“Bring a beam!” raged Igas to the soldiers. “Shatter the door!”
“Off!” urged the minister, tears now in his eyes. “Will you cast yourself away, Isaiah, and leave Ruth desolate when I am taken? Will you leave the Lord God’s purposes for you undone, my prince, by dying here in vain? I am old. I have done His work. I live or die by His will. I do not fear.”
Crash! Before the battering beam the door was splintering.
“We will never leave you!” came from the young men; but Daniel answered with a gesture of command. It was he who was prince, not Darius.
“Go! I command it!” cried he, almost arrogantly; “or your own blood and God’s wrath are on you.”
The tone, the majesty of his presence, these made his words as law. Darius’s heart cried out in revolt, but he bowed his head and obeyed. They thrust open the inner entrance, and a dank stairway wound down into the darkness. They kept Zerubbabel’s lamp. Isaiah left his for Daniel. No instant for long partings. Isaiah strode over beside Shaphat—“You are a true son of Judah,” said he simply. But Shaphat only bowed his head.
“The One God spare you, my father!” came from Darius’s trembling lips, though the fear was not for self.
“And you, my son”—like words between Daniel and Isaiah, and that was all. They saw the civil-minister standing, sword in hand, across the narrow entrance, hoary, but then, if never before, terrible. And at his side, steadfast and unflinching, was Shaphat, the one-time recreant.
A last crash—the beam, swung by twenty arms, beat the outer door inward. It toppled on the bricks. Half a score of torches tossed together and flickered on bared blades and lance-heads. A great yell of triumph, followed by a howl of surprise. A last vision was branded on Darius’s memory. He heard the clash of steel above him, the crash of conflict. Then the stairway turned, cutting off sight and sound, and all about was blackness.