Force irresistible swept Ruth from her feet. She was carried away by main strength, still struggling feebly, and gasping out little shrieks whenever the grip on her throat relaxed the slightest. There was indeed need of haste, for the gate was opening, while Imbi’s voice sounded, “Torches! After the kidnappers!” and a great clamour was rising from the temple compound.
The weakest animal is terrible at bay, and so was the Jewess. Once she almost writhed out of the arms that gripped so fast; but long before the bewildered priests could do more than rush blindly hither and thither in the dark, her captors had hurried her to a closed carriage that awaited under the shadow of the long wall of a granary. The three flung her inside, and two leaped in after, while the first speaker, whom the woman had addressed as Gudea, bounded upon the driver’s stand and lashed the horses furiously.
It was some moments before Ruth lay back on the cushions, silent, helpless, too stricken and terrified to shed one tear, but quaking with dry sobs of impotent agony. The carriage flew through the night at a terrific pace, Gudea never sparing the horses. For a time the abductors were content to let their prize lie quiet; then, when the distance from the ziggurat seemed great enough to defy all pursuit, and speech became audible, the cracked voice of Binit sounded again.
“Now, my little lady, be reasonable. Harm you? Binit and Gudea and their dear friend Tabni harm a pretty dove like you? We would not ruffle a feather for a talent of gold. Cease crying, then; listen.”
Ruth’s spasms of sobbing ended; not because she was in the least comforted, but through utter exhaustion.
“You are driving me to the palace, are you not?” was her trembling question. “Are you servants of Mermaza?”
Even in the dark she could see Binit throw up her nose in a crackling laugh.
“Servants of Mermaza? The last person in Babylon we wish to see at present is the ‘Master of the Eunuchs.’ Eh, Tabni?”
“You are right, by Nergal!” snickered the charmer.
“Where, then, are you taking me?” moaned Ruth, in nowise reassured.