Ruth had started forward, outstretching her hands.
“Not that, not that, O my father! Say you are willing. I will go.”
But Imbi-Ilu sprang between the eunuch and the Hebrews.
“And I, high priest of Nabu of the ‘Eternal House,’ declare that only as you take oath with all the gods to witness, that Daniel and Isaiah shall be in nowise molested in this matter, will I consent to withhold a criminal charge against you of extreme impiety and deliberate sacrilege. The crime is notorious—twenty witnesses. Let Belshazzar himself save you, if I sow this tale of the outrage done the god, through Babylon.”
There was a stern menace in the pontiff’s voice that sent all Mermaza’s bravado trickling out through his finger-tips. The unfriendly ring of faces about added nothing to his courage. Twice he faltered, while speech choked in his throat. His face was swollen with mortification at his blunder. “Will you swear, toad?” croaked Hasba, at his side; and Mermaza gasped out thickly, “I will swear.”
“Good, then,” was Imbi’s dry comment; “but let us go down to the ‘holy room’ of the temple. There you shall lay your hands on the ark of the god, and take your oath. I spare no precaution, in taking a pledge of such as you.”
The priests swept their victim down the stairs. The three Hebrews were left alone on the housetop, looking one upon another—at first in silence; then a great and grievous cry arose from Daniel:—
“Ah! Lord God of my fathers—must I, who have served Thee so long, see my one child brought to this!”
He opened his arms wide; and Ruth fled into them, there to be locked fast. It was a moment when Isaiah knew he might do and say nothing. He stared vacantly across the parapet, counting the herd of dun-brown sheep a countryman was driving past the temple gate. The sheep would be butchered to-morrow, but they shambled on with never a thought save for the little patches of grass that thrust through the chinks in the pavement. The sheep were happy, but he, Isaiah, the young man, whose heart was thrilled with high and holy things, with visions of the Great King and of His awful throne,—he was beyond words miserable! Darker, darker grew his thoughts; but the voice of Daniel recalled him.
“Isaiah, my weakness is passed. The Lord who saved your father and Meshach and Abed-nego from the flame of Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace,—He is our refuge still. We must trust and bear. And not bear only. There is a deed for you to do this night. You have risked much to-day: will you face peril yet again?”