“Do we mount to heaven?” cried the princess.
And Mermaza answered, smiling, “Ah, my lady, I think the ‘Mansion of Ea’ will be scarce fairer than the Hanging Gardens.”
The king had left his chariot, to ascend on foot; but the litter went straight up an easy stairway—higher, higher, till it seemed the climbing would never end. Mermaza told how luxurious chambers were hid in the masses of the lower colonnades; and how a hydraulic engine was pumping unceasingly, raising water from the Euphrates. Then, when at last the crest was reached, suddenly the stars were blotted out by the flaring of innumerable fresh cressets, till the avenues of trees and the almost virgin laurel bowers and fern-brakes glowed as if touched by the dawning.
They had arrived, it seemed to Atossa, upon a broad mountain summit, thickly overgrown with trees, but with here and there a clearing. In and out the trees were flitting white-robed figures, ghost fashion. Scattered about where the torches glimmered brightest, she could see the guests of the king, the nobles of the Chaldees, the chiefs of the priesthoods, their wives, and harem women, all in their gayest robes, crowned with flowers and myrtle wreaths. Out of the shadows of the groves drifted music, now soft and sensuous, now swift and martial, and delicate voices lifted up their song.
But the litter moved onward, through all these leafy ways, until it halted in the open air, at a space on the side of the gardens overlooking the river. On north, south, and west the woods closed in, dense as the primeval forest: but here all the ground was carpeted with sweet grasses, and there was a clear view eastward over the wide stretch of the city, where the shimmer of its lights answered the twinkling stars on high. There were bowers of wreathed blossoms, ivy, and tamarisk; under these were spread many small tables loaded with food and drink; and behind each table waited a eunuch, dark, silent, statue-like, in gaudy livery.
The king had gone on foot before the litter; now he halted in the centre of this sky-canopied hall at the tallest of the bowers, and they set Atossa down beside him.
“Behold,” spoke Belshazzar; “look on these gardens, the like of which is nowhere else in the world. They are given to you. This shall be your feast. These eunuchs are your slaves. We shall all eat of your bounty.”
“The king is kind,” said the Persian, meekly. “What have I done that he vouchsafes such favour?”
Belshazzar laughed before them all.
“Done? Who demands of Istar anything save the brightness from her eyes and honey from her lips?”