“Willingly,” came the answer. “I know this place as well by starlight as at noonday. We are near the private staircase by the northern wall of the gardens.” And Isaiah led away into a winding path between dark shrubbery. In a moment they were at the head of a long, narrow stairway that wound downward and was lost in the gloom below. There were two spearmen on guard at the upper landing, but both had long since invoked the wine-god over-piously, and were stretched prone and helpless. Isaiah gave them only a sniff of contempt. He plucked a flickering flambeau from the wall, and guided the Persian downward—a weird and uncanny descent. Above there were shouts and commands; and before they had put twenty stairs betwixt them and the landing, there came a cry from over their heads.
“Guard this exit! These swine are drunken; the assassins may have fled this way!”
“Speed, my lord,” admonished Isaiah in a whisper. The sound of many feet following made them descend by bounds. Well it was that their pursuers were deep in their cups, and they themselves were sober. At the foot of the stairs there were two more guards, each as prone and senseless as their fellows on high.
“The danger is at an end, my prince,” declared Isaiah; “they can suspect nothing now.”
He led the Persian by a second dark circuit under the colonnades of the lowest stage of the gardens to where they had left the carriages at the beginning of the feast. Here none met them, though there was still much din from the gardens. Darius told himself that if the king of Babylon and his lords often feasted thus, not fifty sword-hands would be found sober if an enemy attacked the palace on such a night. They found no chariots waiting to bear the royal guests back to the palace. And Isaiah remarked, with a shrug of the shoulders:—
“None expect them, my lord. Good Babylonians drink all night.”
“All the better. Guide me back to the palace in secret.”
So the two walked back together, and a man need not be wise to imagine what the Persian told the Jew, and the Jew told the Persian.
At the great gate of the palace they met more drunken guards, and Isaiah conducted Darius to his own chambers, where at last they found the Persians of the prince’s suite moderately sober.
“Let us pray the one God, my friend,” were Darius’s words at parting, “the one God we both fear, for strength and wisdom beyond that of man. A great work lies before us, and by His help we will bring low the ‘Lie’ whose seat is this great Babylon!”