace, the queen reached the dimly lighted apartment in advance of the soothsayer; and she occupied her time till his arrival in offering up a quick prayer to Nindar, her especial deity. The Amanû had hardly been reached when two figures appeared in the door-way, one the attendant eunuch, the other a magnificently robed and coroneted man, in whom one accustomed to his usual slovenly appearance would have had great difficulty in recognizing Beltishazzar the Jew.
Belitsum, entirely ignorant of his race and station, judging him only by his dress and bearing, came forward with hasty respect, leaving her fan-bearers on either side of the small altar. At the same time Daniel, accustomed of old to the rigorous etiquette of the court, made a proper and graceful obeisance.