“Well, Hasba,” cried Mulis, pausing in his curling for the twentieth time, “you are in a strange robe for a festival day. Is Nabu so poor a god he can give his priests nothing better?”
“Nabu is very poor and hungry—to-day,” responded Hasba, with a significant cough, which made Itti look at him very hard.
“But not yesterday or to-morrow?” pressed Mulis, pricking his ears.
“Quietly.” Hasba’s voice sank very low. “You are all good friends, and will leak nothing. See!” He showed a short sword girded under his mantle.
“Istar help us!” cried the broker. “What will happen?”
“Patience, worthy Itti. Avil-Marduk is likely to learn strange things before nightfall. We have sworn loyalty to Belshazzar, but not to Avil. His Majesty loves the priest of Bel-Marduk too well. Why is Daniel in the palace prison? Not because he ‘kills by sorcery,’ as that scorpion Gudea charged, nor because he is a Jew. He stands betwixt Avil and his design to make Belshazzar his tool, to make all the priesthoods of Babylon slaves of Bel-Marduk. Imbi-Ilu is not a man to see the deed done in silence. To-day we of Nabu appear in tattered mantles that the people may see how the king is starving us. And as for Avil, if he seeks Daniel’s life, let both him and the king beware!”
“Ramman protect us!” muttered Itti again. “When was ever such strife in Babylon?”
“A strange case that of Daniel’s,” commented Mulis. “I hear that the king was very desirous of laying his hands on his would-be son-in-law Isaiah, who was so loud in denouncing the gods, and more than desirous of getting the minister’s daughter (the maid was called Ruth) for his own harem. Yet both have escaped him, though their arrest was ordered.”
“Vanished utterly,” replied the priest, gathering his robe tightly, to guard against an unfriendly eye upon the sword; but his tone and wink made the others stare at him, then exchange knowing glances.