“As for the young Jew,” continued Hasba, with the air of a person who knows far more than he is likely to tell, “he is a man of great resources, and knows the city as a bird the way to its nest. All the Jews reverence him as a prophet of their Jehovah, and protect him when they can. My own master, Imbi-Ilu, esteems him highly, notwithstanding his absurd devotion to his native god. But the Jewess,” Hasba’s lips curled in a very bitter smile, “she is safe also, and Nabu grant shall remain so long, for the man who prompted his Majesty to try to take her by force from our temple is devoted to the ‘Maskim’ if the gods keep any power to punish sacrilege. Better worship a thousand Jehovahs, than do one deed like that.”
“You of Borsippa do not hate this Jewish god so very fiercely?” remarked Mulis, shrewdly.
“He is a harmless demon. We of the temple of Nabu only know this,—that we have no hate to squander on any, saving Avil-Marduk and his underlings.”
“Be that as it may,” was Mulis’s answer, “Isaiah and the maid have been in marvellously safe hiding. The king threatens Mermaza’s head if she is not found.”
“Then may the chief eunuch’s pate topple off quickly!” swore Hasba. “Next to Avil we love him the least.”
Gabarruru’s tortures were at an end at last, but just as he was about to quit the barber’s shop, the sudden rush of people to the street from all the adjoining alleys, and the din of distant horns and kettle-drums, told that the long-waited procession was at hand. Hasba excused himself and was off, leaving the others to meditate on his warnings and await the issue in what peace they might. The clangour of cymbals grew louder continually. The street was becoming one sea of heads. By standing on the little raised platform of the barber’s shop, it was possible to gain a fair view up the avenue, where one could see standards tossing, and the shimmer of steel.
“Way! way!” rang the familiar cry at length, and a squad of scarlet-robed wand-bearers began forcing the people backward toward the house walls. After this advance corps streamed the priestesses of Istar, tall, comely women, their heads and necks wreathed with flowers, their dresses of tinted Egyptian gauze floating around them in bright clouds, the transparent web falling in folds none the most prudish. The older priestesses walked in well-drilled files, bearing gay banners, and keeping up an incessant clatter upon their tambourines; but their younger sisters would break ranks, time and again, and whirl in voluptuous dances, joining hands, shaking out their streaming black locks, tearing off their coronals to cast amid the admiring crowd, or even when they saw a handsome youth, would pluck him from the multitude by sheer force, and whirl him with them; then, at a change in the music, all released their captives, and marched demurely until the spirits moved them to new madness.
So the “Maids of the Grove,” to the number of many hundreds, passed. But when the soldiers of the palace guard followed, each in his gayest mantle and brightest helmet, Mulis whispered in the banker’s ear:—
“A costly blunder, unless there is no fire under much smoke. Look at the guard!”
“What is amiss?” demanded Itti, rubbing his eyes.