Queen Amytis said this as though to herself. Her great dark eyes were fixed upon the shining city below, and Rachel thought she looked sad and anxious.
“The most high God will protect our lord the king on his perilous journey,” one of her maidens declared consolingly. “And the wise men will surely learn good tidings from the stars,” added another.
The queen did not reply, and Rachel looked enquiringly at Salome, who was lying full length on a great tiger-skin stretched in front of her mistress’s chair.
“Sit near me,” said the little maid, making room for her. “No one else sees or hears you. What is it you would ask?”
“Tell me about the temple,” whispered Rachel. “That temple of Belus.”
She could see it very distinctly from where she sat, a wonderful building with a number of storeys piled up one above the other, each storey covered with glazed tiles of a colour different from that above and below.
“It is the Tower of the Seven Planets—the Temple of Belus, who is the God of our city,” Salome told her. “Our great king has lately built it where once stood, so they say, the Tower of Babel.”
“The Tower of Babel? That’s in the Bible!” But a glance at Salome’s face showed her that she didn’t know anything about the Bible—and she remembered that the gods Salome and all the people here worshipped were those the Bible called “false gods.”
“Of the Tower of Babel I know nothing but its name,” said Salome, shrugging her shoulders. “It stood doubtless long ago. But this is a new temple built, as they say, on its ruins. It is of seven colours, because each of the seven planets has a different colour, so the wise men who study the stars declare. And within the temple there stands a golden image of the god Belus, and a golden altar upon which the priests burn frankincense and all sweet scents in honour of the god.”
“But the queen said the wise men watch the stars there?”