His voice had risen almost to a menace, but the king was not angry.
“Good, Hebrew!” Cyrus was smiling. “I did not think riches would tempt such as you. You seek something nobler—and by Ahura’s great name, I declare that if you may save Darius, you may ask anything in reason, and it is yours.”
Isaiah’s eyes glittered even brighter than before, but his voice grew calm.
“King of the Aryans, the one God, whom you worship under the name of Ahura-Mazda, and we as Jehovah, has given my people now for fifty years into the power of the idol-worshipping Chaldeans. Fifty years long have we bowed beneath this yoke, and besought our God that he would forget our sins, would restore us to His mercy. Now at last the hour comes when it shall be proved before all nations which is the greater, Him whom we serve, or Nabu and Marduk and Samas, the demons of the Chaldees. For the rage of Avil-Marduk, the chief pontiff, and of Belshazzar is gone out against my people, and the oppression they suffer is more than most may bear. Either my people must bow the neck, must forsake their God, must teach their children to serve the idols of Babylon, or you, O Cyrus, must hear the summons of the Lord Most High, and make the oppressed go free!”
“I? What are you saying, Jew?” The king had leaped from his seat. They faced one another, monarch and prophet for the instant equals.
“Sovereign of Persia,”—Isaiah bore himself as proudly as if he were the “King of kings,”—“the God of nations has clothed you with power, the like of which he never shed on mortal man before, not on Assur-bani-pal, the great Assyrian. The tribesmen on countless plains are yours; your horsemen He alone may number. Belshazzar, the Babylonian, casts defiance in your teeth. You hesitate, for you fear for Darius. Were he free, the perjurer would already see from his walls the sky lit with the villages blazing under the Persian torch. And it is I that may set Darius free. Jehovah has set in me a spirit of craft and wisdom that with His help shall not fail. Though they seek my life in Babylon, I know how to avoid them. Be this the reward for the rescue of Darius: you shall call forth your myriads and dash Belshazzar from his ill-gained throne, and then”—brighter than ever were the Jew’s eyes now—“you shall restore my people to their own land, that they may rebuild their desolate Jerusalem. This is my reward!”
Stillness, while many heard their heart-beats. The rest saw Cyrus approach three steps toward the Jew; the two were yet looking eye to eye.
“Hebrew,” Cyrus was striving to speak quietly, “a great thing you propose, a great thing you ask. How long a time will you require to return to Babylon and do this deed?”
“In forty days I pledge my head to show you Darius safe and free, here or in your camp. In Babylon I have two fellow-countrymen who will peril all to aid me.” And Isaiah thought of Zerubbabel and of Shaphat.
“By Mithra! you speak of return to Babylon as of returning to a feast!”