“Atossa? Atossa?”
Then a new crash that drowned all else, and the whirl of a thousand feet. Men and women, cursing, howling, were rushing back into the hall. In an instant the empty scene became a chaos of forms, all the gibbering palace folk fleeing thither.
“Lost! The gate is carried! The palace is taken!”
So cried those not frenzied past all speech. But Atossa heard with an awful gladness. This was the hour of her triumph; the destroyers were the servants of her father, their leader the man she loved. Let, then, the Babylonian hounds whine and cringe at doom. What cared she?
But the end had not yet come. Another voice was thundering in the Chaldee, Belshazzar’s voice:—
“Rally again! All is not yet lost. We will defend the palace room by room!”
“Forward, sons of Iran!” sped back the answer; and a shout followed it at the very entrance of the hall.
“For Ahura, for Atossa!”
“Darius!” cried Atossa, “Darius! Here am I!”