“The gods are angry on account of Daniel! Spare Daniel! Spare! Spare!”
The yell was the signal for the loosing of pandemonium. Instantly, with a din redoubled by the strange interruption, the priests of Avil resumed their opposing clamour.
“Death to both Jews! Death! Death! Marduk is enraged! Away with Daniel!”
The two shouts rose in one deafening babel. But in the midst of the din the chief pontiff had made himself heard by the king, and a “ten” of guardsmen sped up the stairs, seized Isaiah, who had waited them in perfect passiveness, and hurried him down to their royal lord. Belshazzar was standing beneath his purple parasol at the foot of the steps, close by the car of Bel. Ramman, spreading the hurricane clouds, was never blacker than the king’s face when they dragged the Hebrew before him.
“Kill! kill!” that was all they could hear him shout, striving to be heard above the increasing din.
“In what manner?” demanded Sirusur, barely heard, salaaming respectfully. “I wait my lord’s command.”
“Hew off his head; let the dogs fight over his body!” came from the king in one breath.
“Ah, Jew!” sneered Avil, during a lull; “it would have been better to have been led by me, to have forgotten Jehovah for Bel-Marduk. Will your god save you now?”
“If it be His will He can indeed save me!” flashed back Isaiah, unflinching. “When my father Shadrach would not bow to Nebuchadnezzar’s great statue of Bel in the plain of Dura, did he come from the king’s furnace living or dead?”
“Fairly smitten on the very thigh,” grunted Bilsandan, who took small pains to conceal his enmity toward the pontiff. But Avil’s flushed face only turned the darker, as he threatened the prisoner.