GUDEA FARES ON A JOURNEYCHAPTER XIII
GUDEA FARES ON A JOURNEY
Long after the easy heaving of the boat on the choppy waves told that they were well on their journey, Ruth continued to struggle and moan.
“I swear to you,” she would cry again and again to Binit, “I swear by the awful name of my father’s God, that if the chance come again, I will fling myself in the river. Death is sweet beside passing into Belshazzar’s cruel clutch. Before the throne of the Most High God, whose ear is open to the cry of the innocent, I will stand and curse you!”
“Hush!” vainly exhorted Binit; “think of being his Majesty’s favourite,—the jewels, the dresses, the eunuchs to serve you!”
“Away with them!” groaned the Jewess; “if indeed Belshazzar shall love me so well as to grant me one boon, it shall be this, to ask the heads of you two, and of Gudea.”
“Be still!” warned the wailer, producing her knife; “the boatmen will hear you.”
But, helpless as Ruth seemed, she was not utterly devoid of understanding. “You dare not!” shechallenged defiantly, “dare not! Will the king give a shekel for my dead body?”
Tabni produced from his girdle a little flask of blue Phœnician vitrium. “We must quiet her,” he remarked grimly to Binit, “or there is trouble yet. She must sleep.”
The captive resisted, but her guards forced down the liquor by thrusting a blade betwixt her teeth. The draught burned like fire on Ruth’s tongue, but, once swallowed, she felt a fearful languor creeping over her. Vain to resist it: her eyelids became heavy as lead, and even the pain in her heart ceased galling. It was not long before her heavy breathing told that she slumbered.
“What has ailed your maid?” demanded a surly boatman from above. “You made wondrous ado over such a slattern!”
“Alas,” whimpered Binit, “the poor thing is tormented by most horrible ‘sickness-fiends’; I feel for her as for my own daughter.”
Then the good woman, having arranged with Tabni to take turns watching their precious charge through the night, composed herself also for slumber.
But Ruth, as she slept, had all the fair and lovely things that had hitherto made up the gladsome world of her guileless life, return to her. Her father, her mother, who had become only a memory while she was yet a little child, and Isaiah,—all were there. Then she dreamed that some one spoke to her, “Belshazzar the sinful lies with the dead; hispower is vanished forever.” And she walked in a strange city, not Babylon; and Isaiah was at her side, while all around were fair and lofty mountains. Isaiah’s hand was in hers, she knew she was his wife, and he said to her, “Behold Jerusalem! the city which God gives back to us! Here is our home, and let us be glad together!” Before them was a stately temple, but not that of Nabu or Marduk. Whereupon Isaiah said: “Let us enter in and give thanks to the good Lord God.” But just as she was passing within the gates, her whole being quivering with rapturous joy, the sweet dream ended; and she was lying on a rude straw pallet, and awakening—where?...
A sudden rasping of tackling plucked her down from paradise to the nethermost abyss. There was a thin streak of twilight stealing through the open hatch. Near her was stretched Tabni, snoring a little louder than a bull. Her misery returned to the Jewess in one awful surge; she pressed her hands to her face. “Lord God, if indeed Thou hast any power at all, have pity,” was her murmured prayer, “and let me die!” But a rustle at her side proclaimed the presence of Binit. “The little mistress,” purred the woman, “is awaking refreshed and happy?”
Ruth did not answer. “Be comforted,” continued the wailer; “we shall reach our destination by noon, and there we shall all delight to serve you. Here, Tabni,” rousing the “charmer” with a kick, “go ondeck, bring the lady some sweet wine and the cakes of fine barley I provided. She is faint.”
Grumbling, and rubbing his eyes, the other was about to comply, when a frightful howl from the deck above made captors and captive startle together. A second howl was followed by a distant shout and yell, then in turn by a furious clatter of the oars upon their thole-pins.
“Marduk defend us!” cried Binit, the most frightened of the three, “what happens? Up, Tabni—” more words were drowned by the simultaneous bellows of the six boatmen, “Save, O Nergal, save!” all the time they were working their sweeps like madmen, while the great sail came down with a crash that made the barge quiver from stem to stern.
Tabni thrust his head from the hatchway, cast his single eye about in the morning half-light, then added his voice to the yell of terror.
“Will you destroy me?” implored Binit. “What has befallen?” But Ruth lay perfectly still; at that moment she was thinking that no human ill could make her condition worse.
Tabni dropped from his station, his face the colour of a whited tile. His jaws twitched so that he could scarce utter a syllable; then came two words, “River thieves!”
“River thieves?” groaned Binit, leaping up as if she had sat on an adder.
“Their boats are hard after us. Two skiffs, tenmen in each. The bargemen are straining to make for shore. Then they will only lose the boat. Woe! woe! If we are taken—”
A prolonged screech from Binit, who practised her art in very earnest now, drowned out Tabni’s own noise. In the first instant of silence the voice of the barge captain thundered: “Up, all of you, if you would save liberty. Fling these wine-jars overboard, as quickly as if the Maskim were following!”
With feverish haste Binit led or rather carried the Jewess to the deck. A glance told the whole story. Out from the bank of gray morning mist that clung over a stagnant lagoon near the eastern bank were shooting two long reed boats, full of armed men, who came straight on toward the luckless barge. The boatmen had dropped the sail, as useless in the morning calm, and were pulling with despairing energy toward the western shore, in hopes of escaping to land, where they could save their freedom, though the barge was doomed as plunder.
“Every plague-fiend pounce on you, woman,” was the captain’s greeting to Binit, while he sweated over his oar; “it was waiting for you that delayed us and gave these scorpions their chance.” And even while he spoke, a whoop of triumph pealed across the glassy river, and two arrows splashed under the barge’s stern.
Yet, despite all the master’s cursings and rage, Binit would not aid Tabni in thrusting the cargooverboard, but simply sat on a bale, clutching tight hold of Ruth.
“Ten talents,” the wailer was repeating, even while her knees beat together, “ten talents, if only I can hold you fast!”
A third arrow dug into the deck, and the boatmen put forth their last strength. But the two skiffs were flying three cubits to their two. Already they could see the white teeth and wolfish bright eyes of the bandits.
“Yield, yield as you love your lives!” bawled many shrill voices. A new flight of arrows smote down a rower, but at this instant the barge thumped on a mud-bank close to the western shore, and stuck fast.
“Save yourselves!” was the last shout of the captain, and he with his remaining men dashed through the shallow water, and, scrambling up the low bank, were soon on shore, flying inland at full speed, leaving their passengers to the mercy of fate.
“Come, little lady!” Binit commanded; but Ruth hung perfectly limp on her arms, and Tabni and the woman lifted her and tugged her to the shore.
“Run!” exhorted they, setting the Jewess on her feet.
There was no time to be lost. The bandits, leaving the barge to plunder later, paddled straight up to the embankment, and were in pursuit in a twinkling. “Three prizes! After them!” was the general yell.
“Run!” commanded Binit again, when Ruth still dragged helplessly. And at the word she relaxed for a trifle her grasp. In an instant the Jewess had glided out of it, and wheeled, as if in bewildered terror, straight toward the robbers.
“Ten talents lost!” And Binit gave the loudest screech of all her noisy life.
By instinct she and Tabni turned to recover their prisoner, but arrows flew out to greet them, and in a moment Binit was moaning in a heap, as a shaft grazed her shoulder, while ten rough hands were securing the charmer, and as many more were holding Ruth. Then twenty tongues wagged all together, shouting, cursing, laughing, questioning; until, the breath of the robbers having failed, they dragged their three captives back to the barge, which they speedily rifled with a thoroughness born of long experience.
Only when the first flush of victory had spent itself did some order become apparent, and the late kidnappers, with their victims, were ranged before an enormous Amorite, rings in nose and ears, jewels all over his tawdry dress, a tremendous spiked mace flourishing in his fingers.
Binit was so frightened that she had ceased howling; Tabni held down his head as if avoiding scrutiny; while Ruth remained in perfect silence, as if dumbness were her last refuge.
“Well, my brothers,” commented the leader, surveying the three, and pulling reflectively at hisnose ring, “the gods reward us for the morning’s toil. These good folk seem to be worth little for ransoms, but, praised be Moloch! there are Arabian caravan merchants in the next village ahead, who, if they have not started for Egypt, will give silver shekels for three such likely slaves.”
The announcement drew forth a new spasm of screams from Binit, who cast herself at the Amorite’s feet.
“Oh, kind, handsome, generous lord!” she entreated, “do not sell to Egypt. See, I am wounded; I cannot work; I shall die under the whip!”
“Now, by the Maskim,” swore the giant, “this is the first time for long I have been ‘kind or handsome’ to man or maid!” And he with his fellows brayed together with laughter.
“Pity us,” thrust in Tabni, stretching forth his hands beseechingly. “I cannot labour. Alas! I am old; soon I must make my peace with Ea, and prepare to die.”
But as he spoke, a bandit leaped forth before the rest. “Do you not know me, Tabni, you half-blind coney?—Eri-Aku the Elamite, whom you drove into this life by your false accusations of murder. Great mercy if I do not commit murder in truth! Give me leave, comrades—”
He brandished his sword over the quivering charmer’s head, but his companions plucked him back, while the leader set eyes on Ruth.
“Comely for a swart peasant maiden,” he remarked,“but her limbs are frail as lily stems. She cannot work.”
“Deliver her to me, noble captain,” suggested Eri-Aku; “my hut in the marshes needs a likely wench like her.”
The blood came tingling into the Jewess’s face, and crimsoned almost under her reddened skin, as the Elamite’s words and leer smote her. But the captain shook his head.
“All captives must be sold for the good of the band. She goes to the Arabians like the rest.”
Binit commenced to bawl out something to the effect that this was no ordinary serving-maid, and that the king would give for her riches untold. But alas for the wailer’s craftiness, Ruth looked anything but the favourite of Belshazzar, thanks to the cosmetic; while to Binit’s signs and grimaces to her to declare herself, she answered not one word.
“The woman raves!” declared the Amorite, and he ordered his men to gag Binit and Tabni, and haste away, for there was no telling how soon a king’s bireme might be up the river, and their situation become awkward.
Therefore three captives spent the morning very disconsolately, paddling northward by hidden canals and watercourses in the bandits’ skiffs. The sun was broiling them at noon when the robbers landed at a squalid mud village, where the Arab caravan train was halting. Fifty odd grumbling, dirty-brown camels were kneeling on the slough ofthe little square, while their drivers adjusted the last bales of Babylonish carpets and Indian muslins that had just come up from the gulf. The Amorite marched his prisoners before the master of the troop, and the bargain was not long in making.
“These people were come by honestly?” quoth the merchant, with one eye in his head, for he knew his man.
“Honestly, by Moloch!” and the Amorite swore an oath loud enough to make up for all its other shortcomings.
“But these two,” objected the Arab, jerking a thumb towards Binit and Tabni, “are too old for hard toil. The risk on the desert is great. I can spare little water. Of the three, one is sure to die.”
“Consider how cheaply you get them. The three, and only forty shekels!”
“Not unreasonable, but they look most sluggish for field work.”
“‘Much scourging, much labour!’” answered the chief, “so runs the old proverb.”
“The Egyptian taskmasters remember that, by Baal!” cried the Arab, gleefully, while he counted out the sum; then, with a sudden glance at one of his subordinates, a low-browed young fellow: “Verily, what ails you, Shaphat? Have these creatures the evil eye, that you gape at them so?”
The man addressed only shuffled away, remarking “that he had known something about the prisoners in Babylon, and would tell the leader later.”
The Amorite and his following went their ways, rejoicing in the good fortune the god of gain had sent them. The Arabs tied their new passengers upon the backs of camels, and the caravan started; but it did not move rapidly. First a camel went lame, then a girth broke and let a heavy load tumble, then a donkey broke loose and was captured with difficulty. Night caught the caravan at a second little village only a few furlongs above the first.
The master of the Arabs was a discerning man, and he presently called Shaphat aside, and pointed to the youngest prisoner,
“You act strangely, fellow,” declared the merchant; “did you know this girl in Babylon? When I engaged you, I understood you were a Jew, once servant of the imprisoned minister, Daniel. To my mind, this maid is of your own race.”
“You are right,” was the seemingly frank answer. “She is a Jewess, and at some time I have met her in the city; but I forget at whose house she may have been servant. As you see, she is comely. Treat her well, and she will bring twice the price of the two others. And do not bind her. Who dreams that a frail thing such as she can run away?”
“You speak well; she shall not be bound; but cease making eyes at her. Her good looks are not for such as you.” Whereupon Shaphat professed himself all obedience.
That night Ruth lay alone upon a dirty truss of straw in a village hut, while without great camelsgrunted, dogs bayed the moon, and watchmen trolled coarse ditties. First one calamity had thronged upon her, then another, from the moment Isaiah took her from her father’s house, only an hour ago it seemed. She had long since passed beyond the solace of tears. She had striven to pray. Her whispered words seemed only to awaken echoes of mockery. Either Jehovah was Himself a fiend, or He was helpless, Bel-Marduk His master. Once a terrible thought crossed her mind. She would curse Jehovah, she would cry to Marduk, to Istar, and to Ramman; the Babylonians called on them and prospered, why might not she?—what good thing had Jehovah granted, that she should love Him? But at the suggestion all the strong forces of the Jewess’s nature rose in rebellion within her. Should she, the daughter of Daniel, the betrothed of Isaiah, near and dear to two men who were perilling their lives for the sake of Jehovah, be the one to doubt? No, though the present ills waxed tenfold worse, if such a thing might be! And presently, it seemed as if out of the night a voice was speaking, and she heard it, while an awful stillness was reigning in her heart,—the words of the psalm of her people, the song of David when God delivered him from the murderous hand of Saul.
“The Lord is my rock, and my fortress and my deliverer:My God, my strength, in whom I will trust,My buckler and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised,So shall I be saved from mine enemies.He bowed down the heavens also, and came down:And darkness was under his feet.He delivered me from my strong enemy, and from them that hated me.”
“The Lord is my rock, and my fortress and my deliverer:My God, my strength, in whom I will trust,My buckler and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised,So shall I be saved from mine enemies.He bowed down the heavens also, and came down:And darkness was under his feet.He delivered me from my strong enemy, and from them that hated me.”
“The Lord is my rock, and my fortress and my deliverer:My God, my strength, in whom I will trust,My buckler and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised,So shall I be saved from mine enemies.He bowed down the heavens also, and came down:And darkness was under his feet.He delivered me from my strong enemy, and from them that hated me.”
“The Lord is my rock, and my fortress and my deliverer:
My God, my strength, in whom I will trust,
My buckler and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.
I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised,
So shall I be saved from mine enemies.
He bowed down the heavens also, and came down:
And darkness was under his feet.
He delivered me from my strong enemy, and from them that hated me.”
The voice was gone. The camp had become very still. A wondrous peace and hope seemed to have stolen over Ruth. She was about to let herself drift away into the arms of sleep, knowing by her pure, unreasoning woman’s faith, that One stronger than father or lover was at her side to shield from all real harm, when she heard a guarded footfall on the earthen floor. A figure of a man darkened the little patch of black violet that marked the door; then he spoke:—
“Lady Ruth, dearest mistress, do you not know me?”
It was the voice of Shaphat.
The next morning the master of the caravan and his fellow merchants and camel drivers were scouring all the country round about. They began at last to give some ear to the frenzied protestations of Binit, that the youngest captive was indeed a prize for the king. The Jewish servant, who had hired himself to them at Babylon, had vanished from all sight, taking with him his fellow countrywoman and a round little bag of money. But the merchants could not push their search too far, for the village bailiffs might ask them to explain how it was themaid had passed into their possession; and if they admitted the Amorites’ share in the matter, there might be more disagreeable questions to answer. Accordingly, after a bootless search through another day, they set off across the desert, and in due time Binit and Tabni found employers in the Sais slave-market, who taught them the inconveniences of sloth in Egyptian field labour.
But long before these twain had reached the end of their wanderings, their confederate Gudea had been started on a yet longer journey, with even scantier prospects of return. Promptly on the morning after the kidnapping, he had bribed his way through the chamberlains to a private audience with Belshazzar himself. As expected, the king had been stormy at first, but ended by paying the exorcist two talents as earnest money, with promise of eight more when the girl Ruth was delivered. Gudea promptly sent a letter up river, bidding Tabni and Binit return with their booty in all haste. No answer; and a second letter had no better reply. When a third message brought nothing, Gudea began to realize that his associates had miscarried in some unknown manner; while the king waxed impatient, and hinted that the earnest money was best back in the treasury. Then Gudea, being at his wit’s end, let all wisdom forsake him. He turned the two talents into gold, and strove to steal out of the city by night, hoping to save at least this fraction of the expected booty. But the crafty gods that hadthus far prospered him, at this moment abandoned him. He was arrested at the Gate of the Chaldees, by command of Avil-Marduk, who had not forgotten the affair of the trial, and was not slow in informing Belshazzar that the exorcist had tried to cheat the monarch himself. The case before the high justiciar was brought to a speedy issue, for the defence was the lamest.
“Let Gudea, the exorcist,” sounded the sentence, “die the death by the iron sword. Let his head be set above the Gate of Ilu, and let his body be flung to the hyenas and ravens; so shall all men fear to extort money deceitfully from our lord the king.”
“Hearken,” the despairing exorcist had howled, while Khatin and two assistants pinioned him, before haling him from the tribunal: “Am I not the most pious wizard in Babylon? Shall I sacrifice to all the gods for nought?”
“Off, off!” commanded the justiciar, quitting his seat; “silence this babble!”
Gudea turned to Khatin, struggling vainly to free his hands.
“Ah, dearest Khatin, surely you will not let me die. Remember all the pleasant pots we have drained together at Nur-Samas’s; remember our pledges of friendship, and how often I have professed that I love you!”
“And do I not loveyou, my precious jackal?” said the headsman, with a snort. “Have I not many a time said, ‘The more love I bear a man, themore joy to see him safely ended.’ Bethink you, sweet friend, is it not pleasanter to slip out of the world with the delightful whir of my sword singing in your ears, than to depart as did the lamented Saruch, with Binit and yourself howling above him?”
“Ah,” whimpered the exorcist, so limp now that the others had to keep him on his legs, “it is not the dying only, though that is most fearful; but woe! alas! despite all my sacrifices, what will not the gods do to me? How may I justify myself to Ea? Allat will torture me eternally!”
“Fie, my lovely Gudea,” belched the headsman, “what expectations for a man of your piety! Yet be consoled; Ea sends every soul to its proper place, and even Allat can be little less handsome than your dearest wife, especially when Binit’s palm-wine was heady.”
“Cursed be you! cursed with a dying man’s last curse!” howled Gudea, all hope vanishing now, as they dragged him away. But Khatin only answered with his mildest chuckle: “I have heard that music whistled by stouter asses than you, comrade. But no grudge; I must drink a double pot to-night at the beer-house,—one for you, one for me,—as token of how I shall miss you.”
But Gudea’s only answers came in wordless chatterings. And how it prospered him on the rest of his long journey is not written, even in the wisest book.