“Alas, lord! Isaiah is worse than those who slay with dagger. What armour can repel the evil eye, the secret incantation?”
“Ah!” Avil dropped his jaw. Gudea felt uneasily that the high priest was very close to a smile. “Well, how did Saruch die?”
Whereupon Gudea launched into a long and tearful narrative of his unlucky exorcism, and how, just as the “Maskim” were mounted to Saruch’s throat, Isaiah appeared, and behold! the sufferer was dead. Gudea had seldom seen or heard of a crueller taking off; and, what was worse, it would be vast encouragement to those stubborn Jews to continue to worship their foul demon, Jehovah.
“You bring a sad tale, my friend,” patronized Avil, when the wizard was ended. “It is too true that in these days, when faith in the gods is failing and so many noble ziggurats are sinking in ruins, your noble art is threatened by these pestilential Egyptians. Your tale is but too common. But this Isaiah is no ordinary scoffer. His connection with the civil-minister makes him trebly dangerous.”
“True, lord; and if a blasphemer like him is seen to go harmless, where will be any piety in Babylon? Men serve the gods through fear only. They say, ‘If we do not, trouble hastens.’ When one mocks, yet prospers, the rest all follow after. The very priests of Bel will starve.”
“Oh, such days of impiety!” groaned Neriglissor. “Religion withers like an unwatered palm. When I was a lad, no man dared buy a kid on an ‘unfortunate day’; now—”
Avil cut him short.
“You do well to be anxious for the gods, my Gudea; but I have other reasons for wishing the end of these Jews. Not of Isaiah so much as of the civil-minister.”
Avil turned to the squatting cup-bearer, and at a motion toward the door the servant salaamed and vanished. The chief priest’s eye suddenly fixed itself on Gudea, and seemed to go through him like a sharp sword.
“Now, fellow,” and Avil’s tone was low, but piercing as his gaze, “are you a rascal of discretion? Can you lie piously? Can you lift your hands, bidding Marduk and Samas strike dead if you are perjuring? Have you the nose of a dog, the teeth of a cat, and the stealth of an adder?”