Istar of Babylon: A Phantasy

by Margaret Horton Potter

And Baba answered readily, without any sign of fear: "My lord is my lord. I obey his word."

Then, as he left her side, the young girl lay back on the floor close against a couch that had been tipped beside her, and stayed there, silent and open-eyed, listening to the tumult of the battle round the door. The chorus of shouts and yells was deafening. Babylonish battle-cries mingled with Median phrases of triumph. And closer at hand, all around her, in fact, the women of high station lay wailing out their fright. Ribâta's two wives were near, crazed with terror for themselves, for their lord, for Babylon, for the king. Now and then, high above the general tumult, came the shrill, fierce voice of Belitsum, crying her anguish. Nabonidus was the name that continually left her lips, till Belshazzar himself, from the thickest of the fight, caught the syllables, and fought the more fiercely for the memory of his father.

While the men of Gutium held the door, there appeared to be nothing to fear for the women in the temple. Ribâta, before joining in the conflict, passed among his friends of the council, bidding them hold back a little from the thick of the fight, that, should it prove necessary, they might be unhurt to defend the women. The holders of the temple were in bad enough straits, to be sure, yet there was no immediate danger. Belshazzar's men, flanked by two bands of eunuchs and noblemen, who fought with sacrificial knives and axes, were for the moment holding all Babylon and the army of Cyrus at bay. Baba knew this, as she lay, quiet and silent, gazing up into the shadowy spaces of the roof. Presently, while all that terrible din sounded in her ears, with that throng of writhing, struggling, bleeding men twenty yards away, a little smile stretched itself over her lips, and her eyes fell shut. She lay wrapped in a vision of her own: a vision of fair fields and broad, blue water, where, on the shore, stood a man; a man whose hair shone like the sun, and who bore in his hands a five-stringed lyre. And presently, from out of the racket, she could hear the pure tones of Charmides' voice, singing, as he had always sung throughout his life, for love.

Baba was lying unconscious of her surroundings in this little ecstasy, when suddenly the low wailing of the women was heightened into loud cries of well-warranted horror. The little slave felt a new presence at hand. She lifted up her eyes, and saw something that caused her heart to rise into her throat. The barricade was breaking down before a band of armed temple-servants that were advancing to the murder of the women. A cold stream poured round Baba's heart, and for the first time to-night she screamed aloud. Her cry was answered by Ribâta, who was trying desperately to gather the lords out of the conflict at the door. But the fight there was going badly. More than half the defenders of the temple had fallen, and each of those that remained was pressed by half a dozen of the enemy. Many of the guards had been drawn out into the square and were keeping up the battle there while they lived. But it seemed all at once that the defence could not last many minutes more. Not a man could come to the rescue of the women caught in so terrible a trap. And in the faces of the inhuman creatures that threatened them, there was no hope for their lives. The murderers were nearly all of them Zicarû from the third college, which was Amraphel's own; and into their hearts hatred for the upper classes had been instilled for years. Now, as they looked upon their helpless prey, all the animal savagery of their race rose up in them, and their eyes sparkled and their lips twitched in the lust for blood. The wife of Nabû-Mashetic-Urrâ, one of the old councillors of Nabonidus, received the first blow. The knife of a seer struck her to the heart; and with that first gush of blood the general carnage began. Defenceless as they were, the women were roused to action. With their hands, their limbs, their teeth, the pins that fastened their hair, they fought uselessly for life. From the place where she lay half concealed, Baba watched the scenes of murder around her. The woman next her had been dodging the knife that continually pursued her, till, stabbed in a dozen places, hair and body dripping with her blood, she proffered her heart to the assassin, who mercifully plunged his dripping blade up to its hilt in her breast.

Baba gave a hoarse shriek, threw up her hands, and fell, face down, upon the floor. A second after a streak of fire ran deep into her right shoulder. Then, immediately, all the noise died away. The world reeled with her and became black; and for her this scene of incredible brutality was at an end.

Not so Belshazzar's desperate task. At the moment when the Zicarû, appearing from the back rooms of the temple, had set about the slaughter of the women, the king, in the midst of a little band of five soldiers, had pressed through the front ranks of the enemy, out into the temple square. This was packed with the city mob that had gathered from the feast in the temples of Nebo, Nergal, Istar, and Sin, and come hither under the leadership of their officiating priests. In the darkness it was impossible to tell friend from foe. Belshazzar's self-constituted body-guard fought madly to preserve his life; but, fifteen minutes after they had passed the temple doors, the last of them, wounded in twenty places, had fallen at the feet of his king, and Belshazzar of Babylon was alone with the darkness and with besetting death. Many set upon him where he stood on the eastern edge of the square; but perhaps none of his assailants knew him. He was armed only with a short sword taken from the hand of a dying Elamite; but with this weapon his execution was terrible. As man after man went down before his tigerish strength, the attention of many was drawn to him, and presently he found himself backing down a narrow and crooked street running out of the square, engaged with three men, variously armed, that vainly strove to fell him. An arrow stuck in the flesh of his right forearm, and there was a great gash upon one of his knees. He left behind him a trail of blood; but, in the heat of contest, he felt not a twinge of pain. The noise of the battle perceptibly diminished. He heard it vaguely, caring at this time very little how the fight was going. His adversaries pressed him hard; yet he smiled, as continually he beat them back. The brute, the tiger in him, was uppermost now. He had not a thought for anything but fighting. In his slow and certain way he had retreated perhaps two hundred yards, and was approaching the house of one of the under-priests of Bel. From its open door-way a flood of light poured into the street, and as Belshazzar moved into the luminous spot a cry of recognition broke from the lips of his oppressors. At the same moment a white-robed figure came quickly out of the house, and, unseen by him, moved behind Belshazzar. In the moment that followed, a knife gleamed in the light behind the king. The blow fell. With a great cry Belshazzar reeled, sank to his knee, straightened up again with a superhuman effort, thrust weakly in the direction of the men in front, and sank back on the ground with a faint moan. At the same time his assassin, motioning the three soldiers to go back, stepped in front of his victim and bent over him.

"Amraphel!" muttered the king.

"Ay, Amraphel, thou dog! Amraphel, thou tyrant of the city! Amraphel, thou last ruler of a hated line! Amraphel, that stands at last alone in the land of his desire! Hear thou, then, the name of Amraphel. Know his everlasting hatred for thee and thine, and knowing—die!" Then, with his sandalled foot, the old man spurned the face of him that was fallen, hoping to bring some craven word to the lips of the king.

But Belshazzar was himself in death as in life. Gazing steadily into the face of the high-priest, he permitted himself to smile—a slight, scornful smile, such as he had sometimes worn during the sacrifice. Seeing it, the high-priest was goaded into a hot fury. With what strength he had he kicked the face of the dying man. Then, drawing his bloody skirts about him, he turned and passed once more into the house of the priest, out of Belshazzar's sight forever.

So at last the king lay alone, unmolested, with the night and with his thoughts. Babylon was fallen—was fallen the Great City, before the hand of no invader, but by treachery and stealth, by means of murder and of outrage. All this the king knew; yet no regret for the inevitable disturbed these final moments. Rather he turned his mind to that that was his alone, to that which constituted his true, his inner life, that made his great happiness, that had redeemed him from all mental pain—his supreme love for Istar the woman.