Atossa fixed her clear eyes straight upon the eunuch, and even he glanced away from her uneasily.
“Mermaza,” said she, very coldly, “I think it will be better for both of us if we hide fewer black thoughts under smooth protestations. You know as well as I that Darius is held as a hostage, to tie the hands of my father in requiting Belshazzar for his dark intrigue.”
“I am only your ladyship’s slave,” the eunuch bowed obsequiously. “Who am I to say my mistress ‘nay’?”
“And for once you speak well in very truth,” answered she, the hot colour of anger rising at last; “for to a man I would bow as to one mightier than I, and to a woman I would answer wrath with wrath. But to you, who are neither man nor maid, but only creature, I will vouchsafe not one curse; one does not bend the bow to slaughter gnats!”
Mermaza’s smile had become sickly indeed; but she deliberately turned her back upon him, and kept company with her own gloomy meditations.
She had not seen Darius since that evening hour when they were surprised in the Hanging Gardens. Report in the harem had it that the prince was under close ward in his own chambers, and that all the Persians of his suite had been arrested. All save one: Ariathes, the crafty and the nimble, had passed from sight as completely as if he had never been born. Was he escaped to Susa, and had the truth come to the mighty Cyrus’s ears? It was a faint hope, but all that was left in the princess’s despairing breast. The seizure of Darius, just at the instant when the future seemed bursting fair before her, and escape so close at hand, had almost blotted out the sun for Atossa. It had taken all her womanly strength and royal pride to bear up in the presence of her oppressors. Yet at that moment she had become possessed with one deep desire,—to see that Babylonian mob rise and take vengeance on Avil-Marduk and his grim master; and the howls of the multitude sounded sweeter in her ears than all the harping.
The great ziggurat at last! They had passed up the “Procession Street,” the broad avenue that led past the temple of “Istar the Foe-smiter.” There had been howls, ever increasing, from the multitude. Once the soldiers had charged with drawn blades to clear the way for Bel-Marduk’s car, but there had been no bloodshed. Avil, Mermaza, and their royal lord breathed easier. Before them was rising “E-Sagila,” “The Lofty House,” queen of the temple-towers of Babylon. The seven terraces of the great cone were all decked with flowers and streaming banners, the parapets of the different stages were swarming with the people, flowers were festooned over every pinnacle and battlement.
There it uprose against the azure, a vast mountain of brick, its lowest terrace painted white, the second black, the third purple, the fourth blue, the fifth vermilion, the sixth plated with silver, the seventh—the day-beacon first hailed by the Persians—was glittering with its sheen of gold. The bull-guarded gates had opened wide for the ship of Marduk. Inside the vast courtyard at the foot of the tower had arrayed themselves all the priests and soldiery that had preceded the car of the god. All but those from Borsippa stood on the left of the gateway; but the servants of Nabu, with their ship, were arrayed silent and sombre on the right. Imbi-Ilu’s company thus kept an ominous peace, but there was no lack of cheering for Bel-Marduk now. Even the disaffected multitude that had tried to attack the procession grew hushed and quiet when it passed within the sacred gates.
Loudly rose the well-drilled acclamations from the thousands of gentlefolk and temple servants perched upon the heights of the terraces above.
“Hail, Marduk! Hail, Dragon-smiter! Hail, Belshazzar, beloved of the gods! Hail, Avil, servant of the Guardian of Babylon!” There were more cheers for Atossa, for the vizier, for the “commander of the host.” Then, just as the ship of Bel-Marduk reached the foot of the great stairway leading to the first stage of the tower, the corps of priests marching before the god suddenly raised a shout that had not been heard before that day:—