“Even so, your Majesty,” quoth Bilsandan the vizier, at the other elbow.
Belshazzar clapped his hands in right kingly glee.
“Praised be every god! Do you proclaim a feast over the city for to-morrow and to-morrow night. Let Babylon be one house of mirth, for it shall be her king’s triumph and wedding-night together. Prepare the palace for a banquet such as no king before—no, not Nebuchadnezzar the Great—set for his lords and captains; there I will drink wine before all Babylon, and show forth the daughter of Cyrus, whom I take to wife.”
Therefore for a second time the crier had fared through the streets, and all Babylon gave itself over to merriment.
None did so with a gladder heart than Itti-Marduk the great banker. That evening, when he sat with Neriglissor on his house roof, the excellent man was in a state of enviable content. Two days before he had sold out a huge granary of corn at half a shekel on the homer[11] above the price it would now fetch, the siege being over; and when Neriglissor had examined the entrails of three white geese, to see if his friend ought to risk a very profitable loan, the omens had been most happy—the livers so white, the hearts so very large, that some great advantage was foretokened, unless all faith in augury was bootless. Therefore from business they had passed to small talk.
“Happy evening for Babylon,” Neriglissor was saying; “I did not think Cyrus would give us the back so readily.”
“Or that Sirusur the general would prove so valiant, if the flying rumours had been true.”
“Rumours?” demanded the old priest; “in Bel’s name, what rumours?”
“Are you so ignorant at the temple, as not to know the talk of the city?”