NABU BETRAYS BEL-MARDUKCHAPTER XXV
NABU BETRAYS BEL-MARDUK
Since first dusk the army of Cyrus had been in motion: the horse-archers of Tartary, the Hindoo infantry, the Persian lancers. The army marched in silence, no kettle-drums thundering, no war-horns blaring, the commands sent softly down the long line, from officer to officer. When the last bars of light had flickered out in the west, there had come a halt; bread and wine were passed among the men, the horses were watered in a canal: and Orasmasdes, chief of the Magians, shook incense into the portable altar carried beside the king, and offered prayer. Softly yet clearly rose the song in praise of Mithra, the great minister of Ahura-Mazda:—
“His chariot is borne onward by Holiness.The law of Ahura shall open the way for him;At his right hand speeds Obedience the holy,At his left hand flies powerful Justice,Behind him drives lie-smiting Fire!”
“His chariot is borne onward by Holiness.The law of Ahura shall open the way for him;At his right hand speeds Obedience the holy,At his left hand flies powerful Justice,Behind him drives lie-smiting Fire!”
“His chariot is borne onward by Holiness.The law of Ahura shall open the way for him;At his right hand speeds Obedience the holy,At his left hand flies powerful Justice,Behind him drives lie-smiting Fire!”
“His chariot is borne onward by Holiness.
The law of Ahura shall open the way for him;
At his right hand speeds Obedience the holy,
At his left hand flies powerful Justice,
Behind him drives lie-smiting Fire!”
When the chant was finished the General Gobryas rode up beside the royal chariot.
“Lord of the Aryans, what shall be the battle-cry to-night?”
And Cyrus, leaning from the car, made answer, “Give this battle-cry to the host, as it shall enter Babylon,—‘For Ahura, for Atossa!’”
The officer bowed, vanished in the deepening gloom. Cyrus turned to his charioteer. “Forward!” he commanded softly.
The reins shook over the white Nisæans. As the chariot moved onward, the thousands made haste to follow. Once Atrobanes, the “handkerchief-bearer,” who cantered beside his lord, ventured remonstrance.
“Will not your Majesty take your litter? My lord is not so young as once. If he drive all night, he will grow weary.”
Cyrus stood erect upon the car, taller seemingly than ever.
“Peace, good friend; the king of the Aryans has at least the strength to ride when his children are marching, and with such a prize before!”
“True,” quoth the other, as he rode beside, “even your Majesty does not often stretch forth his hands to take a Babylon.”
“Do you think I ride for Babylon this night?” demanded the king, almost angrily.
But Atrobanes did not reply; he knew the guerdon of all the deeds that night would not be “The Lady of Kingdoms” but the Lady Atossa.
So onward in the darkness, the trailing host keeping wondrously still. They had wound wisps of hay around shield and scabbard and over the horses’ hoofs to deaden all noise. As the nightadvanced, the sense of awe sank deeper. Even the beasts gave no whinny; only as one clapped an ear close to the earth would he have caught the jar and rhythm of many men marching. The sky along one horizon was just beginning to overcast and hide a few stars. Soldier muttered to soldier, “There will be a storm,—lightning and thunder.” But for the hour all the elements kept silence, with no wind creeping across the plain or lifting the lifeless pennons.
Cyrus had ridden long without speaking, when the muffled canter of two horsemen sounded, approaching from ahead. A moment later Darius and Isaiah were reining beside the monarch’s car.
“You meet nothing? no alarm? no watchers?” asked the king in a whisper.
“None, lord,” answered Darius; “we rode to the shadow of the outer wall; there was no sentry to challenge us.”
“The stillness may be ominous,” remarked Cyrus, shrewdly—“a pretended carelessness to lure us under the walls, when Belshazzar can fling wide his sally-ports and dash on us with his thousands. And you did grievous wrong in perilling your lives so near.”
“Am I not a Persian too, your Majesty?” answered the prince in his pride; “have I not learned to dare and to do from you and from none other?”
“True,” they knew Cyrus was smiling, “but Belshazzar may nevertheless have set a trap.”
“Then the Babylonians’ guile is deeper yet,” repliedDarius; “you do not see, my lord, in the darkness, who it is Isaiah has mounted behind him.”
“A deserter from Babylon?”
“Imbi-Ilu, the exiled pontiff of Borsippa, just come from the city. Let him speak for himself.”
The chariot halted, while a figure leaped to the ground from behind the Jew, and salaamed before the king.
“May every god shine on your Majesty,” Imbi reported; “at no small peril your slave disguised himself as commanded and entered Babylon. He has communicated with Bilsandan the vizier, and Sirusur theTartan. They accept your Majesty’s promises, and rejoice to become your servants,—the more because Avil-Marduk works hourly on Belshazzar to gain their ruin. The guards on the gates have been withdrawn by Sirusur, the rest of the garrison is nigh drunken to a man. My priests at Borsippa swear they will not fail.”
“The garrison drunken? Is Belshazzar mad; does he think my power shattered so utterly?” asked Cyrus, marvelling.
“Be that as it may, my king,” interposed Isaiah, “while we awaited Imbi-Ilu under the walls, we heard from within nothing else than the sound of music and of revelling. The Chaldees are not Persians. Their god is the wine-cup, if the truth be told. Jehovah has caught them in their wickedness. He has led them into the net prepared by His servants.”
“So be it,” remarked Cyrus; then to the priest he hinted sternly, “Your friends will do well to keep troth. Let there be treachery in this, and I swear by your gods and by mine, I will lift your head from your shoulders!”
The Babylonian was not discomposed. “And I accept the warning; if I or my priests of Nabu play false, do to me as you will. But if Babylon is taken—”
“You shall not fail in your reward,” declared Cyrus, “on the word of a Persian king; I renew my promise of the high priesthood of Bel-Marduk in Avil’s stead.”
“Forward then,” urged the Chaldee; “let the king possess his city.”
The charioteer made the lash whistle, the car whirled forward. The shadow of the great walls was above them now; speed, not silence, demanded; the guards about the king pricked with the spur to keep beside. Darius spoke again to Cyrus:—
“Lord, Imbi-Ilu tells us that at midnight Belshazzar quits his bridal feast.”
Cyrus shot a glance up at the heavens, where the advancing clouds had not yet quenched all the starlight.
“By the movement of the stars, it lacks three hours of midnight,” he answered.
“We must therefore take all Babylon in three hours. Away with prudence; haste, oh, haste!” cried the prince.
But Cyrus spoke back to him, “If so Ahura willeth, in three twinklings of an eye we could yet save Atossa!”
But, notwithstanding, they heard the king’s great voice swell out in a shout that was music in the ears of all the army.
“Forward, men of Iran!”
It was the word that let the hounds slip from the leash, that uncaged the lion. Directly above their heads was the beetling rampart; they saw the glassy shimmer of the broad canal under the vanishing stars, and they heard—from within the vast bulwark, even as Isaiah had said—the sound of mirth and of harping. The footmen burst into a run, every horseman pricked deeper, while one shout, though in many tongues, echoed against the fortress.
“The Father! The Father! Let us die for Cyrus our king!”
Then the battlements surely quivered while a second shout smote them, “For Ahura, for Atossa!”
The echoes died; no battle-cry from behind the walls pealed in answer. The column was skirting the southern rampart, when yet another messenger flew up beside the king.
“I come from the Princes Harpagus and Hystaspes; their troopers are in station before the northern city. They attack as soon as the uproar proclaims that the king is assaulting.”
No answer from Cyrus, for the van was beside the water-gate of the great canal of Borsippa. Thecolumn perforce had halted. The last stars had fled. It was very dark. The walls above seemed barriers lifted to the very gates of heaven; undefended, might not Belshazzar’s city mock its mightiest foe? The canal was creeping through the dark cage-work of the bronze water-gate. For an instant was stillness, while king and soldier waited; and then, all vaguely, they saw the great fabric of metal rising, crawling like a sluggish monster from its slimy bed. Unseen chains and pulleys strained, grated; the gate rose higher; now the canal coursed freely under, now it was lifted to the height of a mounted man. Close under the wall lay a causeway, wide enough for a single cavalryman to enter. Nimitti-Bel was unsealed!
Out of the darkness appeared figures and flickering torches.
“Live forever, O king,” spoke Sirusur the betrayer, “the city is sunken in mirth and drunkenness. Forward boldly—you will dash the wine-cup from Belshazzar’s own hand.”
Cyrus started to descend from the chariot.
“A horse,” he commanded abruptly; “there is no space for the car to enter.”
But at his words one cry of protest arose from Darius and all the officers, “The king will nothimselfenter the city!”
“Not enter?” Cyrus’s voice became stern and high. “Am I not king? To whom may I give account?”
None stirred to obey him. Moments were rubies; the monarch was swelling with anger.
“Have I not commanded? I can yet be terrible to the disobedient. I am still the ‘Giver of Breath’ to all Iran!”
But the others stood mute and motionless. The preciousness of the hour made Cyrus blind to all save his desires. He bounded from the car, and snatched a mounted officer with a giant’s clutch.
“Down! Your horse!” he commanded thickly. The man was helpless in that grasp, but suddenly a dozen hands were put forth upon the king himself.
“Lord,” said Gobryas, the senior general present, “we cannot suffer this thing. Your Majesty must remain without the gates till your slaves have mastered the city.”
The king struggled to be free.
“Must? Not even you may use that word to me. As Ahura liveth, you shall die for this madness.”
But the others did not release him.
“Lord,” repeated Gobryas, “when your Majesty wills, I bow my neck to the stroke; but till then, I love the ‘Light of the Aryans’ too well to see it quenched, even at its wish.”
“But I implore you—” protested the king, for commands were useless.
And Gobryas answered, “We love the king too well even to heed his prayers.”
Cyrus gave one bitter groan, but he remounted the chariot and said no more.
“Advance,” entreated Sirusur; “every instant gives Belshazzar chance to take alarm, and my work is undone!”
“We will enter,” spoke Darius; and in the faint torchlight they saw Cyrus bow his head. Then every officer bent low in the saddle, saluting the king. The host behind was fretting and wondering at the strange delay. But once more the king’s command rang out strong. “Forward, my children! And swiftly—your father prays it!”
“For Ahura, for Atossa!”
So thundered Darius, and as all the rest rolled on the cry, he sent his steed at headlong gallop straight through the narrow portal; after him Isaiah, after him the choicest of the Aryan cavalry. Within the gate the priests of Nabu met them with more horses and torches to guide them on their way; for the Borsippa folk’s hatred of Avil-Marduk passed their dread of the Persian. Darius glanced over his shoulder,—the gate had been forced wide open, the sword-hands and lancers of his people were pouring in by tens, by hundreds. The gate of Imgur-Bel opened wide for them. Let Belshazzar defend his inner barrier as he might, the strongest were lost him. The night was darker yet, the storm was rumbling nearer. But far away, down the long vista of Nana Street shone a dull redness against an inky sky—the torches and bonfires of the palace, where the Lord of the Chaldees sat at feast.
Darius pressed the spur until his good beast almost screamed with the pain.
“The City of the Lie is ours!” he cried to Isaiah, who flew beside him, while a thousand raged close behind. “Ours! And Belshazzar is ours!—and Atossa!”