The Persian’s nostrils dilated like a charger scenting battle. And as if in answer to his half-breathed prayer, lo! one of the oxen, stung by the goad and fretted by the roarings, commenced to shake his yoke, halting obstinately, and lifting a full-voiced bellow. Instantly his mates answered; the lions’ thunders doubled; the wagon-train was halted.
Belshazzar called fiercely to the chief wagoner, “Quiet instantly, or fifty stripes!”
His voice was drowned in the roar. The teams were so near now that one could look into the cages, and see the great beasts pent up behind the stout wooden bars; bars that seemed all too frail at this moment, as lion after lion, frightened and enraged by the din of the oxen, the multitude, and his own fellows, began to claw at the bars, digging out huge splinters with tooth and talon, and roaring louder, ever louder.
Belshazzar’s voice sounded now above all the noise. “Clear away this rabble!” he was ordering Sirusur, “Master of the Host.” “The man who sent the lion-train this way shall face me to-night. Silence the beasts, and get off with them!”
But not the lord of Babylon and all his guards could still those oxen and their maddened freight.
Sirusur did as bidden. His men pushed on the crowd with their sword-scabbards, but truth to tell the press was so close, and the exits from the quay so cramped, the soldiers could accomplish little. The panic was spreading swiftly enough, however. The goads on the oxen had only driven them into deeper obstinacy.
“Look! In Nergal’s name, look!” cried Darius’s charioteer; and before the prince’s half-terrified, half-exulting eyes he saw the lion within the nearest cage leaping to and fro, trebly maddened now by all the growing tumult. The wagon swayed on its wheels. The wooden bars gave a crash every instant.
“Three more leaps and he is free!” the prince was shouting, transported by his excitement.
“Danger! The wagon topples!” was the howl of the people, and at last they began to give way indeed.