Charmides bowed low. His tongue was tied with awe. He knew not what reply to make to her. When he lifted his eyes again she had passed, and was floating like a silver cloud across the great platform towards the open portals of the temple. Thereupon the Greek turned his face to Ramûa, and, as he clasped her hand in his and saw her black eyes lifted up, he laughed in his heart with joy of the Great City, and what he had found it to hold for him.
II
THE SANCTUARY OF ISTAR
The temple of the Lady of Erech,[6] in Babylon, was the smallest of the eight temples consecrated to the worship of the twelve great gods. This temple contained but three parts—the entrance hall, the great hall of the sacrifice, and, at the farthest end of this room, the inmost shrine, or holy of holies, where the statue of the god was generally kept. Besides these, there were half a dozen little places, hardly more than niches, where the priestesses and hierodules could don sacrificial garments. At the end of the great hall, in front of the rich curtain that hid the door of the inmost shrine, and behind the sacrificial altar and the table for shew-bread, was the Parakhû, or mercy-seat, from which the god, generally in spirit, it was thought, was accustomed to hear and answer the prayers of his worshippers, to perform miracles of healing, and to accept offerings. Here, each day, Istar was accustomed to sit for an hour, hearing many plaints, listening to many woes, learning much of the piteous side of the lives of men and women of the world. And from this place Istar had delivered many an oracle. Here, too, she cogitated painfully over the sins of mankind, which were all incomprehensible to her. She, who was alone of her race on earth, sorrowed most over the loneliness of others—those that mourned a friend dead, a lover lost, a child in far-off lands—because this grief she could in some measure understand. But though the face of the goddess was always sad when she left the mercy-seat, the brilliance of her aureole was more bewildering than ever, for pity quickened her divinity continually to fresh life.
Behind the temple of worship was the building in which Istar dwelt. It was a little labyrinth of small, open courts and narrow, dimly lighted rooms. Nearer to the dwelling-place than to the temple, on the same platform with them both, was the ziggurat—that most characteristic feature of Babylonian architecture. On top of it, in the centre of the space used by astronomers and astrologers attached to the temple, was the little room devoted to the person of the goddess. It was here that she was supposed to sleep by night when wearied with the labors of the long day. Istar's chamber on her ziggurat was rendered almost unapproachably sacred by the fact that here she had first been found; here she was supposed to have undergone her incarnation; and probably here she would resume intangibility, when her period of life on earth was over. In point of fact Istar was devoted to this little place. During the hot summer months she generally stayed within it from sunset to dawn, perhaps asleep, perhaps fled in spirit to other regions. The place had been fitted up with incredible costliness, and was kept in scrupulous order by servants consecrated especially for the work, who entered it only at stated periods when its mistress was absent.
On her return from the long ceremonials attendant on the sacrifice to Nebo and Nergal, Istar went to the mercy-seat at once, for it was past her accustomed hour. There were few suppliants for pity to-day. Babylon had just propitiated two of its great gods with a wholesale slaughter of animals, and the people doubtless felt that for a day, at least, they might rest from the continual round of religious duties, relying meantime on the newly invigorated power of Nebo and Nergal to protect them from the legions of hellish and earthly demons that beset life with such innumerable ills.
Istar's hour was not long to her. Her thoughts were centred on Charmides, his young, sunny presence, and the light of wonder and worship in his face when she had spoken to him. She had seen that he carried his lyre with him; and she dreamed of the day when he should come before her and sing as none other but Allaraine could sing. Meantime his face was before her and would not be banished, although in the shadows before the altar stood another man whose presence had long been part of her surroundings, towards whom she felt—if indeed she felt at all—as towards no other human being; whose whole presence was as perfect a contrast to that of Charmides as could well be imagined. It was Belshazzar, who, since matters of government did not much hold him, had, in the last months become Istar's shadow. He lingered about the temple whenever she was there; he followed her over the city in his chariot when she went abroad; at sunset he ascended the ziggurat, to stand outside the curtained door of her sanctuary, unable to see her, but feeling her presence. When she was near him his eyes were not always upon her, yet her slightest movement never escaped him. And at such times a kind of divinity—a reflection, perhaps, from her—was thrown about him, till it had once or twice been said that the prince, like his goddess, moved in a silver cloud. Whether or not it was possible that Belshazzar—Belshazzar the tyrannical, the dissolute, the fierce-tempered—had by dint of will-power and persistence been able to pierce the veil that hid Istar secure from all mortal eyes, it would be impossible to tell. Istar herself did not know. But now, as many times before, she wondered vaguely if her unearthly powers would or would not hold her from the understanding of this unholy man.
The mercy hour over, two attendant ûkhatû approached her with the purifying water and her white garment for the evening. Istar washed away from her own person the sins and sorrows of her suppliants, suffered the robe to be laid over her shoulders, and then sent away the women, forbidding the temple to be lighted till she was gone from it, and commanding the dismissal of the two that prayed near the basin of the sea. So, presently, she was alone in the vast, shadowy room with Belshazzar, who still stood, silent, immovable, arms folded, head slightly bent, beside the shew-table, his storm-blue eyes fixed in a side glance on her face.