“Wine!” echoed all, “more wine! Surely the Jew has lied. Forget him!”
The revels were resumed. The torches flared above the king of the Chaldees and all his lords draining their liquor,—beaker on beaker,—in one mad, vain hope—to drown out their own dark thoughts. The fiery apparition had vanished from the plaster only to glow before the uncertain vision of each and all. Soon rose drunken laughter, more fearful than any scream or moaning.
Avil at least kept sober. Once he turned to Mermaza.
“What are these flashes? The lamps cast shadow. And this rumbling?”
“A storm approaches, though still far off.”
“Foul omen at this season!” answered Avil, and under breath—scoffer that he was—he muttered a spell against the “rain-fiends.”
Atossa sat on her own high seat, watching, waiting, wondering. One can hardly say whether she had hopes or fears. She had not spoken since the miracle. What followed she remembered as she would recall a dim memory of long ago. Daniel was sitting by her side. Once she ventured, despite Belshazzar’s frown, to speak to him.
“My father, the spirit of the holy Ahura is on you. Tell me, shall we be saved, you, and Ruth and I, from the power of these ‘Lovers of Night’?”
And Daniel, calm, unblenching, sober, amid a hundred gibbering drunkards, answered with a confidence not of this world: “My child, we shall be saved. Doubt it not; but whether we be saved in this body, or depart to see Jehovah’s face, He knoweth, not I. But His will is ever good.”