Darius sat a long time over this letter, though it was past midnight and he must be up with the dawn. Ariathes had just reported that he had intrusted his master’s second despatch to an obscure Jewish caravan merchant, who swore by his God that he would deliver it to the commandant of Cyrus’s nearest garrison. If the messenger proved faithful, and eluded the watch, the king of the Aryans and his council would be soon learning wisdom. But what part was left to be played by Darius? Clearly the plot was thickening. For some reason, manifestly, Belshazzar desired him anywhere but in Babylon. Was he suspected of being the eavesdropper upon the king? Should he plead some excuse and refuse to go on the hunting? Should he humour Belshazzar’s wishes by hardly disguised flight? The prince was a proud man—proud of his race, his king, his own prowess. The battle spirit was rising in him. Was he not “King of the Bow”? Should he desert Atossa and leave her in the harem of Belshazzar without one friend in all Babylon, saving the eunuch Masistes? The prince, we repeat, loved to dare first, and count the cost thereof afterward. And that night he vowed afresh, “I will brave all danger. With Ahura’s help I will not turn back the width of one hair before the guile of these ‘lovers of the lie.’”
Long before dawn, Idina-aha, master of the hounds, had emptied his kennels of the fifty black mastiffs who were to accompany the royal hunt; and at gray dawn itself Darius met Belshazzar in the central palace court. A score of trained game beaters were mounted and ready; and what with the escort of dog boys, guardsmen, and eunuchs, the chariots, the lead horses, and the long mule train with the baggage, Belshazzar drove forth with no little army. The monarch had appeared in the best of spirits; had looked Darius fairly in the eye when he told the Persian that they intended to hunt the auroch—the wild bull—whom no dog could face; and that on this account he had with him his pride—his three hunting lions, to whom even the wild bull could have no terrors. When Darius saw the brutes, huge as the beast that he had slain so memorably, he had indeed marvelled, though not after the manner Belshazzar imagined; and the king laughingly vowed to him, that if the Persian should be so fortunate as to slay an auroch, he should have his choice of which of the lions he should take back to Susa, excepting always “Nergal,” the royal favourite, whom his master could not spare.
So they set forth, Belshazzar with seemingly one end in the world—to make his fellow-huntsman merry. They passed the great Western Gate, and sped through the pleasant suburbs, past luxuriant gardens, prosperous farm-houses, and innumerable canals fringed with long arbours of trees. Now and then they saw countrymen dragging their hand-carts of kitchen produce to early market, two or three tugging together. As they halted to water beside a little village of dome-roofed huts Darius saw the peasants ploughing in the fields, with the usual team—a mule and a cow—and heard the ploughing song, already thousands of years old:—
“A heifer am I,
To the mule I am yoked.
Where, where is the cart?
Go look in the grass;
It is high, it is high!”
Fields of wheat, barley, and millet waved far and near. Darius grew weary counting the prosperous landed estates and thriving villages. Truly Hanno the Phœnician spoke well, the wealth of the country of Babylon was beyond that of the mine. The corn lands and the thrifty peasants had made possible Imgur-Bel and Belshazzar’s kingly glory.