“Fairer than a feast, my lord. I return to the fulfilment of my heart’s desire—the winning of freedom for my people.”
“Yet though you prosper, what if we fail? We may drive Belshazzar from the field, but the ramparts of Babylon—”
Isaiah took the words from the king’s mouth.
“Shall lie smooth as the plain to the feet of Cyrus, the called of Jehovah!”
Cyrus looked again, and very earnestly. “One thing more, Hebrew—my daughter, in Belshazzar’s harem?” His voice sank exceeding low. “What will be her treatment? Answer me truly this.”
“Your Majesty,” was the unfaltering reply, “even the Babylonian is not in all things a fiend. Belshazzar does not carry his villany so far, that if Darius escape, he would wreak vengeance on his own betrothed wife. I grieve for the Lady Atossa, but the swords of the Aryans are the only talismans that will make her lot less wretched.”
Cyrus moved another step nearer. He had raised his hand toward heaven.
“Then in the name of Ahura, One God of All, and the Ameshaspentas, His archangels, I swear that if you save Darius, I will lay low Babylon and set your people free. And you, princes of the Persians, are my witnesses.”
When he looked downward, he saw Isaiah kneeling before him, kissing the hem of his mantle.
“Do not fear, my king,” he was declaring; “Jehovah, who has plucked me from so many perils, will not fail me now, when I speed upon His service.”