The Great God Gold

by William Le Queux

“Yes,” answered Griffin, and addressing Gwen said: “Turn to the fifth chapter of Daniel, dear, and read out the first four verses.”

The girl found the place and read as follows: “Belshazzar, the King, made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. Belshazzar, whiles he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem; that the King and his princes, his wives and his concubines, might drink therein. Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of the house of God which was at Jerusalem; and the King, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, drank in them. They drank wine and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone.”

“And at that moment,” remarked the Professor, “was seen the prophetic handwriting on the wall: ‘Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin,’ being followed by the city’s surprise by Cyrus the Great, and its fall and destruction. Then under Cyrus, the Israelites returned from their captivity, and by his decree another temple was built by Zerubbabel, the prince of Judah, who was leader of the migration. Cyrus caused his treasurer Mithredath to deliver up the vessels which Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem, five thousand four hundred in number, to Zerubbabel to be re-consecrated to the service of Jehovah.”

“Is it to this second temple which our manuscript relates, do you think?” queried Frank. “Or is it to Solomon’s temple?”

“Of the temple of Zerubbabel we have but few particulars,” answered the Professor, “and no description that would enable us to realise its appearance. But there are some dimensions given in the Bible and elsewhere which are extremely interesting as affording points of comparison between it and the temple of Solomon and Herod after it. The first and most authentic are those given in the Book of Ezra (Ezra vi, 3-4) when quoting the decree of Cyrus, wherein it is said: ‘Let the house be builded, the place where they offered sacrifices, and let the foundations thereof be strongly laid; the height thereof three-score cubits, and the breadth thereof three-score cubits, with three rows of great stones and a row of new timber.’ Josephus quotes this passage almost literally, but in doing so enables us with certainty to translate the word here called ‘row’ as storey, as indeed the sense would lead us to infer—for it could apply only to the three storeys of chambers that surrounded Solomon’s, and afterwards Herod’s temple, and with this again we come to the wooden talar which surmounted the temple and formed a fourth storey. It may be remarked that this dimension of sixty cubits in height accords perfectly with the words which Josephus puts into the mouth of Herod when he makes him say that the temple built after the Captivity wanted sixty cubits of the height of that of Solomon. For as he had adopted the height of a hundred and twenty cubits in the Chronicles for that temple, this one remained only sixty. This temple was still standing in Herod’s time, and was repaired by him. Hecataeus mentions that the altar was twenty cubits square and ten high. But he unfortunately does not supply us with the dimensions of the temple itself. Therefore if the priests and Levites and Elders of families were disconsolate at seeing how much more sumptuous the old temple was than the one which on account of their poverty they had just been able to erect, (Ezra, iii, 12-13; Joseph Ast., xi, 4, 2) it certainly was not because it was smaller, as almost every dimension had been increased one-third; but it may have been that the carving and the gold and other ornaments of Solomon’s temple far surpassed this, and the pillars of the portico and the veils may all have been far more splendid, so also probably were the vessels; and all this is what a Jew would mourn over, far more than mere architectural splendour.”

“It is a pity we do not know more about this second temple,” remarked Gwen, in a tone of disappointment and regret.

“For our present purpose its history, down to the taking of Jerusalem by Titus, does not concern us, my dear,” remarked the old scholar, drawing his hand rather wearily over his white brow. “The problem before us evidently has to do with the days of Jehoiakim, prior to the advance of Nebuchadnezzar. Later facts and traditions do not concern us at the moment. I think, however, I have given you an outline of the varied history of the temple and its treasures based upon the very latest readings of Egyptian, Assyrian and other inscriptions, sufficient to show you quite plainly that Solomon’s treasure could not possibly have existed in the reign of Jehoiakim, and that the theory of this friend of yours, Diamond, is utterly and entirely without the foundation of tradition or of ancient legend.”

“Well,” remarked the young man, “such an opinion coming from your mouth is, of course, final, Professor. Yet you must admit that the statement, even as it stands, is full of interest.”

“Full of very cleverly conceived mystery—and mystery is always attractive,” laughed the Professor, looking at him through his big, round, highly magnifying spectacles.

In the statement he had made there was one discrepancy, one that only a scholar would notice. He had purposely withheld one Biblical reference—one which, above all, had caused him to reflect and believe that the writer of the half-burnt screed was correct, that the secret and its key were actually genuine.