Belshazzar laughed slightly at the fellow's incomprehensible attitude. "Go back, then, to temple service. I will trust thee there," he said, good-naturedly. "And now, the name of him that would have had my life?"
Charmides opened his lips to speak, and then closed them again. "Ask me not. Only beware and guard thyself."
The king bent his brows. "Greek, hast thou lied to me?"
"No, lord prince."
Belshazzar shrugged. "Out of my way, then!" he cried. And Charmides stepped quickly out of the road while the king brought his whip over the haunches of his steeds and started forward, tossing, as he went, the chain of gold at the feet of the Greek. Nor was he ungenerous enough to cast a single backward glance to see whether or no the hungry fellow picked it up.
So Belshazzar proceeded on his way back to the palace, musing rather on the incident of his little talk with Charmides than upon its subject—the attempt on his life. More than this one time, and in more dangerous ways than a sling-shot at a hundred yards, he had been threatened with death. Those very drives round the walls carried with them the possibility of a far more frightful end. But Belshazzar's was an adventurous nature. And danger was his life, a life that the city's state of quiescence had once led him to seek by other than reputable paths.
On his arrival at the palace he went immediately to Istar's rooms, determined to tell her nothing of the event of the afternoon, for her fears for his personal safety would be thereby enormously increased. But when he came to her he found another subject ready to occupy all his thoughts. Istar was not watching for him at the door, as was her invariable custom. Instead, he found her hanging over the bed on which her baby lay ill—so ill that Belshazzar, on first seeing it, turned pale for Istar's sake. And the look that he found in her face, when, with a glad cry that he had come, she turned it to him, sent a pang to his heart.
Istar's child, the fruit of her earth-love, had cost her her godhead, but had returned her joy a thousandfold dearer than divinity had been. Only now, as she stood bending over the helpless little form, racked as it was with mortal pain, did the greatest world-horror, the horror of death, first lay its hold upon her. The thought that this little being whom she had brought into the world—whom, day and night since its coming she had cherished with an all-powerful love and joy—could die, could cease to live for her forever, rushed over her as the waters close over the head of a drowning woman.
Until an hour before the coming of Belshazzar, Istar had been alone with the child, believing it to be suffering from some infantine ailment. But finally the little creature's fever was so manifestly high, and its distress so great, that she had commanded the attendance of the new rab-mag, a man widely celebrated for the potency of his charms. He came at once, examined the baby from head to foot, and noted certain things that caused him to turn to the mother with a look of deep anxiety.
"Great lady," he said to her, "thou wilt do well to leave this child alone, though before dawn it die. I, Kidish-Nindar, say it. Accept my words, and put the child from thee for the sake of the Great City over which thy husband rules!"