“Not once, but many times,”—the prince’s voice was very bitter,— “I have been to Bilsandan the vizier, and only met smooth excuses and scarcely veiled lies. Now the Elamite mountain tribes make all travel dangerous; now there is such restlessness in the gulf cities that not a soldier can be spared for escort. And yet, to cast the vizier’s words back in his teeth, the garrison of Babylon grows stronger day by day, and the walls mount higher.”
“You must go back to Cyrus,” spoke she, with beating heart; “you must tell all to my father. But, oh!” and her woman’s voice nigh faltered, “his wrath and the war will be most terrible. Aryan blood and Chaldee blood, each poured out in rivers, and my sacrifice will all be in vain. I had one joy left me, that through my own grief I was giving peace to my people, but now at last even this is taken away!”
“Not so,” cried the prince, almost sternly, “for out of Belshazzar’s cruelty and falsehood shall spring my joy and yours also. For now you are free, and I am free to bear you away in my flight. All is provided, horses fleet as the desert winds, and my Persian followers are with us to the death. Seven days from this night you shall look on your father’s face at Susa, Ahura prospering us—my own! Gaze long, gaze hard, upon this city,” he pointed over the slumbering vista of ziggurats, palaces, and the dark river; “to-morrow at this hour you shall see its accursed beauty no more,—except, indeed, as you ride under its gates at the side of your father when he enters it to conquer.”
“Ah!” she cried, his own bright hopes kindling before her eyes, “and how may you persuade him to give me to you?”—she broke short—“Am I wrong? Do I not hear a noise?”
The prince rose once more; again eyes and ears brought him nothing. “There is naught beholding us save God’s bright stars; and are not the stars best friends to man and maid in love? How shall I persuade Cyrus? Did you not see how he tossed in his mind, and how his heart was torn almost as yours or mine, when he resolved to send you to Belshazzar? Let him hear the tale we have to tell, the tale that will make every ear in Iran from Media to Bactria to tingle with hot wrath, and I know little of men, if Cyrus prove hard of heart. Let Babylon fall, as fall it will, and in these same Hanging Gardens—not then your prison, but your joy—shall they kindle the torch for our marriage feast.”
But Atossa glided out of his clasp.
“Ah!” said she, outstretching her arms in the starlight, “your words are but as words spoken in a vision; I feel such sweetness cannot be. You wake dear phantoms, but they are phantoms still. I know not why; but there is a voice that tells me now, as it has told me long, that I must not look for any sudden joy. I must learn to be yet stronger, and learn to bear not only these, but new ills also. And Susa and my father are very far away.”
“And do you doubt my boast?” he flashed, nigh wrathfully, at her failing to warm to his own sanguine joy.
“I doubt you?” she cried, as if scarce understanding his words,—“you? For your least wish, how glad a thing to die! But the power of Angra-Mainyu is strong, and he and his fiends put forth their might against us. Ahura will conquer, but the triumph is delayed. Fly alone; that will be safer—and let the sword of Cyrus be the key to my golden prison.”