BEL ACCUSESCHAPTER X
BEL ACCUSES
Daniel the civil-minister had been arrested on the charge of committing murder by sorcery. All Babylon had rung with the news. Even though the accusers were vouched for by Avil-Marduk himself, the city had received the tale with indignant incredulity. When Sirusur went with a “hundred” of lancers to make the arrest, the burghers would have rescued the prisoner by sheer force, had not Daniel leaned from the chariot in which they were bearing him to the palace, and entreated the citizens to shed no blood. Even those closest to the king shook their heads, and expressed the hope that no ill would brew from the high priest’s doings.
But Daniel had spent the night in the palace guard-house, and the rage of the city folk had in a measure subsided. Nevertheless, when the doors were thrown open to the “Hall of Judgment,” the wand-bearers had no slight ado to control the multitudes that pressed for entrance. There on the ivory throne sat Belshazzar, in the robes of state, splendid as on the night of the feast in the Hanging Gardens;behind the king stood the parasol bearer and the fan bearers; at his right hand, in his white mantle of office, was the high justiciar of the realm; on his left, in resplendent scarlet livery, was Khatin, statuesque, impassive, save as at rare intervals he stole a sly glance at the ponderous naked sword at his side. On the three broad steps of the throne were arrayed the royal officials, each in due order of precedence, they likewise in glittering array; down the walls the sunlight flashed on the enamelled pictures, the great cedar beams of the ceiling shone with their gilding. The pathway to the foot of the throne was marked by a costly rug. If Daniel was to be tried, it was not to be without due state!
As the old Jew entered, escorted by Bilsandan the vizier, there had occurred something that made Avil-Marduk, as he stood at the accuser’s station before the king’s right hand, swell with hidden rage. Of all the huge company that thronged the lower hall, scarce a head failed to bow in salutation to Daniel; and not a few were bold enough to shout a “Heaven prosper you!” after him. “Silence! or I clear the hall!” Belshazzar ordered angrily, and the noise ceased; but there was no need to tell on which side was arrayed the people.
Unmoved by all, Daniel, ushered by the vizier, advanced to the foot of the throne, and there, as etiquette demanded, remained kneeling, until, after long silence, a barely perceptible nod from Belshazzartold him to rise. Bilsandan salaamed, and stepped beside the justiciar, at the right of the king, leaving Daniel confronting the monarch.
More silence, and then Belshazzar began abruptly:
“Daniel, otherwise named Belteshazzar, answer: Did you, or did you not, commit murder of late, by spells and witchcraft?”
The Jew, who seemed as composed as the king himself, in the face of that peering company, answered mildly, but without the least hesitation, “that if his Majesty pleased, he would not plead until his accusers had stated their charges.”
“And if I do not please?” demanded the king, ominously.
“Then, your Majesty, I shall be constrained to recite to you the law, honoured by all your royal predecessors since its decreeing by Khammurabi, two thousand years ago, ‘Let no man be condemned, except he be first accused, and his guilt proven out of the mouths of two unperjured witnesses.’”
“Have a care, Jew! have a care!” warned Belshazzar; “it ill becomes a leopard of your spots to teach the law to the king of Babylon.”
“I ask only justice, your Majesty.”
“And, by Bel, you shall have it!” swore the king. “Advance, Avil, and produce your witnesses!”
The high priest appeared before the throne, at his back three men and a woman, who bowed themselves most awkwardly in the presence of royalty.
“The wise Gudea,” muttered Khatin in his beard,“and Binit his dear wife have scarcely learned courtly graces at the beer-house of Nur-Samas.”
But, leaving his myrmidons to gape around the hall, Avil commenced a fiery invective. If his arguments were faulty, his epithets were strong. Daniel, the most impudent blasphemer of Bel in all Babylon, had, he explained, at last carried his impiety so far as to accomplish the death of the most excellent Saruch, simply because the latter forsook his impotent Jewish demon, Jehovah. If the king failed to punish the murderer, the outraged gods would haste to blast Babylon with fire and brimstone.
“Do you still deny the accusation?” questioned Belshazzar, when Avil concluded, and the Jew, all unmoved by the fierce harangue, answered steadily, “Utterly, my lord; my whole life lived in this city denies it.”
“Present, then, your witnesses,” commanded Belshazzar of Avil, who proceeded to hale Gudea to the front, with a muttered injunction in his ear to “tell a well-welded story, or the ‘Earth-Fiends’ would have him by night!”
Therefore the exorcist, with smooth countenance and glib tongue, rattled off the tale of the death of Saruch, adding that if the man did not meet his end by foul enchantment, he was willing to bare his back for a thousand stripes.
Khatin had rolled his eyes more than once during this recital, and did so again when Binit was thrustforward after her husband. The good woman’s examination was the more brief because the lardy ointment she had smeared on her hair was so pungent that even the king could hardly regard her steadily. She avowed that early on the day of the alleged murder she had sold a quantity of magic wood and magic wax to two men whom she identified as the remaining pair of witnesses. There was an audible titter when she ended.
“Will you cross-examine these witnesses?” asked the justiciar of Daniel.
“My lord,” the prisoner smiled quietly, “I can ask these worthy people many things, but since neither have connected me in the least with the death of Saruch, I will only reserve my right to examine them later.”
“Come forward, then, Tabni,” commanded Avil, confidently; “tell the king the rest of the story, that he may see how the testimony of the most pious Gudea tends to convict the accused.”
A more partial judge than Belshazzar, even, might well have looked askance at the personage who now faced Daniel. A squalid dress, an unkempt beard, and a single eye with a most snakelike twinkle, made it difficult for Khatin to swallow his guffaw. Avil examined his witness sharply, and Tabni answered with the readiness of a well-drilled pupil. He was a “charmer,” of a profession akin to Gudea’s, only he made the spells which the other counteracted. He would supply good crops, profitable investments, orsuccessful love-making as promptly and cheaply as any in the city. On the day of Saruch’s death, Daniel had summoned him very early, and told him he needed his services to “wither” a mortal enemy. Tabni had hesitated, and Daniel raised the fee. Therefore, as the witness put it, since it seemed a mere “overcasting,” with no impiety involved, he consented, for business had been slack of late, and one must live. He had gone with Daniel’s servant Shaphat to buy the needful conjuring material of Binit. Then Daniel took him, in company with Shaphat, into a secret chamber. They made a waxen image; named it Saruch; thrust three red-hot needles through it; and Tabni had pronounced the infallible spell over it,—
“We entwine you with ropes,We catch you in a cage,We twist you in a sling,We drown you in filthy water,We fling you down from a high wall.”
“We entwine you with ropes,We catch you in a cage,We twist you in a sling,We drown you in filthy water,We fling you down from a high wall.”
“We entwine you with ropes,We catch you in a cage,We twist you in a sling,We drown you in filthy water,We fling you down from a high wall.”
“We entwine you with ropes,
We catch you in a cage,
We twist you in a sling,
We drown you in filthy water,
We fling you down from a high wall.”
That afternoon Tabni heard that Saruch was dead. He had reflected, and became convinced that he had been privy to a fearful deed. His conscience had troubled him, and he had conferred with Gudea, who advised him to make a public confession.
“And will you examine this man also?” asked the justiciar again, to which Daniel, still composedly, made answer, “May your lordship first deign to hear the other witness.”
“It is your right,” responded the justiciar; towhich Belshazzar added viciously, “I have sworn it, you shall have full justice, Jew; but take notice, your guilt is established out of the mouth of one witness. Let a second swear to his tale, and the case is proved. I give you this opportunity. Confess now, and I will see if I can relax the just penalty of the law.”
“I demand the other accuser,” answered Daniel, almost haughtily; and Belshazzar nodded to Avil.
“Shaphat, former servant of Daniel, advance!” commanded Avil, peremptorily.
And now there was a rustle and a flutter in the hall indeed. “One of the minister’s servants will betray him,—and one who is a Jew, at that!” ran the whisper, while an ill-favoured young man was thrust before the king. But all men noticed that the fellow hung down his head, and would not look the prisoner in the eye. Avil’s voice was very stern.
“Now, Shaphat, you have heard all that the pious ‘charmer’ Tabni has said. Tell the king: Were you not a Jewish servant in the house of Daniel, and did you not quit his service because you grew to love the gods of Babylon, while he worshipped his demon Jehovah and gave himself over to vile sorceries?”
The witness nodded, very faintly.
“You were with Tabni when he bought the magician’s material from Binit?”
“Yes,”—the word barely audible.
“You were with him at the making of the waxen image?”
“Yes,”—the word came still fainter.
“Now is it not your oath, taken in the name both of the gods of Babylon and of Judea, that Daniel pronounced the name of Saruch above the waxen image?”
But at this instant the witness raised his head, and Daniel looked him in the face. They saw Shaphat’s countenance working in agony; the words were choking in his throat: “I cannot! I cannot!” That was all they could understand.
“Cannot what, knave?” demanded the king, fiercely. But the wretched fellow had cast himself before Daniel, and embraced his knees.
“O master! master!” he groaned, “I cannot lie before your face. I was dismissed justly for my thieving, and only in your mercy did you spare me prison. You are guiltless; Tabni’s tale is all perjury: I never saw him; never saw Binit; you never had the ‘charmer’ in your house. Alas! that I listened to Gudea, and took his money—”
“Silence, hound!” shouted Avil, flinging dignity to every wind, and catching the luckless witness by the scruff; “would you be cut into sandal-leather?”
But a fearful din was rising from the company. Not only the city folk, but the courtiers, were thundering: “Innocent! Innocent! Away with the false witnesses!”
“Silence!” commanded the king, his countenancedarkening. “What is this, Avil? What is this witness saying?”
“Your Majesty,” answered Avil, barely heard in the tumult, “you see with your own eyes that Daniel is a sorcerer. While Shaphat came forward, he muttered magic spells to force him to utter falsehood!”
The efforts of the wand-bearers had restored stillness. Belshazzar’s frown was still very black when he addressed the prisoner.
“That the accused has dealing with demons, who come to his aid, should be manifest to all men. Speak, Daniel; even now I give you chance to show wherefore you should not die the death.”
“I stand upon the law, your Majesty.” The Jew seemed the soberest mortal in all that excited company. “My past life should be a defence against the slanders of this Tabni; and the king has heard Shaphat and his confession. Even receiving the oath of Tabni, only one witness swears to my guilt.”
“And let your Majesty observe,” interrupted Avil, angrily, “that the civil-minister, being a Jew, cannot claim the protection of the law of Babylon.”
But at this Bilsandan the vizier leaped from his station.
“Are you mad, priest?” he cried. “Deny foreigners our law, and all the great Egyptian and Syrian merchants quit Babylon; our trade is blasted!”
“And will you presume to teachmemy duty tothe king?” retorted Avil, still more wrathfully. But before the tumult could rise higher, the justiciar stepped out before the throne.
“Live forever, O king!” spoke he, salaaming. “Before your Majesty passes judgment, hear this concerning the witness Tabni. Daniel has not yet asked him, but I do ask, whether he was not the ‘charmer’ who was brought before the ‘Tribunal of the Five Judges,’ in the past year, when Daniel sat with me among the members? He is silent; he dares deny nothing. No; nor dare he deny that he was convicted first of embezzlement, then of perjury; and that all the judges save Daniel voted ‘death,’ but the civil-minister persuaded us to mercy. We imposed three hundred stripes. Behold the gratitude!”
The uproar was doubled now, the exertions of the wand-bearers utterly futile. The luckless Tabni cowered behind the chief priest, who still clamoured, “Execute the blasphemer! No mercy to the sorcerer!” While Bilsandan as loudly bade the priest “make an end to his patter!” and to remember the precept in the “Book of Maxims,” “Let the king avenge according to the law, or swiftest destruction waiteth upon his city.”
Yet, through all the clamour and turbulence, Belshazzar sat upon the ivory throne, impassive, implacable. The very sympathies of the company had made his stony heart still harder. Was he not king? Should any ancient law, from men of agesforgotten, stand betwixthimand his own royal will? At the first instant of silence his voice rang clear:—
“Hear my judgment. Daniel is a Jew, and the law does not cover him. His guilt is sufficiently proved. Advance, Khatin; seize the prisoner!”
But it was not merely shoutings now that drowned the king’s voice. Right before the monarch sprang Sirusur, “Master of the Host.”
“Lord,” cried he, hotly, “if your Majesty desires to put crown ministers to death on the word of such as Tabni, let the king find another general!” And he cast his baton of office at the royal feet; so did the justiciar, so the “Master of the Granaries,” the “Master of the Treasury,” and a dozen great officials more. Khatin, the boldest of the bold, had shrunk from fulfilling the kingly order. But while Belshazzar sat lowering and unbending in the face of every protest, Mermaza had thrust his way through the angry officers, and salaamed before his master.
“Your Majesty,” spoke he, and his ever present smile had become dimmed in truth, “I am commanded by the queen-mother, Tavat-Hasina, to say that she has heard with no pleasure of the accusation against that dear servant of her father Nebuchadnezzar, the civil-minister Daniel; that she entreats the king her son to listen to no perjured evidence, and she warns the minister’s accusers of her most high displeasure.” The colour was leaving Avil’s cheek, for Tavat was still a power to be reckonedwith. “And I am also commanded,” went on Mermaza, more haltingly, “to say in behalf of the worshipful Persian envoy, the Prince Darius, that Daniel the Jew has become most dear to him, and he trusts the king will do nothing hastily, if he desires to retain the ambassador’s good will.”
They saw Belshazzar’s face grow even darker, saw him lift the gold-tipped sceptre, as if to dash it in the eunuch’s face. But fewer saw Avil’s signal to his lord, as the priest stood close beside the dais, and the muttered whisper, “Yield for the moment.” The staff-bearers enforced silence at last. In profound stillness the king announced his decision:—
“In mine own eyes the guilt of Daniel is clear as the moon on a cloudless night; but I perceive that many faithful servants are minded otherwise, and that a question has arisen as to the veracity of the witness Tabni. Let therefore the accused be remanded to prison until his case can be more carefully examined into. And since nothing else is brought to my judgment seat, let the hall be cleared.”
The assemblage dispersed. Daniel was led to the palace prison. The king vanished in the harem. Khatin stole away to Nur-Samas’s beer-house with very dejected countenance,—he had not taken Daniel’s head. Only Avil and Gudea conversed together, but not amiably.
“Scorpion,” raged the priest, “what mean you by playing with me thus? To pin half your tale ona creature like Tabni, and then to have the other witness fail!”
“Compassion! my lord,” whined Gudea. “Hardly a man would do an ill turn by Daniel, he is so beloved. Even Tabni and Shaphat set their prices high.”
“And Shaphat has vanished, after having made sport of me before all Babylon!” fumed Avil. “Better to have Daniel at large, than in prison with so many revilings flung after me as there were to-day! You have failed me utterly, you and your cursed wife. May you never darken my sight again!”
“But your lordship recalls a small matter,” sniffed Gudea, as unable as Binit to forget the money-bags,—“a promise, of two talents; merely of two talents. A trifle amongst friends—”
“And I will pay them,” swore Avil, “when Allat has requited you in the ‘House of Torment.’ Therefore, get you gone!”
When Gudea returned to his home that night, he had occasion to meditate long on the ingratitude of the mighty.