Istar of Babylon Part 18

Just as the barges started at full speed again after the long night of drifting, there came an incident that changed the aspect of the second day from dreamy content to uneasy, troublous delight. One of Istar's fan-slaves, whose duty it was to waft before her one of the long-handled, peac.o.c.k-feather fans, had disappeared in the night, no one knew whither or why. Nothing was said to Istar about it. Some one had taken the slave's place. Her fans were waving as usual. It was an hour before some slight awkwardness in the manipulation of the implement caused her to glance up at the wielder of it. Instantly a sharp cry escaped her lips. It was Belshazzar who was playing the slave. Instantly she bade him cease the work and return to his barge. This, stubbornly enough, he refused to do; and the matter was finally ended by a eunuch taking his place, while he lay down at the prow of Istar's boat, with his face turned towards the G.o.ddess, who reclined uneasily on her cus.h.i.+ons, seeking to avoid his glance, but returning to it again and yet again, perhaps not wholly against her will.

As Amraphel had foretold, the city of Erech appeared to them like a shadow through the twilight of the second day, rising, many-towered, from the east bank of the river. Darkness had come on before a landing was made. Great bonfires had been lighted all along the banks of the river; and thousands of people stood thronged together in their flaring light, waiting to welcome their G.o.ddess and their king. Lusu-ana-Nuri, the governor of the city, with his lords and judges, stood at the landing-stage. Istar, supported on the one side by Vul-Raman, on the other by Siatu-Sin, waited till the prostrations of the governor were at an end, and then mounted the magnificent car prepared for her, on which she was drawn slowly between endless lines of kneeling and awe-struck citizens to her new abode, the vast temple of Istar of Erech, rebuilt by Nabonidus on the site of that ancient one that her prototype was said to have inhabited thousands of years before.

On the temple platform, back of the great ziggurat, was the third building--the dwelling-house of the living G.o.ddess; a palace of a hundred rooms, pricelessly furnished and decorated. Hither, alone in her car, Istar was driven. It had been arranged that the king and all of his accompanying suite, together with Prince Belshazzar, should proceed with the governor to his palace, where a huge feast had been prepared. The G.o.ddess herself, it had been thought, would prefer to pa.s.s this night in communion with her heavenly brothers, in preparation for the ceremony of the morrow. At the entrance of her new abode she was received by a large company of eunuch priests, and of female Ukhatu and Kharimatu, together with veiled nuns, prophetesses, and dancing-women. By these she was surrounded, and reverently conveyed to an inner room, where was spread a savory repast. Of this she partook in solitude, to the mournful sounds of flutes, lyres, and cymbals playing a slow, rhythmical dance, to which two maidens postured before her. It was a lonely and a dreary meal--one such as she had been long accustomed to, but which these two short days on the river, where there had been many people, and laughter and gay singing, had rendered more distasteful than ever before. Having eaten a little, Istar requested that she be conveyed to her sleeping-room and there left alone; for the strange faces and awed behavior of those about her rendered her more forlorn than she would have been in entire solitude.

The sleeping-chamber was a long, narrow hall--the usual shape of Babylonian and a.s.syrian rooms. At one end of it, on a raised das, was a couch of ivory and beaten silver, piled high with rugs and cus.h.i.+ons of the most costly materials. The walls and the narrow door-way were hung with rich embroideries of a deep, purplish-blue color. The tiled floor was strewn with rugs and skins, and the whole room was dimly lighted with swinging-lamps of wrought bronze. Chairs of ebony, teak-wood, and ivory, with tables of the same materials, were placed about the apartment. High in the wall at the lower end was a little, square window through which might be seen a single brilliant star.

Istar looked around her with pleasure. Two attendants remained at her side till a eunuch slave had brought in a silver tray containing a jar of rare wine with a golden drinking-cup. This he placed on a table near the couch. Then all three of them, obedient to her command, departed, after a series of the tiresome prostrations that were a continual weariness to her.

And now, at last, she was quite alone again--alone with the night, with the great silence, with the dimly burning lamps, and with the awe-inspiring hush that had settled over her. She seated herself upon a low chair and folded her hands upon her knees. The presence of G.o.d was distinguishable in the room. All thought of the day that had just pa.s.sed was gone from Istar now. She felt a sense of the vastness of time, and of the immateriality of all things. She seemed to be alone in a great void, a void filled by the incomprehensible power of the universal master. Her own thoughts frightened her. Her breath came more slowly.

For a little time it seemed to her that to-night she was to return into her former state. Whether she welcomed the end with joy or with sorrow she could not have told. But the end was not yet come. How long it was before she was restored to herself by the appearance of the rosy cloud of Allaraine she did not know. The strains of music from his lyre came faintly to her ears, as from an immense distance. The mist and its well-known nucleus were there with her. Yet now, and for the second time, that nucleus did not take on its proper shape; was not formulated.

Allaraine was striving vainly to come to her. Considering the great spirituality of her mood, this was doubly strange. Istar looked into the cloud with eyes that spoke her fear. The music itself melted--slowly died away. The cloud grew paler and more mistlike. Quietly Istar rose, and, with mental insistence, held out her arms. There was one last burst of chords--chords that fell as from a great height in organ-tones as dim and beautiful as the evening wind. The single phrase struck home to her heart; it was a phrase of sorrow, of warning, of preparation for coming evil; a phrase that spoke, as a voice speaks, of suffering. Then, once again, there was silence; a silence as oppressive as heat. The window was clear again, and through it the star could be seen. The odor of sandal-wood was strong in the room.

Istar lay back in her broad chair. The memory of her old life grew faint. Babylon lay leagues to the north, and she was no longer part of it. The history of the ancient and sacred city in which this, her temple-dwelling, stood, the shadowy legends that clung about its crumbling and honored walls, presented themselves vividly to her mental vision. She seemed now to be a part of the spirit of that other Istar, the Love-G.o.ddess, who, in her great incarnation, had loved and married the warm and exquisite Spring, the Tammuz of present-day festivals, who had appeared in human form then, when the world was younger and more fair. And she knew also with what vehemence that Istar had loved the great hero, the slayer of lions, the man of wisdom and strength, Izdubar, who had sought her out for aid in battle when the power of his good genius, ea-Bani, failed him. And that Istar of old had not failed.

As she thought of the two, and how Istar the Love-G.o.ddess had become the woman of war, the lady of Arbela, the mind of this other of divine race was filled indiscriminately with the soft murmurings of spring and the martial clang of arms. Happy, indeed, had been that Istar of old; for she had loved, and had protected whom she loved, fearing none, obeying no power higher than herself. But now--if the people of the city were seeking such another as she had been, they must wail at last in their disappointment. Neither Tammuz nor Izdubar--neither beauty nor strength--had come to her to love her; nor could she have given all that her predecessor knew so well how to give. Love! What was it? Vague imaginings flitted through the Narahmouna's mind. She paused, in thinking, to hearken to the silence. A city of sleep lay about her on every hand. Stirred any creature there through the night? Her head drooped upon her knee. She listened to the throbbing of the stillness.

Yea, some one besides herself was awake with the darkness. She could distinguish soft footsteps near her door. Some slave, no doubt, was going to a vigil in the temple. Silence again. The steps had not died away, but seemed suddenly to stop near by her very portal. Istar listened again, but still did not lift her head. She knew that the curtain overhanging the door-way was being pushed aside. There was some one else in the room with her. She felt the presence, and her heart ceased to beat. Yet it was not fear that sent the blood to her heart.

Only when the some one was very near, when the fold of a flowing mantle touched her shoulder, did she finally lift her bowed head and look. At the same instant, before she could rise up, half in terror, half in joy, the man sank abjectly at her feet. A white, fearful, half-daring face was lifted up to her. A pair of haunted storm-eyes caught and held her look. A moving, nerveless hand clutched the hem of her garment.

Istar hardly breathed. It was all too vague, too dreamlike, too impossible, for her to realize what had happened. She was without fear, yet she shook like an aspen. She let her eyes answer that other look.

Then, from the gaze, something was born within her. Something choked her. She gasped for breath. Finally, with a sudden cry of terror, she covered her face with her hands and rose unsteadily to her feet.

Belshazzar did not stir; neither did he take his eyes from her as she moved across the room. His heart was pounding furiously against his side, and his head swam with the power of the emotion that had driven him in this way to her presence. A wonderful thing pa.s.sed before his eyes. That veil of light, that had held the G.o.ddess safe in its protective depths since her incarnation, was almost gone. It had been rent and torn from her by the force of the change within her; and now it hung around her form in thin, glittering shreds that melted away like h.o.a.r-frost in the sunlight. At last he saw unconcealed what that had so long unbearably tantalized him: that which, hitherto, had only revealed itself to him by accident, a line, a single curve accentuated by a gesture, at a time. Now, all at once, it was before him quite visible--the delicate, fragile form of a perfect woman, clad in clinging draperies of purple embroidered in silver, sandalled in silver, the head uncrowned, the waves of silken, black hair falling unbound behind her.

She had stood at the far end of the room, statue-like, for a long time, before he came back to himself, before he realized how he lay. Then, in some way, he got to his feet and went to her; carefully by instinct; repressing himself at every step. She knew that he came, yet did not seem to shrink. Before he reached her side, however, he broke the silence between them, saying, huskily:

"Istar--do you bid me go?"

She did not at once reply, though he did not know whether or not she meditated over her answer. While she still paused, the eyes of the prince dilated with anxiety. Finally came the reply in a whisper so low that it was a miracle he heard it: "Not Istar of Arbela; Istar of Erech, I. Go--if thou wilt--"

In another instant Belshazzar was upon her, had taken her into his heroic arms, was drowning her cries of amazement in the pa.s.sionate torrent of his emotion; and for a little she was still, while wonder took full possession of her. Then there came from her lips one cry that would not be silenced--a cry that rang through the room and pa.s.sed out of the window, winging its way upward to high heaven: a cry of momentary anguish, of something forever lost, of something also gained. It was no more the voice of the Being Divine. It was that of a woman.

Hearing it, involuntarily, Belshazzar drew back from her, smitten with a kind of terror at what he must have done. She was there, wide-eyed and s.h.i.+vering, before him. The last shred of her aureole was gone. She sobbed. Her eyes had become blindly bright, and presently overflowed. In that first moment of humanity she wept. It was her destiny. Something more she did also. In her weakness, in her great solitude, she did what women will. All alone in a strange world, unsheltered, unprotected, amazed and confused by the great tumult raging within her, she turned to him who stood before her, the embodiment of human strength and beauty, and to him she held out her arms.

Belshazzar went to her, not fiercely now, but reverently, almost as much amazed as she herself at this more than fulfilment of the dream that he had so long and so blasphemously cherished. Holding her again close in his arms, his senses reeled under the human warmth of her body. Bending his dark head over hers he whispered to her, in such a tone as he had never used before, those words that make the world immortal:

"Istar! Oh, my beloved! I love thee!"

One of her arms crept fearfully round his neck, and the tears from her eyes fell upon his cheeks, and he understood that she answered him.

Knowing not what else was left for her, she clung to him the more closely as he lifted her slender body and carried her up to the das at the far end of the room. And so through the night, while the lamps burned low, and the white star sank from sight, for those two, through the wisdom of G.o.d, time ceased, and their souls were mingled with eternity. And over them, though neither of them saw, in answer to the mortal cry of their one-time sister, archetype on archetype descended from the height to watch over the place where Istar had become a woman.

Night, the enchanted night, the twenty-second of the burning midsummer month, hung heavily through the great s.p.a.ces of the temple of Istar.

Silence, far-reaching and luminous, spread within from the open portals, past the altar and the deep and the sacred recording-stone, to the foot of the first of the steps that led up to the curtained door of the sanctuary, within which the sanctification of the temple was to take place in the morning. The east was still black when the first dim figures, forerunners of the vast crowds that by sunrise would fill the temple to overflowing, pa.s.sed the bronze gates and took their places at the foot of the sanctuary steps.

White dawn entered, mistlike, through the portals of the high house, and the myriad temple lights that had pierced the night with their tiny points of flame grew very dim; and when at last the sun sent his first scarlet and golden messengers up the eastern sky to announce his coming, these lights came to resemble mere reflections of the burnished bra.s.s and beaten gold that covered the temple walls. By now there was an immense throng inside, and moment by moment it was augmented; for all Erech, and all the country-side for miles around, was making its way to this place. Finally the long-awaited Shamash leaped into the sky, holding before him his s.h.i.+eld of glory, sending a great shaft of light into this dwelling-place of his sister Istar. A murmur of prayers for the morning rose up through the lofty s.p.a.ces of the temple-roof, and the silence that followed these was intense with expectation; for now, at any moment, their G.o.ddess might come to them.

Within the sanctuary everything had long since been prepared. During the night several priestesses of Istar had kept a vigil there, offering up continuous prayers before the stone pedestal on which, in any other temple, the statue of the G.o.ddess would have stood. Water, over which one hundred charms and incantations had been said, filled the purifying basin. The place was sweet with the odor of spices, and its air hung hazy with incense. Beside the broad basin, upon a table plated with gold, stood a flask of perfumed oil, treasured for many years for use upon some such holy occasion as this. The little, windowless room was lighted by a swinging-lamp of exquisite workmans.h.i.+p, kept burning night and day in the perpetual gloom. In this place the consecrated hierodules had held their prayerful watch through the long night of the pa.s.sion; and at dawn they left it empty, to await the coming of its divine occupant. Five minutes after the departure of the veiled women, however, the sanctuary was invaded by three persons who bore no resemblance to G.o.ds. Vul-Raman and his two companions, their priests' dresses covered with long cloaks of sombre hue, glided in through the concealed door behind the pedestal. The three of them were pale and rather anxious-eyed as they took up the positions suggested by Amraphel. Vul-Raman, only, carried a weapon: the same thin-bladed, delicate knife that he had used on more than one occasion similar to this. Twice he ran his finger carefully along the edge of the blade, and the last time his skin was neatly slit by the metal. Satisfied with the trial, he slipped the little instrument under his cloak again, and then the long, nervous vigil of the murderers began.

By the time the sun was half an hour high, the crowd outside the temple had become restless, and the close-packed rows of men and women were as impatient as they dared to be. No one of any importance had yet made an appearance. Surely the king, the prince, the governor, and their attendant lords should be here by this time. Would Istar come if they still delayed? Would that she might! And then, the mention of Istar again bringing up the most absorbing of all topics, every man and his neighbor fell to talking of how he had seen her on the previous evening on her way from the river to her temple; and on every hand were heard descriptions of her wonderful and unearthly presence. That baffling radiance that flowed about her was the veil of Sin, her father. It proclaimed her divinity as nothing else could have proclaimed it.

Heretofore there had been not a little scepticism over the exaggerated reports brought down from Babylon during the two past years; but there was no scepticism in Erech to-day. G.o.ddess she a.s.suredly was; and as a G.o.ddess she should dwell in the heavenly house they had built for her, on ground consecrated to her many thousands of years ago.

At last, from the street leading up to the temple, came a blare of trumpets and a clangor of cymbals, and a s.h.i.+ver of excitement overran the people when they realized the approach of the king and his royal train. Four ushers with lily-topped wands forced a pa.s.sage through the crowd, and finally entered the temple itself, where the making of an aisle was no easy task.

Amid tumultuous shouts the lordly company left their chariots, and pa.s.sed in processional line, between the people, clear to the foot of the sanctuary steps. Gentle-faced Nabonidus, arm-in-arm with the governor of the city, came first; and the throng made reverent way for them. Belshazzar, pale-faced and utterly overwrought, physically exhausted, mentally apprehensive, followed his father, walking alone.

The people looked after him curiously as he pa.s.sed, and many were the whispers to the effect that the prince-royal was a wild and dissolute fellow. After these three notables came the lords, judges, and councillors, Ribata among them, more puzzled than he would have acknowledged at his friend's too apparent state of mind. This entire company found places immediately at the foot of the sanctuary steps.

Nabonidus and his son faced each other, standing the one on the left, the other on the right hand of the spot where Istar must pause ere she went up into the high place. Both king and prince were in priest's dress--white muslin, goat-skin, and golden girdles, with anklets and bracelets of gold, and feather tiaras set in wrought gold. Seeing this garb, a few among the people chanced to remember the three Babylonish priests that had come down the river with the king. But there was no one that knew where they might be, and none cared enough to press an inquiry.

Now, certainly, Istar was late. The people were tired and impatient, and there were not a few who, having waited here since dawn, complained bitterly of the divine tardiness. But there was only one person in that throng that suffered both physically and mentally with suspense. This was he who, one hour before, had left Istar's side; he who now stood, ghastly pale, heavy-eyed, and nerveless with anxiety, at the sanctuary steps. Could she come here this morning? Would she come? And how would the ordeal affect her? It seemed almost impossible that she could go through with it, overwrought as she was. Yet what would be the result with the people did she fail them?

Ah! What was that? The minor cadences of the chant of priestesses were to be heard outside the temple. She was coming then. She was here!

At the door of the temple stood a large company of yellow-robed women, half of them veiled, half of them with their faces bare. In their midst, as yet invisible to the people, was Istar. Still, they recognized her presence, and there was a sudden, vast rustling, as all that immense throng, with one impulse, sank to their knees there in the sacred hall.

After a momentary pause on the threshold the ranks of the women parted, and Istar came forth alone.

Clothed like the sun she was, in tissue upon tissue of woven gold, that s.h.i.+mmered with a thousand rays. Her hair was crowned with gold, incrusted with deep-hued beryls, and from the back of the diadem floated a gold-wrought veil, beneath which lay her l.u.s.trous hair, a dark, silken ma.s.s. Dazzled at first by her s.h.i.+mmering garments, it was not till the second moment that the ten thousand eyes sought her face. Then--it seemed to Belshazzar that he could _feel_ the change in the mult.i.tude.

_G.o.ddess?_--That?--That pale-faced, wide-eyed woman? Nay! And yet--she was beautiful. She was so beautiful in her unveiled pallor that she might well have been looked on as something more than human. There was no radiant aureole of divinity around her now. Perhaps that had been a twilight dream. And, the first shock of disappointment over, most of the people would have wors.h.i.+pped her still. Men's eyes followed her with inexpressible wonderment as, inch by inch, she moved up the aisle. What agony that pa.s.sage was to her even Belshazzar could not know. She was barely conscious as she neared the steps; for it was the first time that she had ever really walked.

To Istar's eyes the temple was dim. The murmur of whispers reached her as from a great distance. She realized vaguely what she was expected to do, while her eyes were riveted on one thing, and her soul was striving to leave her body that it might reach the sooner that which she loved.

In the first instant of her mortality Belshazzar's image had been stamped indelibly upon her heart and in her brain. And now that he himself was there before her, she felt only that she must get to him.

She cared to go no further.

The long distance was traversed at last. She stood at the foot of the sanctuary steps, Belshazzar close upon her right hand, the king upon her left, all the ma.s.s of people behind her. She must go up, she must mount up into the s.p.a.ce that for a moment seemed to stretch out before her like the s.p.a.ces of heaven--vast, limitless, infinite. She placed her foot upon the first step, hesitated for an instant, s.h.i.+vered with cold, then, with a mighty effort, lifted herself up and stopped. Perhaps it was well that at this moment neither Vul-Raman above nor the crowd below could see her face. It bore an expression of fear, of horror, such as cannot be pictured by human imagination. Still she ascended one more step, and none could have realized the heroism that carried her there.

Could she go on? Must she? Suddenly a great cry burst from her. Her face became livid. Her teeth chattered, and her hands worked nervelessly. She was forbidden to progress. There, towering above her in menacing wrath, was a throng of shadowy things, of huge wings, of heavenly forms, just discernible to her eyes, invisible to all others. The archetypes of heaven were before her, barring her way, crying her fall to her, driving her back from the high place to which no mortal might attain. One gesture she made--lifted both arms to them in pitiable pleading. Then, with a fainter cry, she reeled and fell, backward and down, and, while the mighty vision faded from her mortal eyes, Belshazzar caught her lifeless body in his arms. As he did so there came an uproar from every side of the temple: vague, indeterminate, angry murmurs, presently silent before one trumpet-voice, bolder than the rest, that voiced the feeling of the men of Erech. This cry was taken up and repeated, and cried again, till the temple-roof quivered with it, and the stoutest of hearts quailed before its wrath:

"This is a woman! A woman! It is a woman!"

Belshazzar, with lion mien, and storm-eyes blazing with fury, faced them all with his burden in his arms; and, angry and disgusted as they were at the great deceit, not a hand was lifted against this prince of their blood who espoused the cause of the false woman, the pretender. As he bore her from them out of the temple, there was none to notice the parting of the sanctuary curtains; none to perceive the pale, peering face of Vul-Raman of Bit-Yakin, whose glittering knife was cold with desire for human blood. The priest stared fearfully upon the general tumult; for of all that company he was now the only one that believed in the divinity of Istar of Babylon. For how but by divinity had she that morning escaped her death?

VII

LORD RIBaTA'S GARDEN

Istar did not keep her word about Charmides' Greek lyre. It was not returned to him at all, whole or broken. So, after a little waiting, the Greek, hungry for an instrument, was obliged to replace his old one with one of the awkwardly fas.h.i.+oned Babylonian lyres, on which his skill was admirable, but which did not by any means produce the music of the Greek instrument. He felt the circ.u.mstance in two ways: one of disappointment with his G.o.ddess, the other as an omen--that the last tie that had bound him to Sicily was forever broken. Henceforth, in everything but complexion and religion, he was of Babylon. The Great City held every interest of his life. Everything that belonged to it was dear to him; and he wished nothing better than to have no distinction made, even in thought, between him and the natives of Chaldea. Only Apollo and the memory of his mother lived in his heart to remind him that his childhood had been something far away. And more than once, by night, thinking of the mother's loneliness, he sent her, by Castor and Pollux, fervent messages of affection. Perhaps Heraia received these and was content; for a mother-heart is quick to feel even a thought, though it be generated ten thousand miles away, and a mother can rise to any sacrifice for the happiness of the child of her flesh.

By the middle of July Charmides began to know Babylon, its ways and byways, very thoroughly. At first he had lost himself almost every time that he ventured from Ramua's side; but, by much wandering to find his way back again, he learned the streets and their crooked twistings as not all of the old inhabitants knew them. He was likewise in a fair way to overcome his greatest and most uncomfortable difficulty--the language. His necessarily constant intercourse with those that knew no word of any tongue but their own, very shortly familiarized him with the commonest phrases of every-day life. Beyond this, his greatest help came from the temple in which he worked. During the long hours that he spent behind the high place, listening to the plaints and confessions of devout ones, and while he chanted the replies put into his mouth by the attendant priest, he had, perforce, to occupy his mind in some way; and the way most obvious was by trying to comprehend what he was saying, and what the people before him were talking about. With the a.s.sistance of the words that he had acquired, and his very slight natural apt.i.tude, supplemented by an ardent desire to learn, he made quite astonis.h.i.+ng progress. By the end of July it would have disturbed the priest not a little to know the thoughts that were in Charmides' head as, little by little, the gigantic system of deceit unfolded itself before him. But Charmides was discreet. Never by word or look did he betray the least knowledge of the Babylonish tongue, but performed his required duties regularly, and appeared satisfied with the position, while becoming gradually more and more disgusted with the realities of this new religion.

Some days before it was generally known in the city, Charmides learned from the temple-priests about Istar's journey to Erech. That her departure was to be for good was generally understood among the priesthood, though of the intended murder not a single member of the lower orders dreamed. The Greek, however, was sorrowful enough over her going; and it was the desire of his heart to be one of the musicians of the voyage. Of this, however, there was no hope; for Charmides had become too valuable an adjunct of the temple of Sin to be spared even for a week to the service of Sin's daughter. He, however, with Ramua and Baba, went down to the water-front by the great bridge, and looked, for what the Greek in his heart thought to be the last time, on the form of her for whom he had come to Babylon. For the next few days he was very unhappy. It seemed to him that he had in some way been untrue to his vow. Babylon was his Babylon no more; and were it not for Ramua, he would have set out instantly for Erech. But Ramua had become even more necessary to his happiness than the great Istar. To leave her would mean undying regret. Either way, apparently, his existence would be incomplete, and what to do to remedy it was a cause of speculation that was happily ended by Istar's return to Babylon. She came unheralded, in a covered barge, and went back to her temple in a close-fastened litter, surrounded by a troop of Belshazzar's cavalry. To all the strange tales and sinister rumors circulated through the city about this unexpected return, Charmides turned a deaf ear. She, his G.o.ddess, was again in her abode. It was enough.

During this time the affairs of the Greek's non-professional life had become very absorbing. When his peace of mind was restored by the home-coming of Istar, he discovered that he was utterly and hopelessly in love with Ramua. That Ramua returned some part of his affection he sometimes, for a wild moment or so, permitted himself to hope; more often doubted so entirely that his misery seemed to be complete. She could not care for him, of course. Yet, barring the two or three hours a day that he spent in the temple, the two of them were never apart while the sun was above the horizon; and no one ever heard Ramua object to the arrangement, or appear to be wearied by it. Eyes, ears, mind, and soul of each were all for the other, though as yet neither could believe that the other cared. And neither of them, in their joyous selfishness, perceived the little creature who stood apart from them both, watching in silence that which was bringing heart-break into her eyes. Poor Baba!

Many a time by day, and more often still by night, Zor's silken coat was wet with her mistress' tears. Beltani had caught more than one stifled sob coming from the hard pallet in the dark hours; but Ramua, wide awake, perhaps, yet dreaming of suns.h.i.+ne and bright hair, never heard at all, or else put it down to that most unpoetic of all sounds--a snore.

One evening, some time after Istar's return from Erech, when Charmides had become more proficient in the Chaldean tongue, and when he also felt quite at home with Beltani and the two girls, he asked a question of which the effect on the family was something entirely unlooked for. It was simply as to how Ramua obtained her daily supply of fresh flowers.