The Hebrew smiled gently. “I shall be scantily welcome in the king’s house, I fear. And in serving you I have but repaid in part the debt I owe Prince Darius.”
“Yet you must not go without one token. What may I give?”
“Some talisman, then, that shall be known to all Persians to vouch for my truth, if I say I bring word from Babylon of you and of Darius.”
Atossa tore a gold locket from her neck. “Take this, then,” and she held it out; “it was given me by my father on my last birthday. It is marked with the winged likeness of Ahura the Great. Cyrus and all his lords will recognize.”
Isaiah and Shaphat were salaaming again to make farewell, but Atossa had one more appeal.
“Ah! brave Jew,” spoke she, “if the one God leads you—and He must—to let you do the deed you have done this day, do not forget my wretchedness, or the peril of Darius. Do you verily purpose to stand before Cyrus my father?”
“As speedily as the Lord God shows me the way,” assented Isaiah.
“Oh!” she cried impulsively, “am I not for the instant free? Can I not trust you in all things? Why may I not flee with you to the city of my father, and see this wicked Babylon no more?”
The young Jew smiled. “Spoken like a king’s own child, in very truth! But such things cannot be. You cannot go where I may go, or endure what is as naught to me; that were not trusting, but rather tempting, God.”
“But you will tell all to Cyrus,—of myself, of Darius, of Belshazzar and his guile. You swear that you will conceal nothing, that my father may dash from power this evil king of the Chaldees.”