Avil cried vainly across the deafening tumult.
“Hold, on your lives! Will you murder the Persian envoy?”
There was a rush, a struggle; those thrust against Darius shrank back howling, all save two, who had tasted his short sword.
In the respite following, Bilsandan had forced himself to the envoy’s side. Mere sight of the vizier was enough to enforce quiet.
“Peace, dogs!” thundered Bilsandan. “Why this tumult?”
Darius had sheathed his sword, but looked about smiling. Joy to show these city folk the edge of Aryan steel!
“I struck only in self-defence,” quoth he to the vizier. “You saw the cruelty of this scorpion. Isaiah deserves reward for avenging the old man. I will mention the evil deed of this captain to the king. We Persians hold that he who reveres not the gray head will still less reverence the crown.”
Igas was falling on his knees before Darius. Well he knew Belshazzar would snuff out his life so cheaply to humour the envoy of Cyrus, if only Darius asked it. But the Persian laughed good-naturedly, forced him to swear he would pay old Abiathar two manehs, for salve to his stripes, and the king should hear nothing about it. As for Isaiah, spearmen and police were glad to leave him at liberty. They bore the two wounded away. Darius was about to return to the chariot in which Bilsandan had been driving him about the city, but gave Isaiah a last word. “By Mithra, I love you, Jew! You are like myself, swift as a thunderbolt, striking first and taking counsel later.”
“Jehovah bless you again, my prince!” cried the other. “How may I repay? They would have taken my life.”
So Darius was gone. The bull lumbered on its way. Isaiah alone remained to help home the wretched Abiathar. As he bargained with a carter to take the old man to his home on the Arachtu Canal, Avil-Marduk called from the banking-house: “Praise Bel, Hebrew, you are not on the way to execution! Be advised. I love men of your spirit. Enter our service at the ziggurat, and, by Istar, you may wear the goatskin in my place some day!”