Slowly, slowly, to that infinite, sweet chorus, these two descended till their celestial feet touched earth, and Istar, with joyful greeting, rose up and went to meet them. As she held forth both maimed, mortal hands, the eyes of Allaraine glowed with sorrow, but Belshazzar's face was alight with the fulness of great joy.
"We come to thee, O woman honored of God; and thou shalt choose between us.
"I, Allaraine, thy brother, would lead thee back among thy fellows in thy great purification to the perfection of rest, of insensibility to all creation except God and His word."
"Istar, beloved, through suffering a soul, an immortal soul, hath been born in thee; and thou mayst come forth now to rest a little on the long pilgrimage that will lead thee finally back into the God whence all souls are sprung."
"Choose, Istar. Choose."
Istar turned her eyes to Allaraine and looked upon him long and earnestly, and her face grew radiant. Then, most slowly, she moved her gaze till it met with that of the great storm-orbs of Belshazzar. And in that look the worn-out body dropped from off her soul, which, clothed in garments of translucent light, began its ascent between the two messengers that had come for her. They passed, all three, above the shadowy turf, above the line of waving palms, above the glowing river which ran its threadlike course from distant Karchemish into the sunset gulf; above, finally, the towering black walls of the Great City, and so into the clouds of the silver sky, to which no mortal eye may follow them.
Through this last hour and the period of her transfiguration, Charmides, still standing at the edge of the grove of palms, had watched the figure of Istar upon the river-bank. Rejoicing in the great beauty of the evening, he waited peacefully, believing her wrapped in prayer. Nothing saw he of the celestial world that had opened to her, nothing knew of the heavenly messengers that had come. But when her body fell back upon the earth, he, thinking that she had fainted from exhaustion, ran quickly to the spot where his eyes had last beheld her. When he came to the place there was nothing there—no trace of the plague-marked form of her that had dwelt in the temple of Istar in the Great City. Long he searched there alone in the evening, till, out of the far, blue space a voice, the voice of the woman he had so worshipped, spoke to him:
"Thou faithful and true, seek for me no more; for that of me which was not is not now. But my spirit shalt thou know to be watching near thee always. Behold, I am returned unto our Father."
So, knowing all things dumbly in his heart, the young Greek obeyed her voice, and, turning slowly away, went forth from the grove of palms, and returned that night alone to his young wife in Babylon.