Amid tumultuous shouts the lordly company left their chariots, and passed in processional line, between the people, clear to the foot of the sanctuary steps. Gentle-faced Nabonidus, arm-in-arm with the governor of the city, came first; and the throng made reverent way for them. Belshazzar, pale-faced and utterly overwrought, physically exhausted, mentally apprehensive, followed his father, walking alone. The people looked after him curiously as he passed, and many were the whispers to the effect that the prince-royal was a wild and dissolute fellow. After these three notables came the lords, judges, and councillors, Ribâta among them, more puzzled than he would have acknowledged at his friend's too apparent state of mind. This entire company found places immediately at the foot of the sanctuary steps. Nabonidus and his son faced each other, standing the one on the left, the other on the right hand of the spot where Istar must pause ere she went up into the high place. Both king and prince were in priest's dress—white muslin, goat-skin, and golden girdles, with anklets and bracelets of gold, and feather tiaras set in wrought gold. Seeing this garb, a few among the people chanced to remember the three Babylonish priests that had come down the river with the king. But there was no one that knew where they might be, and none cared enough to press an inquiry.
Now, certainly, Istar was late. The people were tired and impatient, and there were not a few who, having waited here since dawn, complained bitterly of the divine tardiness. But there was only one person in that throng that suffered both physically and mentally with suspense. This was he who, one hour before, had left Istar's side; he who now stood, ghastly pale, heavy-eyed, and nerveless with anxiety, at the sanctuary steps. Could she come here this morning? Would she come? And how would the ordeal affect her? It seemed almost impossible that she could go through with it, overwrought as she was. Yet what would be the result with the people did she fail them?
Ah! What was that? The minor cadences of the chant of priestesses were to be heard outside the temple. She was coming then. She was here!
At the door of the temple stood a large company of yellow-robed women, half of them veiled, half of them with their faces bare. In their midst, as yet invisible to the people, was Istar. Still, they recognized her presence, and there was a sudden, vast rustling, as all that immense throng, with one impulse, sank to their knees there in the sacred hall. After a momentary pause on the threshold the ranks of the women parted, and Istar came forth alone.
Clothed like the sun she was, in tissue upon tissue of woven gold, that shimmered with a thousand rays. Her hair was crowned with gold, incrusted with deep-hued beryls, and from the back of the diadem floated a gold-wrought veil, beneath which lay her lustrous hair, a dark, silken mass. Dazzled at first by her shimmering garments, it was not till the second moment that the ten thousand eyes sought her face. Then—it seemed to Belshazzar that he could feel the change in the multitude. Goddess?—That?—That pale-faced, wide-eyed woman? Nay! And yet—she was beautiful. She was so beautiful in her unveiled pallor that she might well have been looked on as something more than human. There was no radiant aureole of divinity around her now. Perhaps that had been a twilight dream. And, the first shock of disappointment over, most of the people would have worshipped her still. Men's eyes followed her with inexpressible wonderment as, inch by inch, she moved up the aisle. What agony that passage was to her even Belshazzar could not know. She was barely conscious as she neared the steps; for it was the first time that she had ever really walked.
To Istar's eyes the temple was dim. The murmur of whispers reached her as from a great distance. She realized vaguely what she was expected to do, while her eyes were riveted on one thing, and her soul was striving to leave her body that it might reach the sooner that which she loved. In the first instant of her mortality Belshazzar's image had been stamped indelibly upon her heart and in her brain. And now that he himself was there before her, she felt only that she must get to him. She cared to go no further.
The long distance was traversed at last. She stood at the foot of the sanctuary steps, Belshazzar close upon her right hand, the king upon her left, all the mass of people behind her. She must go up, she must mount up into the space that for a moment seemed to stretch out before her like the spaces of heaven—vast, limitless, infinite. She placed her foot upon the first step, hesitated for an instant, shivered with cold, then, with a mighty effort, lifted herself up and stopped. Perhaps it was well that at this moment neither Vul-Ramân above nor the crowd below could see her face. It bore an expression of fear, of horror, such as cannot be pictured by human imagination. Still she ascended one more step, and none could have realized the heroism that carried her there. Could she go on? Must she? Suddenly a great cry burst from her. Her face became livid. Her teeth chattered, and her hands worked nervelessly. She was forbidden to progress. There, towering above her in menacing wrath, was a throng of shadowy things, of huge wings, of heavenly forms, just discernible to her eyes, invisible to all others. The archetypes of heaven were before her, barring her way, crying her fall to her, driving her back from the high place to which no mortal might attain. One gesture she made—lifted both arms to them in pitiable pleading. Then, with a fainter cry, she reeled and fell, backward and down, and, while the mighty vision faded from her mortal eyes, Belshazzar caught her lifeless body in his arms. As he did so there came an uproar from every side of the temple: vague, indeterminate, angry murmurs, presently silent before one trumpet-voice, bolder than the rest, that voiced the feeling of the men of Erech. This cry was taken up and repeated, and cried again, till the temple-roof quivered with it, and the stoutest of hearts quailed before its wrath:
"This is a woman! A woman! It is a woman!"
Belshazzar, with lion mien, and storm-eyes blazing with fury, faced them all with his burden in his arms; and, angry and disgusted as they were at the great deceit, not a hand was lifted against this prince of their blood who espoused the cause of the false woman, the pretender. As he bore her from them out of the temple, there was none to notice the parting of the sanctuary curtains; none to perceive the pale, peering face of Vul-Ramân of Bit-Yakin, whose glittering knife was cold with desire for human blood. The priest stared fearfully upon the general tumult; for of all that company he was now the only one that believed in the divinity of Istar of Babylon. For how but by divinity had she that morning escaped her death?