“Why it is here, I know not, but I saw this,—the carriage approaching at topmost speed from Babylon, and many of the royal eunuchs pursuing on foot, crying loudly and calling to passers-by to aid. When they passed the boundary stone, the carriage slackened, as being in safety; and we looked to see the eunuchs halt. Not so,—they impiously followed after, and two snatched at the heads of the horses. Isaiah the Jew flogged them with his whip. The wheel passed over one; nor did my Lord Mermaza escape the mire. They are without the gate and still threatening.”
“They may well threaten,” spoke Daniel, hoarsely, at the pontiff’s side, “for the king seeks Ruth for his harem. I came to Borsippa to ask sanctuary in her behalf. Be your god Jehovah or Nabu, fail not now!”
The civil-minister was very pale, but Imbi-Ilu flashed back proudly, “If I yield to Mermaza and his vermin, let the ‘Eternal House’ find other master.” Then he turned again to those below. “This is no common sacrilege. Who is this crying so shrilly, ‘Entrance’?”
“The master of the eunuchs himself. Shall we not buffet him to death?”
“Not so; admit him, but none other. Bring him here upon the housetop, with Ruth the Jewess, and Isaiah. Let them answer face to face before me.”
In a moment a bevy of priests had ushered three persons before their superior: Isaiah, with flushed face and eyes that still darted fire, Ruth, whose cheeks were scarce less white than her dress, and the “very supreme” chief eunuch. The last was sadly lacking in dignity, for his purple-embroidered robe was rent and mud-splashed, and across his forehead spread the long stripe where the lash had marked him. As Ruth and he confronted one another, she shrank in dread behind her betrothed; but the scowls and muttered menaces of the priests about made even the venturesome eunuch cautious. There was an awkward silence before Imbi spoke.
“Well, my Lord Mermaza, has it slipped your mind that there is a certain law, old as the ziggurat, concerning the rights of sanctuary of the precinct of Nabu?”
Mermaza’s perpetual smile had become a very forced grin indeed; he looked downward, without replying.
“And is it not also true,” went on the other, haughtily, “that whosoever transgresses the right of the god incurs the wrath of all the host of heaven? He is ‘devoted,’ given to Namtar the plague-demon, and her fiends; his life forfeit, his soul cast into Sheol. Is it not thus, my lord?”
Mermaza had recovered enough wits to attempt an answer.