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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of Elissa, by H. Rider Haggard
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: Elissa
+
+Author: H. Rider Haggard
+
+Release Date: October, 2001 [eBook #2855]
+[Most recently updated: May 28, 2021]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: John Bickers, Dagny and David Widger
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ELISSA ***
+
+
+
+
+Elissa
+
+OR THE DOOM OF ZIMBABWE 
+
+by H. Rider Haggard
+
+
+Contents
+
+ DEDICATION
+ AUTHOR’S NOTE
+ NOTE
+
+ CHAPTER I. THE CARAVAN
+ CHAPTER II. THE GROVE OF BAALTIS
+ CHAPTER III. ITHOBAL THE KING
+ CHAPTER IV. THE DREAM OF ISSACHAR
+ CHAPTER V. THE PLACE OF SACRIFICE
+ CHAPTER VI. THE HALL OF AUDIENCE
+ CHAPTER VII. THE BLACK DWARF
+ CHAPTER VIII. AZIEL PLIGHTS HIS TROTH
+ CHAPTER IX. GREETING TO THE BAALTIS
+ CHAPTER X. THE EMBASSY
+ CHAPTER XI. METEM SELLS IMAGES
+ CHAPTER XII. THE TRYST
+ CHAPTER XIII. THE SACRILEGE OF AZIEL
+ CHAPTER XIV. THE MARTYRDOM OF ISSACHAR
+ CHAPTER XV. ELISSA TAKES SANCTUARY
+ CHAPTER XVI. THE CAGE OF DEATH
+ CHAPTER XVII. “THERE IS HOPE”
+
+
+
+
+DEDICATION
+
+
+To the Memory of the Child
+Nada Burnham,
+
+who “bound all to her” and, while her father cut his way through the
+hordes of the Ingobo Regiment, perished of the hardships of war at
+Buluwao on 19th May, 1896, I dedicate these tales—and more particularly
+the last, that of a Faith which triumphed over savagery and death.
+
+H. Rider Haggard.
+
+Ditchingham.
+
+
+
+
+AUTHOR’S NOTE
+
+
+Of the three stories that comprise this volume[*], one, “The Wizard,” a
+tale of victorious faith, first appeared some years ago as a Christmas
+Annual. Another, “Elissa,” is an attempt, difficult enough owing to the
+scantiness of the material left to us by time, to recreate the life of
+the ancient Phœnician Zimbabwe, whose ruins still stand in Rhodesia,
+and, with the addition of the necessary love story, to suggest
+circumstances such as might have brought about or accompanied its fall
+at the hands of the surrounding savage tribes. The third, “Black Heart
+and White Heart,” is a story of the courtship, trials and final union
+of a pair of Zulu lovers in the time of King Cetywayo.
+
+[*] This text was prepared from a volume published in 1900 titled
+“Black Heart and White Heart, and Other Stories.”— JB.
+
+
+
+
+NOTE
+
+
+The world is full of ruins, but few of them have an origin so utterly
+lost in mystery as those of Zimbabwe in South Central Africa. Who built
+them? What purpose did they serve? These are questions that must have
+perplexed many generations, and many different races of men.
+
+The researches of Mr. Wilmot prove to us indeed that in the Middle Ages
+Zimbabwe or Zimboe was the seat of a barbarous empire, whose ruler was
+named the Emperor of Monomotapa, also that for some years the Jesuits
+ministered in a Christian church built beneath the shadow of its
+ancient towers. But of the original purpose of those towers, and of the
+race that reared them, the inhabitants of mediæval Monomotapa, it is
+probable, knew less even than we know to-day. The labours and skilled
+observation of the late Mr. Theodore Bent, whose death is so great a
+loss to all interested in such matters, have shown almost beyond
+question that Zimbabwe was once an inland Phœnician city, or at the
+least a city whose inhabitants were of a race which practised Phœnician
+customs and worshipped the Phœnician deities. Beyond this all is
+conjecture. How it happened that a trading town, protected by vast
+fortifications and adorned with temples dedicated to the worship of the
+gods of the Sidonians—or rather trading towns, for Zimbabwe is only one
+of a group of ruins—were built by civilised men in the heart of Africa
+perhaps we shall never learn with certainty, though the discovery of
+the burying-places of their inhabitants might throw some light upon the
+problem.
+
+But if actual proof is lacking, it is scarcely to be doubted—for the
+numerous old workings in Rhodesia tell their own tale—that it was the
+presence of payable gold reefs worked by slave labour which tempted the
+Phœnician merchants and chapmen, contrary to their custom, to travel so
+far from the sea and establish themselves inland. Perhaps the city
+Zimboe was the Ophir spoken of in the first Book of Kings. At least, it
+is almost certain that its principal industries were the smelting and
+the sale of gold, also it seems probable that expeditions travelling by
+sea and land would have occupied quite three years of time in reaching
+it from Jerusalem and returning thither laden with the gold and
+precious stones, the ivory and the almug trees (1 Kings x.). Journeying
+in Africa must have been slow in those days; that it was also dangerous
+is testified by the ruins of the ancient forts built to protect the
+route between the gold towns and the sea.
+
+However these things may be, there remains ample room for speculation
+both as to the dim beginnings of the ancient city and its still dimmer
+end, whereof we can guess only, when it became weakened by luxury and
+the mixture of races, that hordes of invading savages stamped it out of
+existence beneath their blood-stained feet, as, in after ages, they
+stamped out the Empire of Monomotapa. In the following romantic sketch
+the writer has ventured—no easy task—to suggest incidents such as might
+have accompanied this first extinction of the Phœnician Zimbabwe. The
+pursuit indeed is one in which he can only hope to fill the place of a
+humble pioneer, since it is certain that in times to come the dead
+fortress-temples of South Africa will occupy the pens of many
+generations of the writers of romance who, as he hopes, may have more
+ascertained facts to build upon than are available to-day.
+
+
+
+
+ELISSA
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+THE CARAVAN
+
+
+The sun, which shone upon a day that was gathered to the past some
+three thousand years ago, was setting in full glory over the expanses
+of south-eastern Africa—the Libya of the ancients. Its last burning
+rays fell upon a cavalcade of weary men, who, together with long
+strings of camels, asses and oxen, after much toil had struggled to the
+crest of a line of stony hills, where they were halted to recover
+breath. Before them lay a plain, clothed with sere yellow grass—for the
+season was winter—and bounded by mountains of no great height, upon
+whose slopes stood the city which they had travelled far to seek. It
+was the ancient city of Zimboe, whereof the lonely ruins are known to
+us moderns as Zimbabwe.
+
+At the sight of its flat-roofed houses of sun-dried brick, set upon the
+side of the opposing hill, and dominated by a huge circular building of
+dark stone, the caravan raised a great shout of joy. It shouted in
+several tongues, in the tongues of Phœnicia, of Egypt, of the Hebrews,
+of Arabia, and of the coasts of Africa, for all these peoples were
+represented amongst its numbers. Well might the wanderers cry out in
+their delight, seeing that at length, after eight months of perilous
+travelling from the coast, they beheld the walls of their city of rest,
+of the golden Ophir of the Bible. Their company had started from the
+eastern port, numbering fifteen hundred men, besides women and
+children, and of those not more than half were left alive. Once a
+savage tribe had ambushed them, killing many. Once the pestilential
+fever of the low lands had taken them so that they died of it by
+scores. Twice also had they suffered heavily through hunger and thirst,
+to say nothing of their losses by the fangs of lions, crocodiles, and
+other wild beasts which with the country swarmed. Now their toils were
+over; and for six months, or perhaps a year, they might rest and trade
+in the Great City, enjoying its wealth, its flesh-pots, and the unholy
+orgies which, among people of the Phœnician race, were dignified by the
+name of the worship of the gods of heaven.
+
+Soon the clamour died away, and although no command was given, the
+caravan started on at speed. All weariness faded from the faces of the
+wayworn travellers, even the very camels and asses, shrunk, as most of
+them were, to mere skeletons, seemed to understand that labour and
+blows were done with, and forgetting their loads, shambled unurged down
+the stony path. One man lingered, however. Clearly he was a person of
+rank, for eight or ten attendants surrounded him.
+
+“Go,” said he, “I wish to be alone, and will follow presently.” So they
+bowed to the earth, and went.
+
+The man was young, perhaps six or eight and twenty years of age. His
+dark skin, burnt almost to blackness by the heat of the sun, together
+with the fashion of his short, square-cut beard and of his garments,
+proclaimed him of Jewish or Egyptian blood, while the gold collar about
+his neck and the gold graven ring upon his hand showed that his rank
+was high. Indeed this wanderer was none other than the prince Aziel,
+nick-named the Ever-living, because of a curious mole upon his shoulder
+bearing a resemblance to the _crux ansata_, the symbol of life eternal
+among the Egyptians. By blood he was a grandson of Solomon, the mighty
+king of Israel, and born of a royal mother, a princess of Egypt.
+
+In stature Aziel was tall, but somewhat slimly made, having small
+bones. His face was oval in shape, the features, especially the mouth,
+being fine and sensitive; the eyes were large, dark, and full of
+thought—the eyes of a man with a destiny. For the most part, indeed,
+they were sombre and over-full of thought, but at times they could
+light up with a strange fire.
+
+Aziel the prince placed his hand against his forehead in such fashion
+as to shade his face from the rays of the setting sun, and from beneath
+its shadow gazed long and earnestly at the city of the hill.
+
+“At length I behold thee, thanks be to God,” he murmured, for he was a
+worshipper of Jehovah, and not of his mother’s deities, “and it is
+time, since, to speak the truth, I am weary of this travelling. Now
+what fortune shall I find within thy walls, O City of Gold and
+devil-servers?”
+
+“Who can tell?” said a quiet voice at his elbow. “Perhaps, Prince, you
+will find a wife, or a throne, or—a grave.”
+
+Aziel started, and turned to see a man standing at his side, clothed in
+robes that had been rich, but were now torn and stained with travel,
+and wearing on his head a black cap in shape not unlike the fez that is
+common in the East to-day. The man was past middle age, having a
+grizzled beard, sharp, hard features and quick eyes, which withal were
+not unkindly. He was a Phœnician merchant, much trusted by Hiram, the
+King of Tyre, who had made him captain of the merchandise of this
+expedition.
+
+“Ah! is it you, Metem?” said Aziel. “Why do you leave your charge to
+return to me?”
+
+“That I may guard a more precious charge—yourself, Prince,” replied the
+merchant courteously. “Having brought the child of Israel so far in
+safety, I desire to hand him safely to the governor of yonder city.
+Your servants told me that by your command they had left you alone, so
+I returned to bear you company, for after nightfall robbers and savages
+wander without these walls.”
+
+“I thank you for your care, Metem, though I think there is little
+danger, and at the worst I can defend myself.”
+
+“Do not thank me, Prince; I am a merchant, and now, as in the past, I
+protect you, knowing that for it I shall be paid. The governor will
+give me a rich reward when I lead you to him safely, and when in years
+to come I return with you still safe to the court of Jerusalem, then
+the great king will fill my ship’s hold with gifts.”
+
+“That depends, Metem,” replied the prince. “If my grandfather still
+reigns it may be so, but he is very old, and if my uncle wears his
+crown, then I am not sure. Truly you Phœnicians love money. Would you,
+then, sell me for gold also, Metem?”
+
+“I said not so, Prince, though even friendship has its price——”
+
+“Among your people, Metem?”
+
+“Among all people, Prince. You reproach us with loving money; well, we
+do, since money gives everything for which men strive—honour, and
+place, and comfort, and the friendship of kings.”
+
+“It cannot give you love, Metem.”
+
+The Phœnician laughed contemptuously. “Love! with gold I will buy as
+much of it as I need. Are there no slaves upon the market, and no free
+women who desire ornaments and ease and the purple of Tyre? You are
+young, Prince, to say that gold cannot buy us love.”
+
+“And you, Metem, who are growing old, do not understand what I mean by
+love, nor will I stay to explain it to you, for were my words as wise
+as Solomon’s, still you would not understand. At the least your money
+cannot bring you the blessing of Heaven, nor the welfare of your spirit
+in the eternal life that is to come.”
+
+“The welfare of my spirit, Prince? No, it cannot, since I do not
+believe that I have a spirit. When I die, I die, and there is an end.
+But the blessing of Heaven, ah! that can be bought, as I have proved
+once and again, if not with gold, then otherwise. Did I not in bygone
+years pass the first son of my manhood through the fire to Baal-Sidon?
+Nay, shrink not from me; it cost me dear, but my fortune was at stake,
+and better that the boy should die than that all of us should live on
+in penury and bonds. Know you not, Prince, that the gods must have the
+gifts of the best, gifts of blood and virtue, or they will curse us and
+torment us?”
+
+“I do not know it, Metem, for such gods are no gods, but devils,
+children of Beelzebub, who has no power over the righteous. Truly I
+would have none of your two gods, Phœnician; upon earth the god of
+gold, and in heaven the devil of slaughter.”
+
+“Speak no ill of him, Prince,” answered Metem solemnly, “for here you
+are not in the courts of Jehovah, but in his land, and he may chance to
+prove his power on you. For the rest, I had sooner follow after gold
+than the folly of a drunken spirit which you name Love, seeing that it
+works its votary less mischief. Say now, it was a woman and her love
+that drove you hither to this wild land, was it not, Prince? Well, be
+careful lest a woman and her love should keep you here.”
+
+“The sun sets,” said Aziel coldly; “let us go forward.”
+
+With a bow and a murmured salute, for his quick courtier instinct told
+him that he had spoken too freely, Metem took the bridle of the
+prince’s mule, holding the stirrup while he mounted. Then he turned to
+seek his own, but the animal had wandered, and a full half hour went by
+before it could be captured.
+
+By now the sun had set, and as there is little or no twilight in
+Southern Africa it became difficult for the two travellers to find
+their way down the rough hill path. Still they stumbled on, till
+presently the long dead grass brushing against their knees told them
+that they had lost the road, although they knew that they were riding
+in the right direction, for the watch-fires burning on the city walls
+were a guide to them. Soon, however, they lost sight of these fires,
+the boughs of a grove of thickly-leaved trees hiding them from view,
+and in trying to push their way through the wood Metem’s mule stumbled
+against a root and fell.
+
+“Now there is but one thing to be done,” said the Phœnician, as he
+dragged the animal from the ground, “and it is to stay here till the
+moon rises, which should be within an hour. It would have been wiser,
+Prince, if we had waited to discuss love and the gods till we were safe
+within the walls of the city, for the end of it is that we have fallen
+into the hands of king Darkness, and he is the father of many evil
+things.”
+
+“That is so, Metem,” answered the prince, “and I am to blame. Let us
+bide here in patience, since we must.”
+
+So, holding their mules by the bridles, they sat down upon the ground
+and waited in silence, for each of them was lost in his own thoughts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+THE GROVE OF BAALTIS
+
+
+At length, as the two men sat thus silently, for the place and its
+gloom oppressed them, a sound broke upon the quiet of the night, that
+beginning with a low wail such as might come from the lips of a
+mourner, ended in a chant or song. The voice, which seemed close at
+hand, was low, rich and passionate. At times it sank almost to a sob,
+and at times, taking a higher note, it thrilled upon the air in tones
+that would have been shrill were they not so sweet.
+
+“Who is it that sings?” said Aziel to Metem.
+
+“Be silent, I pray you,” whispered the other in his ear; “we have
+wandered into one of the sacred groves of Baaltis, which it is death
+for men to enter save at the appointed festivals, and a priestess of
+the grove chants her prayer to the goddess.”
+
+“We did not come of our own will, so doubtless we shall be forgiven,”
+answered Aziel indifferently; “but that song moves me. Tell me the
+words of it, which I can scarcely follow, for her accent is strange to
+me.”
+
+“Prince, they seem to be holy words to which I have little right to
+hearken. The priestess sings an ancient hallowed chant of life and
+death, and she prays that the goddess may touch her soul with the wing
+of fire and make her great and give her vision of things that have been
+and that shall be. More I dare not tell you now; indeed I can barely
+hear, and the song is hard to understand. Crouch down, for the moon
+rises, and pray that the mules may not stir. Presently she will go, and
+we can fly the holy place.”
+
+The Israelite obeyed and waited, searching the darkness with eager
+eyes.
+
+Now the edge of the great moon appeared upon the horizon, and by
+degrees her white rays of light revealed a strange scene to the
+watchers. About an open space of ground, some eighty paces in diameter,
+grew seven huge and ancient baobab trees, so ancient indeed that they
+must have been planted by the primæval hand of nature rather than by
+that of man. Aziel and his companion were hidden with their mules
+behind the trunk of one of these trees, and looking round it they
+perceived that the open space beyond the shadow of the branches was not
+empty. In the centre of this space stood an altar, and by it was placed
+the rude figure of a divinity carved in wood and painted. On the head
+of this figure rose a crescent symbolical of the moon, and round its
+neck hung a chain of wooden stars. It had four wings but no hands, and
+of these wings two were out-spread and two clasped a shapeless object
+to its breast, intended, apparently, to represent a child. By these
+symbols Aziel knew that before him was an effigy sacred to the goddess
+of the Phœnicians, who in different countries passed by the various
+names of Astarte, or Ashtoreth, or Baaltis, and who in their coarse
+worship was at once the personification of the moon and the emblem of
+fertility.
+
+Standing before this rude fetish, between it and the altar, whereon lay
+some flowers, and in such fashion that the moonlight struck full upon
+her, was a white-robed woman. She was young and very beautiful both in
+shape and feature, and though her black hair streaming almost to the
+knees took from her height, she still seemed tall. Her rounded arms
+were outstretched; her sweet and passionate face was upturned towards
+the sky, and even at that distance the watchers could see her deep eyes
+shining in the moonlight. The sacred song of the priestess was
+finished. Now she was praying aloud, slowly, and in a clear voice, so
+that Aziel could hear and understand her; praying from her very heart,
+not to the idol before her, however, but to the moon above.
+
+“O Queen of Heaven,” she said, “thou whose throne I see but whose face
+I cannot see, hear the prayer of thy priestess, and protect me from the
+fate I fear, and rid me of him I hate. Safe let me dwell and pure, and
+as thou fillest the night with light, so fill the darkness of my soul
+with the wisdom that I crave. O whisper into my ears and let me hear
+the voice of heaven, teaching me that which I would know. Read me the
+riddle of my life, and let me learn wherefore I am not as my sisters
+are; why feasts and offerings delight me not; why I thirst for
+knowledge and not for wealth, and why I crave such love as here I
+cannot win. Satisfy my being with thy immortal lore and a love that
+does not fail or die, and if thou wilt, then take my life in payment.
+Speak to me from the heaven above, O Baaltis, or show me some sign upon
+the earth beneath; fill up the vessel of my thirsty soul and satisfy
+the hunger of my spirit. Oh! thou that art the goddess, thou that hast
+the gift of power, give me, thy servant, of thy power, of thy godhead,
+and of thy peace. Hear me, O Heaven-born, hear me, Elissa, the daughter
+of Sakon, the dedicate of thee. Hear, hear, and answer now in the
+secret holy hour, answer by voice, by wonder, or by symbol.”
+
+The woman paused as though exhausted with the passion of her prayer,
+hiding her face in her hands, and as she stood thus silent and
+expectant, the sign came, or at least that chanced which for a while
+she believed to have been an answer to her invocation. Her face was
+hidden, so she could not see, and fascinated by her beauty as it
+appeared to them in that unhallowed spot, and by the depth and dignity
+of her wild prayer, the two watchers had eyes for her alone. Therefore
+it happened that not until his arm was about to drag her away, did
+either of them perceive a huge man, black as ebony in colour, clad in a
+cloak of leopard skins and carrying in his right hand a broad-bladed
+spear who, following the shadow of the trees, had crept upon the
+priestess from the farther side of the glade.
+
+With a guttural exclamation of triumph he gripped her in his left arm,
+and, despite her struggles and her shrill cry for help, began half to
+drag and half to carry her towards the deep shade of the baobab grove.
+Instantly Aziel and Metem sprang up and rushed forward, drawing their
+bronze swords as they ran. As it chanced, however, the Israelite caught
+his foot in one of the numerous tree-roots, which stood above the
+surface of the ground and fell heavily upon his face. In a few seconds,
+twenty perhaps, he found his breath and feet again, to see that Metem
+had come up with the black giant who, hearing his approach, suddenly
+wheeled round to meet him, still holding the struggling priestess in
+his grasp. Now the Phœnician was so close upon him that the savage
+could find no time to shift the grip upon his spear, but drove at him
+with the knobbed end of its handle, striking him full upon the forehead
+and felling him as a butcher fells an ox. Then once more he turned to
+fly with his captive, but before he had covered ten yards the sound of
+Aziel’s approaching footsteps caused him to wheel round again.
+
+At sight of the Israelite advancing upon him with drawn sword, the
+great barbarian freed himself from the burden of the girl by throwing
+her heavily to the ground, where she lay, for the breath was shaken out
+of her. Then snatching the cloak from his throat he wound it over his
+left arm to serve as a shield, and with a savage yell, rushed straight
+at Aziel, purposing to transfix him with the broad-headed spear.
+
+Well was it for the prince that he had been trained in sword-play from
+his youth, also, notwithstanding his slight build, that he was strong
+and active as a leopard. To await the onslaught would be to die, for
+the spear must pierce him before ever he could reach the attacker’s
+body with his short sword. Therefore, as the weapon flashed upward he
+sprang aside, avoiding it, at the same time, with one swift sweep of
+his sword, slashing its holder across the back as he passed him.
+
+With a howl of pain and rage the savage sprang round and charged him a
+second time. Again Aziel leapt to one side, but now he struck with all
+his force at the spear shaft which his assailant lifted to guard his
+head. So strong was the blow and so sharp the heavy sword, that it
+shore through the wood, severing the handle from the spear, which fell
+to the ground. Casting away the useless shaft, the warrior drew a long
+knife from his girdle, and before Aziel could strike again faced him
+for the third time. But he no longer rushed onward like a bull, for he
+had learnt caution; he stood still, holding the skin cloak before him
+shield fashion, and peering at his adversary from over its edge.
+
+Now it was Aziel’s turn to take the offensive, and slowly he circled
+round the huge barbarian, watching his opportunity. At length it came.
+In answer to a feint of his the protecting cloak was dropped a little,
+enabling him to prick its bearer in the neck, but only with the point
+of his sword. The thrust delivered, he leapt back, and not too soon,
+for forgetting his caution in his fury, the savage charged straight at
+him with a roar like that of a lion. So swift and terrible was his
+onset that Aziel, having no time to spring aside, did the only thing
+possible. Gripping the ground with his feet, he bent his body forward,
+and with outstretched arm and sword, braced up his muscles to receive
+the charge. Another instant, and the leopard skin cloak fluttered
+before him. With a quick movement of his left arm he swept it aside;
+then there came a sudden pressure upon his sword ending in a jarring
+shock, a flash of steel above his head, and down he went to the ground
+beneath the weight of the black giant.
+
+“Now there is an end,” he thought; “Heaven receive my spirit.” And his
+senses left him.
+
+When they returned again, Aziel perceived dimly that a white-draped
+figure bent over him, dragging at something black which crushed his
+breast, who, as she dragged, sobbed in her grief and fear. Then he
+remembered, and with an effort sat up, rolling from him the corpse of
+his foe, for his sword had pierced the barbarian through breast and
+heart and back. At this sight the woman ceased her sobbing, and said in
+the Phœnician tongue:—
+
+“Sir, do you indeed live? Then the protecting gods be thanked, and to
+Baaltis the Mother I vow a gift of this hair of mine in gratitude.”
+
+“Nay, lady,” he answered faintly, for he was much shaken, “that would
+be a pity; also, if any, it is my hair which should be vowed.”
+
+“You bleed from the head,” she broke in; “say, stranger, are you deeply
+wounded.”
+
+“I will tell you nothing of my head,” he replied, with a smile, “unless
+you promise that you will not offer up your hair.”
+
+“So be it, stranger, since I must; I will give the goddess this gold
+chain instead; it is of more worth.”
+
+“You would do better, lady,” said the shrill voice of Metem, who by now
+had found his wits again, “to give the gold chain to me whose scalp has
+been broken in rescuing you from that black thief.”
+
+“Sir,” she answered, “I am grateful to you from my heart, but it is
+this young lord who killed the man and saved me from slavery worse than
+death, and he shall be rewarded by my father.”
+
+“Listen to her,” grumbled Metem. “Did I not rush in first in my folly
+and receive what I deserved for my pains? But am I to have neither
+thanks nor pay, who am but an old merchant; they are for the young
+prince who came after. Well, so it ever was; the thanks I can spare,
+and the reward I shall claim from the treasury of the goddess.
+
+“Now, Prince, let me see your hurt. Ah! a cut on the ear, no more, and
+thank your natal star that it is so, for another inch and the great
+vein of the neck would have been severed. Prince, if you are able, draw
+out your sword from the carcase of that brute, for I have tried and
+cannot loosen the blade. Then perhaps this lady will guide us to the
+city before his fellows come to seek him, seeing that for one night I
+have had a stomach full of fighting.”
+
+“Sirs, I will indeed. It is close at hand, and my father will thank you
+there; but if it is your pleasure, tell me by what names I shall make
+known to him you whose rank seems to be so high?”
+
+“Lady, I am Metem the Phœnician, captain of the merchandise of the
+caravan of Hiram, King of Tyre, and this lord who slew the thief is
+none other than the prince Aziel, the twice royal, for he is grandson
+to the glorious King of Israel, and through his mother of the blood of
+the Pharaohs of Egypt.”
+
+“And yet he risked his life to save me,” the girl murmured astonished;
+then dropping to her knees before Aziel, she touched the ground with
+her forehead in obeisance, giving him thanks, and praising him after
+the fashion of the East.
+
+“Rise, lady,” he broke in, “because I chance to be a prince I have not
+ceased to be a man, and no man could have seen you in such a plight
+without striking a blow on your behalf.”
+
+“No,” added Metem, “none; that is, as you happen to be noble and young
+and lovely. Had you been old and ugly and humble, then the black man
+might have carried you from here to Tyre ere I risked my neck to stop
+him, or for the matter of that, although he will deny it, the prince
+either.”
+
+“Men do not often show their hearts so clearly,” she answered with
+sarcasm. “But now, lords, I will guide you to the city before more harm
+befalls us, for this dead man may have companions.”
+
+“Our mules are here, lady; will you not ride mine?” asked Aziel.
+
+“I thank you, Prince, but my feet will carry me.”
+
+“And so will mine,” said Aziel, ceasing from a prolonged and fruitless
+effort to loosen his sword from the breast-bone of the savage, “on such
+paths they are safer than any beasts. Friend, will you lead my mule
+with yours?”
+
+“Ay, Prince,” grumbled Metem, “for so the world goes with the old; you
+take the fair lady for company and I a she-ass. Well, of the two give
+me the ass which is more safe and does not chatter.”
+
+Then they started, Aziel leaving his short sword in the keeping of the
+dead man.
+
+“How are you named, lady?” he said presently, adding “or rather I need
+not ask; you are Elissa, the daughter of Sakon, Governor of Zimboe, are
+you not?”
+
+“I am so called, though how you know it I cannot guess.”
+
+“I heard you name yourself, lady, in the prayer you made before the
+altar.”
+
+“You heard my prayer, Prince?” she said starting. “Do you not know that
+it is death to that man who hearkens to the prayer of a priestess of
+Baaltis, uttered in her holy grove? Still, none know it save the
+goddess, who sees all, therefore I beseech you for your own sake and
+the sake of your companion, say nothing of it in the city, lest it
+should come to the ears of the priests of El.”
+
+“Certainly it would have been death to you had I _not_ chanced to hear
+it, having lost my way in the darkness,” answered the prince laughing.
+“Well, since I did hear it I will add that it was a beautiful prayer,
+revealing a heart high and pure, though I grieve that it should have
+been offered to one whom I hold to be a demon.”
+
+“I am honoured,” she answered coldly; “but, Prince, you forget that
+though you, being a Hebrew, worship Him they call Jehovah, or so I have
+been told, I, being of the blood of the Sidonians, worship the lady
+Baaltis, the Queen of Heaven the holy one of whom I am a priestess.”
+
+“So it is, alas!” he said, with a sigh, adding:—
+
+“Well, let us not dispute of these matters, though, if you wish, the
+prophet Issachar, the Levite who accompanies me, can explain the truth
+of them to you.”
+
+Elissa made no reply, and for a while they walked on in silence.
+
+“Who was that black robber whom I slew?” Aziel asked presently.
+
+“I am not sure, Prince,” she answered, hesitating, “but savages such as
+he haunt the outskirts of the city seeking to steal white women to be
+their wives. Doubtless he watched my steps, following me into the holy
+place.”
+
+“Why, then, did you venture there alone, lady?”
+
+“Because, to be heard, such prayers as mine must be offered in solitude
+in the consecrated grove, and at the hour of the rising of the moon.
+Moreover, cannot Baaltis protect her priestess, Priest, and did she not
+protect her?”
+
+“I thought, lady, that I had something to do with the matter,” he
+answered.
+
+“Ay, Prince, it was your hand that struck the blow which killed the
+thief, but Baaltis, and no other, led you to the place to rescue me.”
+
+“I understand, lady. To save you, Baaltis, laying aside her own power,
+led a mortal man to the grove, which it is death that mortal man should
+violate.”
+
+“Who can fathom the way of the gods?” she replied with passion, then
+added, as though reasoning with a new-born doubt, “Did not the goddess
+hear my prayer and answer it?”
+
+“In truth, lady, I cannot say. Let me think. If I understood you
+rightly, you prayed for heavenly wisdom, but whether or not you have
+gained it within this last hour, I do not know. And then you prayed for
+love, an immortal love. O, maiden, has it come to you since yonder moon
+appeared upon the sky? And you prayed——”
+
+“Peace!” she broke in, “peace and mock me not, or, prince that you are,
+I will publish your crime of spying upon the prayer of a priestess of
+Baaltis. I tell you that I prayed for a symbol and a sign, and the
+prayer was answered.
+
+“Did not the black giant spring upon me to bear me away to be his
+slave—his, or another’s? And is he not a symbol of the evil and the
+ignorance which are on the earth and that seek to drag down the beauty
+and the wisdom of the earth to their own level? Then the Phœnician ran
+to rescue me and was defeated, since the spirit of Mammon cannot
+overcome the black powers of ill. Next you came and fought hard and
+long, till in the end you slew the mighty foe, you a Prince born of the
+royal blood of the world——” and she ceased.
+
+“You have a pretty gift of parable, lady, as it should be with one who
+interprets the oracles of a goddess. But you have not told me of what
+I, your servant, am the symbol.”
+
+She stopped in her walk and looked him full in the face.
+
+“I never heard,” she said, “that either the Jews or the Egyptians,
+being instructed, were blind to the reading of an allegory. But,
+Prince, if you cannot read this one it is not for me, who am but a
+woman, to set it out to you.”
+
+Just then their glances met, and in the clear moonlight Aziel saw a
+wave of doubt sweep over his companion’s dark and beautiful eyes, and a
+faint flush appear upon her brow. He saw, and something stirred at his
+heart that till this hour he had never felt, something which even now
+he knew it would trouble him greatly to escape.
+
+“Tell me, lady,” he asked, his voice sinking almost to a whisper, “in
+this fable of yours am I even for an hour deemed worthy to play the
+part of that immortal love embodied which you sought so earnestly a
+while ago?”
+
+“Immortal love, Prince,” she answered, in a new voice, a voice low and
+deep, “is not for one hour, but for all hours that are and are to be.
+You, and you alone, can know if you would dare to play such a part as
+this—even in a fable.”
+
+“Perchance, lady, there lives a woman for whom it might be dared.”
+
+“Prince, no such woman lives, since immortal love must deal, not with
+the flesh, but with the spirit. If a spirit worthy to be thus loved and
+worshipped now wanders in earthly shape upon the world, seeking its
+counterpart and its completion, I cannot tell. Yet were it so, and
+should they chance to meet, it might be happy for such brave spirits,
+for then the answer to the great riddle would be theirs.”
+
+Wondering what this riddle might be, Aziel bent towards her to reply,
+when suddenly round a bend in the path but a few paces from them came a
+body of soldiers and attendants, headed by a man clad in a white robe
+and walking with a staff. This man was grey-headed and keen-eyed, thin
+in face and ascetic in appearance, with a brow of power and a bearing
+of dignity. At the sight of the pair he halted, looking at them in
+question, and with disapproval.
+
+“Our search is ended,” he said in Hebrew, “for here is he whom we seek,
+and alone with him a heathen woman, robed like a priestess of the
+Groves.”
+
+“Whom do you seek, Issachar?” asked Aziel hurriedly, for the sudden
+appearance of the Levite disturbed him.
+
+“Yourself, Prince. Surely you can guess that your absence has been
+noted. We feared lest harm should have come to you, or that you had
+lost your path, but it seems that you have found a guide,” and he
+stared at his companion sternly.
+
+“That guide, Issachar,” answered Aziel, “being none other than the lady
+Elissa, daughter of Sakon, governor of this city, and our host, whom it
+has been my good fortune to rescue from a woman-stealer yonder in the
+grove of the goddess Baaltis.”
+
+“And whom it was my bad fortune to try to rescue in the said grove, as
+my broken head bears witness,” added Metem, who by now had come up,
+dragging the two mules after him.
+
+“In the grove of the goddess Baaltis!” broke in the Levite with a
+kindling eye, and striking the ground with his staff to emphasise his
+words. “You, a Prince of Israel, alone in the high place of abomination
+with the priestess of a fiend? Fie upon you, fie upon you! Would you
+also walk in the sin of your forefathers, Aziel, and so soon?”
+
+“Peace!” said Aziel in a voice of command; “I was not in the grove
+alone or by my own will, and this is no time or place for insults and
+wrangling.”
+
+“Between me and those who seek after false gods, or the women who
+worship them, there is no peace,” replied the old priest fiercely.
+
+Then, followed by all the company, he turned and strode towards the
+gates of the city.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+ITHOBAL THE KING
+
+
+Two hours had gone by, and the prince Aziel, together with his retinue,
+the officers of the caravan, and many other guests, were seated at a
+great feast made in their honour, by Sakon, the governor of the city.
+This feast was held in the large pillared hall of Sakon’s house, built
+beneath the northern wall of the temple fortress, and not more than a
+few paces from its narrow entrance, through which in case of alarm the
+inhabitants of the palace could fly for safety. All down this chamber
+were placed tables, accommodating more than two hundred feasters, but
+the principal guests were seated by themselves upon a raised daïs at
+the head of the hall. Among them sat Sakon himself, a middle-aged man
+stout in build, and thoughtful of face, his daughter Elissa, some other
+noble ladies, and a score or more of the notables of the city and its
+surrounding territories.
+
+One of these strangers immediately attracted the attention of Aziel,
+who was seated in the place of honour at the right of Sakon, between
+him and the lady Elissa. This man was of large stature, and about forty
+years of age; the magnificence of his apparel and the great gold chain
+set with rough diamonds which hung about his neck showing him to be a
+person of importance. His tawny complexion marked him of mixed race.
+This conclusion his features did not belie, for the brow, nose, and
+cheek-bones were Semitic in outline, while the full, prominent eyes,
+and thick, sensuous lips could with equal certainty be attributed to
+the Negroid stock. In fact, he was the son of a native African queen,
+or chieftainess, and a noble Phœnician, and his rank no less than that
+of absolute king and hereditary chief of a vast and undefined territory
+which lay around the trading cities of the white men, whereof Zimboe
+was the head and largest. Aziel noticed that this king, who was named
+Ithobal, seemed angry and ill at ease, whether because he was not
+satisfied with the place which had been allotted to him at the table,
+or for other reasons, he could not at the time determine.
+
+When the meats had been removed, and the goblets were filled with wine,
+men began to talk, till presently Sakon called for silence, and rising,
+addressed Aziel:—
+
+“Prince,” he said, “in the name of this great and free city—for free it
+is, though we acknowledge the king of Tyre as our suzerain—I give you
+welcome within our gates. Here, far in the heart of Libya, we have
+heard of the glorious and wise king, your grandfather, and of the
+mighty Pharaoh of Egypt, whose blood runs also within your veins.
+Prince, we are honoured in your coming, and for the asking, whatever
+this land of gold can boast is yours. Long may you live; may the favour
+of those gods you worship attend you, and in the pursuit of wisdom, of
+wealth, of war, and of love, may the good grain of all be garnered in
+your bosom, and the wind of prosperity winnow out the chaff of them to
+fall beneath your feet. Prince, I have greeted you as it behoves me to
+greet the blood of Solomon and Pharaoh; now I add a word. Now I greet
+you as a father greets the man who has saved his only and beloved
+daughter from death, or shameful bondage. Know you, friends, what this
+stranger did since to-night’s moonrise? My daughter was at worship
+alone yonder without the walls, and a great savage set on her,
+purposing to bear her away captive. Ay, and he would have done it had
+not the prince Aziel here given him battle, and, after a fierce fight,
+slain him.”
+
+“No great deed to kill a single savage,” broke in the king Ithobal, who
+had been listening with impatience to Sakon’s praises of this high-born
+stranger.
+
+“No great deed you say, King,” answered Sakon. “Guards, bring in the
+body of the man and set it before us.”
+
+There was a pause, till presently six men staggered up the hall bearing
+between them the corpse of the barbarian, which, still covered with the
+leopard skin mantle, they threw down on the edge of the daïs.
+
+“See!” said one of the bearers, withdrawing the cloak from the huge
+body. Then pointing to the sword which still transfixed it, he added,
+“and learn what strength heaven gives to the arms of princes.”
+
+Such of the guests as were near enough rose to look at the grizzly
+sight, then turned to offer their congratulations to the conqueror, but
+there was one of them—the king Ithobal—who offered none; indeed, as his
+eyes fell upon the face of the corpse, they grew alight with rage.
+
+“What ails you, King? Are you jealous of such a blow?” asked Sakon,
+watching him curiously.
+
+“Speak no more of that thrust, I pray you,” said Aziel, “for it was due
+to the weight of the man rushing on the sword, which after he was dead
+I could not find the power to loosen from his breast-bone.”
+
+“Then I will do you that service, Prince,” sneered Ithobal, and,
+setting his foot upon the breast of the corpse, with a sudden effort of
+his great frame, he plucked out the sword and cast it down upon the
+table.
+
+“Now, one might think,” said Aziel, flushing with anger, “that you,
+King, who do a courtesy to a man of smaller strength, mean a challenge.
+Doubtless, however, I am mistaken, who do not understand the manners of
+this country.”
+
+“Think what you will, Prince,” answered the chieftain, “but learn that
+he who lies dead before us by your hand—as you say—was no slave to be
+killed at pleasure, but a man of rank, none other, indeed, than the son
+of my mother’s sister.”
+
+“Is it so?” replied Aziel, “then surely, King, you are well rid of a
+cousin, however highly born, who made it his business to ravish maidens
+from their homes.”
+
+By way of answer to these words Ithobal sprang from his seat again,
+laying hand upon his sword. But before he could speak or draw it, the
+governor Sakon addressed him in a cold and meaning voice:—
+
+“Of your courtesy, King,” he said, “remember that the prince here is my
+guest, as you are, and give us peace. If that dead man was your cousin,
+at least he well deserved to die, not at the hand of one of royal
+blood, but by that of the executioner, for he was the worst of
+thieves—a thief of women. Now tell me, King, I pray you, how came your
+cousin here, so far from home, since he was not numbered in your
+retinue?”
+
+“I do not know, Sakon,” answered Ithobal, “and if I knew I would not
+say. You tell me that my dead kinsman was a thief of women, which, in
+Phœnician eyes, must be a crime indeed. So be it; but thief or no
+thief, I say that there is a blood feud between me and the man who slew
+him, and were he great Solomon himself, instead of one of fifty
+princelets of his line, he should pay bitterly for the deed. To-morrow,
+Sakon, I will meet you before I leave for my own land, for I have words
+to speak to you. Till then, farewell!”—and rising, he strode down the
+hall, followed by his officers and guard.
+
+
+The sudden departure of king Ithobal in anger was the signal for the
+breaking up of the feast.
+
+“Why is that half-bred chief so wrath with me?” asked Aziel in a low
+voice of Elissa as they followed Sakon to another chamber.
+
+“Because—if you would know the truth—he set his dead cousin to kidnap
+me, and you thwarted him,” she answered, looking straight before her.
+
+Aziel made no reply, for at that moment Sakon turned to speak with him,
+and his face was anxious.
+
+“I crave your pardon, Prince,” he said, drawing him aside, “that you
+should have met with such insults at my board. Had it been any other
+man who spoke thus to you, by now he had rued his words, but this
+Ithobal is the terror of our city, for if he chooses he can bring a
+hundred thousand savages upon us, shutting us within our walls to
+starve, and cutting us off from the working of the mines whence we win
+gold. Therefore, in this way or that, he must be humoured, as indeed we
+have humoured him and his father for years, though now,” he added, his
+brow darkening, “he demands a price that I am loth to pay,” and he
+glanced towards his daughter, who stood watching them at a little
+distance, looking most beautiful in her white robes and ornaments of
+gold.
+
+“Can you not make war upon him, and break his power?” asked Aziel, with
+a strange anxiety, guessing that this price demanded by Ithobal was
+none other than Elissa, the woman whom he had rescued, and whose wisdom
+and beauty had stirred his heart.
+
+“It might be done, Prince, but the risk would be great, and we are here
+to work the mines and grow rich in trade—not to make war. The policy of
+Zimboe has always been a policy of peace.”
+
+“I have a better and cheaper plan,” said a calm voice at his elbow—that
+of Metem. “It is this: Slip a bow-string over the brute’s head as he
+lies snoring, and pull it tight. An eagle in a cage is easy to deal
+with, but once on the wing the matter is different.”
+
+“There is wisdom in your counsel,” said Sakon, in a hesitating voice.
+
+“Wisdom!” broke in Aziel; “ay, the wisdom of the assassin. What, noble
+Sakon, would you murder a sleeping guest?”
+
+“No, Prince, I would not,” he answered hastily; “also, such a deed
+would bring the Tribes upon us.”
+
+“Then, Sakon, you are more foolish than you used to be,” said Metem
+laughing. “A man who will not despatch a foe, whenever he can catch
+him, by means fair or foul, is not the man to govern a rich city set in
+the heart of a barbarous land, and so I shall tell Hiram, our king, if
+ever I live to see Tyre again. As for you, most high Prince, forgive
+the humblest of your servants if he tells you that the tenderness of
+your heart and the nobility of your sentiments will, I think, bring you
+to an early and evil end;” and, glancing towards Elissa as though to
+put a point upon his words, Metem smiled sarcastically and withdrew.
+
+At this moment a messenger, whose long white hair, wild eyes and red
+robe announced him to be a priest of El, by which name the people of
+Zimboe worshipped Baal, entered the room, and whispered something into
+the ear of Sakon which seemed to disturb him much.
+
+“Pardon me, Prince, and you, my guests, if I leave you,” said the
+governor, “but I have evil tidings that call me to the temple. The lady
+Baaltis is seized with the black fever, and I must visit her. For an
+hour, farewell.”
+
+This news caused consternation among the company, and in the general
+confusion that followed its announcement Aziel joined Elissa, who had
+passed on to the balcony of the house, and was seated there alone,
+looking out over the moonlit city and the plains beyond. At his
+approach she rose in token of respect, then sat herself down again,
+motioning him to do likewise.
+
+“Give me of your wisdom, lady,” he said. “I thought that Baaltis was
+the goddess whom I heard you worshipping yonder in the grove; how,
+then, can she be stricken with a fever?”
+
+“She is the goddess,” Elissa answered smiling; “but the _lady_ Baaltis
+is a woman whom we revere as the incarnation of that goddess upon
+earth, and being but a woman in her hour she must die.”
+
+“Then, what becomes of the incarnation of the goddess?”
+
+“Another is chosen by the college of the priests of El, and the company
+of the priestesses of Baaltis. If that lady Baaltis who is dead chances
+to leave a daughter, it is usual for the lot to fall upon her; if not,
+upon such one of the noble maidens as may be chosen.”
+
+“Does the lady Baaltis marry, then?”
+
+“Yes, Prince, within a year of her consecration, she must choose
+herself a husband, and he may be whom she will, provided only that he
+is of white blood, and does public sacrifice to El and Baaltis. Then
+after she has named him, this husband takes the title of Shadid, and
+for so long as his wife shall live he is the high priest of the god El,
+and clothed with the majesty of the god, as his wife is clothed with
+the majesty of Baaltis. But should she die, another wins his place.”
+
+“It is a strange faith,” said Aziel, “which teaches that the Lord of
+Heaven can find a home in mortal breasts. But, lady, it is yours, so of
+it I say no more. Now tell me, if you will, what did you mean when you
+said that this barbarian king, Ithobal, set the savage whom I slew to
+kidnap you? Do you know this, or do you suspect it only?”
+
+“I suspected it from the first, Prince, and for good reasons; moreover,
+I read it in the king’s face as he looked upon the corpse, and when he
+perceived me among the feasters.”
+
+“And why should he wish to carry you away this brutally, lady, when he
+is at peace with the great city?”
+
+“Perchance, Prince, after what passed to-night you can guess,” she
+answered lowering her eyes.
+
+“Yes, lady, I can guess, and though it is shameful that such an one
+should dare to think of you, still, since he is a man, I cannot blame
+him overmuch. But why should he press his suit in this rough and secret
+fashion instead of openly as a king might do?”
+
+“He may have pressed it openly and been repulsed,” she replied in a low
+voice. “But if he could have carried me to some far fortress, how
+should I flout him there, that is, if I still lived? There, with no
+price to pay in gold or lands or power, he would have been my master,
+and I should have been his slave till such time as he wearied of me.
+That is the fate from which you have saved me, Prince, or rather from
+death, for I am not one who could bear such shame at the hands of a man
+I hate.”
+
+“Lady,” he said bowing, “I think that perhaps for the first time in my
+life I am glad to-night that I was born.”
+
+“And I,” she answered, “who am but a Phœnician maiden, am glad that I
+should have lived to hear one who is as royal in thought and soul as he
+is in rank speak thus to me. Oh! Prince,” she added, clasping her
+hands, “if your words are not those of empty courtesy alone, hear me,
+for you are great, a Lord of the Earth whom none refuse, and it may be
+in your power to give me aid. Prince, I am in a sore strait, for that
+danger from which I prayed to be delivered this night presses me hard.
+Prince, it is true that Ithobal has been refused my hand, both by
+myself and by my father, and therefore it was that he strove to steal
+me away. But the evil is not done with, for the great nobles of the
+city and the chief priests of El came to my father at sunset and prayed
+him that he would let Ithobal take me, seeing that otherwise in his
+rage he will make war upon Zimboe. When a man placed as is my father
+must choose between the safety of thousands and the honour and
+happiness of one poor girl, what will his answer be, think you?”
+
+“Now,” said Aziel, “save that no wrong can right a wrong, I almost
+grieve that I cried shame upon the counsel of Metem. Sweet lady, be
+sure of this, that I will give all I have, even to my life, to protect
+you from the vile fate you dread—yes, all I have—except my soul.”
+
+“Ah!” she cried with a sudden flash of her dark eyes, “all except your
+soul. If we women could find the man who would risk both life and soul
+for us, then, were he but a slave, we would worship him as never man
+was worshipped since Baaltis mounted her heavenly throne.”
+
+“Were I not a Hebrew you would tempt me, lady,” Aziel answered smiling,
+“but being one I may not risk my soul even were such a prize within my
+reach.”
+
+“Nay, Prince,” she broke in, “I did but jest; forget my words, for they
+were wrung from a heart torn with fears. Oh! did you know the terror of
+this half-savage Ithobal which oppresses me, you would forgive me all—a
+terror that to-night lies upon me with a tenfold weight.”
+
+“Why so, lady?”
+
+“Doubtless because it is nearer,” Elissa whispered, but her beautiful
+pleading eyes and quivering lips seemed to belie her words and say,
+“because _you_ are near, and a change has come upon me.”
+
+For the second time that day Aziel’s glance met hers, and for the
+second time a strange new pang that was more pain than joy, and yet
+half-divine, snatched at his heart-strings, for a while numbing his
+reason and taking from him the power of speech.
+
+“What was it?” he wondered vaguely. He had seen many lovely faces, and
+many noble women had shown him favour, but why had none of them stirred
+him thus? Could it be that this stranger Gentile maiden was his
+soul-mate—she whom he was destined to love above all upon the earth,
+nay, whom he did already love, and so soon?
+
+“Lady,” he said, taking a step towards her, “lady——” and he paused.
+
+Elissa bowed her dark head till her gold-bedecked and scented hair
+almost fell upon his feet, but she made no answer.
+
+Then another voice broke upon the silence, a clear, strident voice that
+said:—
+
+“Prince, forgive me, if for the second time to-day I disturb you; but
+the guests have gone; your chamber is made ready, and, not knowing the
+customs of the women of this country, I sought you, little guessing
+that, at such an hour, I should find you alone with one of them.”
+
+Aziel looked up, although there was no need for him to do so, for he
+knew that voice well, to see the tall form of the Levite Issachar
+standing before them, a cold light of anger shining in his eyes.
+
+Elissa saw also, and, with some murmured words of farewell, she turned
+and went, leaving them together.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+THE DREAM OF ISSACHAR
+
+
+For a moment there was silence, which Aziel broke, saying:—
+
+“It seems to me, Issachar, that you are somewhat over zealous for my
+welfare.”
+
+“I think otherwise, Prince,” replied the Levite sternly. “Did not your
+grandsire give you into my keeping, and shall I not be faithful to my
+trust, and to a higher duty than any which he could lay upon me?”
+
+“Your meaning, Issachar?”
+
+“It is plain, Prince; but I will set it out. The great king said to me
+yonder in the hall of his golden palace at Jerusalem, ‘To others, men
+of war, I have given charge of the body of my grandson to keep him
+safe. To you, Issachar the Levite, who have fostered him, I give charge
+over his soul to keep it safe—a higher task, and more difficult. Guard
+him, Issachar, from the temptation of strange doctrines and the
+whisperings of strange gods, but guard him most of all from the wiles
+of strange women who bow the knee to Baal, for such are the gate of
+Gehenna upon earth, and those who enter by it shall find their place in
+Tophet.’”
+
+“Truly my grandsire speaks wisely on this matter as on all others,”
+answered Aziel, “but still I do not understand.”
+
+“Then I will be more clear, Prince. How comes it that I find you alone
+with this beautiful sorceress, this worshipper of the she-devil,
+Baaltis, with whom you should scorn even to speak, except such words as
+courtesy demands?”
+
+“Is it then forbidden to me,” asked Aziel angrily, “to talk with the
+daughter of my host, a lady whom I chanced to save from death, of the
+customs of her country and the mysteries of worship?”
+
+“The mysteries of worship!” answered Issachar scornfully. “Ay! the
+mysteries of the worship of that fair body of hers, that ivory chalice
+filled with foulness—whereof, if a man drink, his faith shall be rotted
+and his soul poisoned. The mysteries of that worship was it, Prince,
+that caused you but now to lean towards this woman as though to embrace
+her, with words of love burning in your heart if not between your lips?
+Ah! these witches of Baaltis know their trade well; they are full of
+evil gifts, and of the wisdom given to them by the fiend they serve.
+With touch and sigh and look they can stir the blood of youth, having
+much practice in the art, till it seethes within the veins and drowns
+conscience in its flood.
+
+“Nay, Prince, hear the truth,” continued Issachar. “Till moonrise you
+had never seen this woman, and now your quick blood is aflame, and you
+love her. Deny it if you can—deny it on your honour and I will believe
+you, for you are no liar.”
+
+Aziel thought for a moment and answered:—
+
+“Issachar, you have no right to question me on this matter, yet since
+you have adjured me by my honour, I will be open with you. I do not
+know if I love this woman, who, as you say, is a stranger to me, but it
+is true that my heart turns towards her like flowers to the sun. Till
+to-day I had never seen her, yet when my eyes first fell upon her face
+yonder in that accursed grove, it seemed to me that I had been born
+only that I might find her. It seemed to me even that for ages I had
+known her, that for ever she was mine and that I was hers. Read me the
+riddle, Issachar? Is this but passion born of youth and the sudden
+sight of a fair woman? That cannot be, for I have known others as fair,
+and have passed through some such fires. Tell me, Issachar, you who are
+old and wise and have seen much of the hearts of men, what is this wave
+that overwhelms me?”
+
+“What is it, Prince? It is witchery; it is the wile of Beelzebub
+waiting to snatch your soul, and if you hearken to it you shall pass
+through the fire—through the fire to Moloch, if not in the flesh, then
+in the spirit, which is to all eternity. Oh! not in vain do I fear for
+you, my son, and not without reason was I warned in a dream. Listen:
+Last night, as I lay in my tent yonder upon the plain, I dreamed that
+some danger overshadowed you, and in my sleep I prayed that your
+destiny might be revealed to me. As I prayed thus, I heard a voice
+saying, ‘Issachar, you seek to learn the future; know then that he who
+is dear to you shall be tried in the furnace indeed. Yes, because of
+his great love and pity, he shall forswear his faith, and with death
+and sorrow he shall pay the price of his sin.’
+
+“Then I was troubled and besought Heaven that you, my son, might be
+saved from this unknown temptation, but the voice answered me:—
+
+“‘Of their own will only can they who were one from the beginning be
+held apart. Through good and ill let them work each other’s woe or
+weal. The goal is sure, but they must choose the road.’
+
+“Now as I wondered what these dark sayings might mean, the gloom opened
+and I saw you, Aziel, standing in a grove of trees, while towards you
+with outstretched hands drew a veiled woman who bore upon her brow the
+golden bow of Baaltis. Then fire raged about you, and in the fire I
+beheld many things which I have forgotten, and moving through it was
+the Prince of Death, who slew and slew and spared not. So I awoke heavy
+at heart, knowing that there had fallen on me who love you a shadow of
+doom to come.”
+
+In these latter days any educated man would set aside Issachar’s wild
+vision as the vapourings of a mind distraught. But Aziel lived in the
+time of Solomon, when men of his nation guided their steps by the light
+of prophecy, and believed that it was the Divine pleasure, by means of
+dreams and wonders and through the mouths of chosen seers, to declare
+the will of Jehovah upon earth. To this faith, indeed, we still hold
+fast, at least so far as that period and people are concerned, seeing
+that we acknowledge Isaiah, David, and their company, to have been
+inspired from above. Of that company Issachar the Levite was one, for
+to him, from his youth up, voices had spoken in the watches of the
+night, and often he had poured his warnings and denunciations into the
+ears of kings and peoples, telling them with no uncertain voice of the
+consequences of sin and idolatry, and of punishment to come. This
+Aziel, who had been his ward and pupil, knew well, and therefore he did
+not mock at the priest’s dream or set it aside as naught, but bowed his
+head and listened.
+
+“I am honoured indeed,” he said with humility, “that the destiny of my
+poor soul and body should be a thing of weight to those on high.”
+
+“Of your poor soul, Aziel?” broke in Issachar. “That soul of yours, of
+which you speak so lightly, is of as great value in the eyes of Heaven
+as that of any cherubim within its gates. The angels who fell were the
+first and chiefest of the angels, and though now we are clad with
+mortal shape in punishment of our sins, again redeemed and glorified we
+can become among the mightiest of their hosts. Oh! my son, I beseech
+you, turn from this woman while there yet is time, lest to you her lips
+should be a cup of woe and your soul shall pay the price of them,
+sharing the hell of the worshippers of Ashtoreth.”
+
+“It may be so,” said Aziel; “but, Issachar, what said the voice? That
+this, the woman of your dream and I were one from the beginning?
+Issachar, you believe that the lady Elissa is she of whom the voice
+spoke in your sleep and you bid me turn from her because she will bring
+me sin and punishment. In truth, if I can, I will obey you, since
+rather than forswear my faith, as your dream foretold, I would die a
+hundred deaths. Nor do I believe that for any bribe of woman’s love I
+shall forswear it in act or thought. Yet if such things come about it
+is fate that drives me on, not my will—and what man can flee his fate?
+But even though this lady be she whom I am doomed to love, you say that
+because she is heathen I must reject her. Shame upon the thought, for
+if she is heathen it is through ignorance, and it may be mine to change
+her heart. Because I stand in danger shall I suffer her who, as you
+tell me, was one with me from the beginning, to be lost in that hell of
+Baal of which you speak? Nay, your dream is false. I will not renounce
+my faith, but rather will win her to share it, and together we shall
+triumph, and that I swear to you, Issachar.”
+
+“Truly the evil one has many wiles,” answered the Levite, “and I did
+ill to tell you of my dream, seeing that it can be twisted to serve the
+purpose of your madness. Have your will, Aziel, and reap the fruit of
+it, but of this I warn you—that while I can find a way to thwart it,
+never, Prince, shall you take that witch to your bosom to be the ruin
+of your life and soul.”
+
+“Then, Issachar, on this matter there may be war between us!”
+
+“Ay! there is war,” said the Levite, and left him.
+
+
+The sun was already high in the heavens when Aziel awoke from the deep
+and dreamless sleep which followed on the excitements and exhaustion of
+the previous day. After his servants had waited upon him and robed him,
+bringing him milk and fruit to eat, he dismissed them, and sat himself
+down by the casement of his chamber to think a while.
+
+Below him lay the city of flat-roofed houses enclosed with a double
+wall, without the ring of which were thousands of straw huts, shaped
+like bee-hives, wherein dwelt natives of the country, slaves or
+servants of the occupying Phœnician race. To Aziel’s right, and not
+more than a hundred paces from the governor’s house in which he was,
+rose the round and mighty battlements of the temple, where the
+followers of El and Baaltis worshipped, and the gold refiners carried
+on their business. At intervals on its flat-topped walls stood towers
+of observation, alternating with pointed monoliths of granite and
+soapstone columns supporting vultures, rudely carved emblems of
+Baaltis. Between these towers armed soldiers walked continually,
+watching the city below and the plain beyond, for though the mission of
+the Phœnicians here was one of peaceful gain it was evident that they
+considered it necessary to be always prepared for war. On the hillside
+above the great temple towered another fortress of stone—a citadel
+deemed to be impregnable even should the temple fall into the hands of
+an enemy—while on the crest of the precipitous slope, stretching as far
+to right and left as the eye could reach, were many smaller detached
+strongholds.
+
+The scene that Aziel saw from his window was a busy one, for beneath
+him a market was being held in an open square in the city. Here,
+sheltered from the sun by grass-thatched booths, the Phœnician
+merchants who had been his companions in their long and perilous
+journey from the coast were already in treaty with numerous customers,
+hoping, not in vain, to recoup themselves amply for the toils and
+dangers which they had survived. Beneath these booths were spread their
+goods; silks from Cos, bronze weapons and copper rods, or ingots from
+the rich mines of Cyprus, linens and muslins from Egypt; beads, idols,
+carven bowls, knives, glass ware, pottery in all shapes, and charms
+made of glazed faience or Egyptian stone; bales of the famous purple
+cloth of Tyre; surgical instruments, jewellery, and objects of toilet;
+scents, pots of rouge, and other unguents for the use of ladies in
+little alabaster and earthenware vases; bags of refined salt, and a
+thousand other articles of commerce produced or stored in the workshops
+of Phœnicia. These the chapmen bartered for raw gold by weight, tusks
+of ivory, ostrich feathers, and girls of approved beauty, slaves taken
+in war, or in some instances maidens whom their unnatural parents or
+relatives did not scruple to sell into bondage.
+
+In another portion of the square, provisions and stock, alive and dead,
+were being offered for sale, for the most part by natives of the
+country. Here were piles of vegetables and fruits grown in the gardens,
+sacks of various sorts of grain, bundles of green forage from the
+irrigated lands without the walls, calabashes full of curdled milk,
+thick native beer and trusses of reed for thatching. Here again were
+oxen, mules and asses, or great bucks such as we now know as eland or
+kudoo, carried in on rough litters of boughs to be disposed of by
+parties of savage huntsmen who had shot them with arrows or trapped
+them in pitfalls. Every Eastern tribe and nation seemed to be
+represented in the motley crowd. Yonder stalked savages, naked except
+for their girdles, and armed with huge spears, who gazed with
+bewilderment on the wonders of this mart of the white man; there moved
+grave, long-bearded Arab merchants or Phœnicians in their pointed caps,
+or bare-headed white-robed Egyptians, or half-bred mercenaries clad in
+mail. Their variety was without end, while from them came a very babel
+of different tongues as they cried their wares, bargained and
+quarrelled.
+
+Aziel gazed at this novel sight with interest, till, as he was
+beginning to weary of it, the crowd parted to right and left, leaving a
+clear lane across the market-place to the narrow gate of the temple.
+Along this lane advanced a procession of the priests of El clad in red
+robes, with tall red caps upon their heads, beneath which their
+straight hair hung down to their shoulders. In their hands were gilded
+rods, and round their necks hung golden chains, to which were attached
+emblems of the god they worshipped. They walked two-and-two to the
+number of fifty, chanting a melancholy dirge, one hand of each priest
+resting upon his fellow’s shoulder, and as they passed, with the
+exception of certain Jews, all the spectators uncovered, while some of
+the more pious of them even fell upon their knees.
+
+After the priests came a second procession, that of the priestesses of
+Baaltis. These women, who numbered at least a hundred, were clad in
+white, and wore upon their heads a gauze-like veil that fell to the
+knees, and was held in place by a golden fillet surmounted with the
+symbol of a crescent moon. Instead of the golden rods, however, each of
+them held in her left hand a growing stalk of maize, from the sheathed
+cob of which hung the bright tassel of its bloom. On her right wrist,
+moreover, a milk-white dove was fastened by a wire, both corn and dove
+being tokens of that fertility which, under various guises, was the
+real object of worship of these people. The sight of these white-veiled
+women about whose crescent-decked brows the doves fluttered, wildly
+striving to be free, was very strange and beautiful as they advanced
+also singing a low and melancholy chant. Aziel searched their faces
+with his eyes while they passed slowly towards him, and presently his
+heart bounded, for there among them, clasping the dove she bore to her
+breast, as though to still its frightened strugglings, was the Lady
+Elissa. He noticed, too, that as she went beneath the palace walls, she
+glanced at the window-place of his chamber, but without seeing him for
+he was seated in the shadow.
+
+Presently the long line of priestesses, followed by hundreds of
+worshippers, had vanished through the tortuous and narrow entrance of
+the temple, and Aziel leaned back to think.
+
+There, among the principal votaries of a goddess, the wickedness of
+whose worship was a scandal and a by-word even in the ancient world,
+walked the woman to whom he felt so strangely drawn and with whom, if
+there were any truth in the visions of Issachar and the mysterious
+warnings of his own soul, his fate was intertwined. As he thought of it
+a sudden revulsion filled his heart. She was wise and beautiful, and
+she seemed innocent, but Issachar was right; this girl was the minister
+of an abominable creed; nay, for aught he knew, she was herself defiled
+with its abominations, and her wisdom but an evil gift from the evil
+powers she served. Could he, a prince of the royal blood of the House
+of Israel and of the ancient Pharaohs of Khem, desire to have anything
+to do with such an one, he a child of the Chosen People, a worshipper
+of the true and only God? Yesterday she had thrown a spell upon him, a
+spell of black magic, or the spell of her imperial beauty, which, it
+mattered not, but to-day he was the lord of his own mind, and would
+shake himself free of it and her.
+
+
+In the market-place below, the Levite Issachar also had watched the
+passing of the priests and priestesses of El and Baaltis.
+
+“Tell me, Metem,” he asked of the Phœnician who stood beside him, his
+head respectfully uncovered, “what mummery is this?”
+
+“It is no mummery, worthy Issachar, but a ceremony of public sacrifice,
+which is to be offered in the temple yonder, for the recovery from her
+sickness of the Lady Baaltis, the high-priestess.”
+
+“Where then is the offering. I see none, unless it be those doves that
+are tied to the wrists of the women?”
+
+“Nay, Issachar,” answered Metem smiling darkly, “the gods ask nobler
+blood than that of doves. The offering is within, and it is the
+first-born child of a priestess of Baaltis.”
+
+“O Lord of Heaven!” said Issachar lifting up his eyes, “how long will
+you suffer that this murderous and accursed race should defile the face
+of earth?”
+
+“Softly, friend,” broke in Metem, “I have read your Scriptures, and is
+it not set out in them that your great forefather was commanded to
+offer up his first-born in such a sacrifice?”
+
+“Blaspheme not,” answered the Jew. “He was commanded indeed, that his
+heart might be proved, but his hand was stayed. He Whom I worship
+delights not in the blood of children.”
+
+Here Issachar broke off, suddenly recognising the lady Elissa among the
+white-robed priestesses. Watching her, he noted her glance at the
+window of Aziel’s chamber, and saw what she could not see, that the
+prince was seated there. “This daughter of Satan spreads her nets,” he
+muttered between his teeth. Then a thought struck him, and he added
+aloud, “Say, Metem, is it permitted to strangers to witness the rites
+in yonder temple?”
+
+“Surely,” answered the Phœnician; “that is, if they guard their
+tongues, and do nothing to offend.”
+
+“Then I desire to see them, Metem, and so doubtless does the prince
+Aziel. Therefore, if it is your will, do me the service to enter his
+chamber in the palace where he is sitting, and bid him to a great
+ceremony that goes forward in the temple. And, Metem, if he asks what
+that ceremony is, I charge you, say only that a dove is to be
+sacrificed.
+
+“I will wait for you at the gate of the temple, but do not tell him
+that I send you on this errand. Metem, you love gain; remember that if
+you humour me in this and other matters which may arise, doing my
+bidding faithfully, I have the treasury of Jerusalem to draw upon.”
+
+“No ill paymaster,” replied Metem cheerfully. “Certainly I will obey
+you in all things, holy Issachar, as the king commanded me yonder in
+Judea.”
+
+“Now,” he reflected to himself, as he went upon his message, “I see how
+the bird flies. The prince Aziel is in love with the lady Elissa, or
+far upon the road to it, as at his age it is right and proper that he
+should be, after a twelve months’ journey by sea and land with never a
+pretty face to sigh for. The holy Issachar, on the other hand, is
+minded that his charge shall have naught to do with a priestess of
+Baaltis, as, his age and calling considered, is also right and proper.
+Then there is that black savage Ithobal, who wishes to win the girl,
+and the girl herself, who after the fashion of her sex, will probably
+play them all off one against the other. Well, so much the better for
+me, since I shall be a richer man even than I am before this affair is
+done with. I have two hands, and gold is gold whoever be the giver,”
+and smiling craftily to himself Metem passed into the palace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+THE PLACE OF SACRIFICE
+
+
+Suddenly Aziel, looking up from his reverie, saw the Phœnician bowing
+before him, cap in hand.
+
+“May the Prince live for ever,” he said, “yet if he suffer melancholy
+to overcome him thus, his life, however long, will be but sad.”
+
+“I was only thinking, Metem,” answered Aziel with a start.
+
+“Of the lady Elissa, whom you rescued, Prince? Ah! I guessed as much.
+She is beautiful, is she not—I have never seen the equal of those
+dreamy eyes and that mysterious smile—and learned also, though myself,
+in a woman I prefer the beauty without the learning. It is a pity now
+that she should chance to be a priestess of our worship, for that will
+not please the holy Issachar whom, I fear, Prince, you find a stern
+guide for the feet of youth.”
+
+“Your business, merchant?” broke in Aziel.
+
+“I crave your pardon, Prince,” answered the Phœnician, spreading out
+his hands in deprecation. “I struck a good bargain for my wares this
+morning, and drank wine to seal it, therefore, let me be forgiven if I
+have spoken too freely in your presence, Prince. This is my business:
+Yonder in the temple they celebrate a service which it is lawful for
+strangers to witness, and as the opportunity is rare, I thought that,
+having heard something of our mysteries in the grove last night, you
+might wish to see the office. If this be so, I am come to guide you.”
+
+“Aziel’s first impulse was to refuse to go; indeed, the words of
+dismissal were on his lips when another purpose entered his mind. For
+this once he would look upon these abominations and learn what part
+Elissa played in them, and thus be cured for ever of the longings that
+had seized him.
+
+“What is the ceremony?” he asked.
+
+“A sacrifice for the recovery of the lady Baaltis who is sick, Prince.”
+
+“And what is the sacrifice?” asked Aziel.
+
+“A dove, as I am told,” was the indifferent answer.
+
+“I will come with you, Metem.”
+
+“So be it, Prince. Your retinue awaits you at the gate.”
+
+At the main entrance to the palace Aziel found his guard and other
+servants gathered there to escort him. With them was Issachar, whom he
+greeted, asking him if he knew the errand upon which they were bent.
+
+“I do, Prince; it is to witness the abomination of a sacrifice of these
+heathens.”
+
+“Will you then accompany me there, Issachar?”
+
+“Where my lord goes I go,” answered the Levite gravely. “Moreover,
+Prince, if you have your reasons for wishing to see this devil-worship,
+I may have mine.”
+
+Then they set out, Metem guiding them. At the north gate of the temple,
+which was not more than a yard in width, the Phœnician spoke to the
+guards on duty, who drew back to let them pass. In single file, for the
+passages were too narrow to allow of any other means of progression,
+they threaded the tortuous and mazy paths of the great building,
+passing between huge walls built of granite blocks laid without mortar,
+till at length they reached a large open space. Here the ceremony had
+already begun. Almost in the centre of this space, which was paved with
+blocks of granite, stood two conical towers, the larger of which
+measured thirty feet in height and the smaller about half as much.
+These towers, also built of blocks of stone, were, as Metem informed
+them, sacred to and emblematical of the gods El and Baaltis. In front
+of them was a platform surmounted by a stone altar, and between them,
+built in a pit in the ground, burned a great furnace of wood. All the
+centre of the enclosure was occupied by the marshalled ranks of the
+priests and priestesses. Without this sacred ring stood the closely
+packed masses of spectators, amongst whom Aziel and his following were
+given place, though some of the more pious worshippers murmured audibly
+at the admission of these Jews.
+
+When they entered, the companies of priests and priestesses were
+finishing a prayer, the sentences of which they chanted alternately
+with strange effect. In part it was formal, and in part an improvised
+supplication to the protecting gods to restore health to that woman or
+high-priestess who was known as the lady Baaltis. The prayer ended, a
+beautiful bold-faced girl advanced to an open space in front of the
+altar, and with a sudden movement threw off her white robe, revealing
+herself to the spectators in a many-coloured garment of gauze, through
+which her fair flesh gleamed.
+
+The black hair of this woman was adorned with a coronet of scarlet
+flowers and hung loose about her; her feet and arms were naked, and in
+each hand she held a knife of bronze. Very slowly she began to dance,
+her painted lips parted as though to speak, and her eyes, brightened
+with pigments, turned up to heaven. By degrees her movements grew more
+rapid, till at length, as she whirled round, her long locks streamed
+out straight upon the air and the crown of flowers looked like a
+scarlet ring. Suddenly the bronze knife in her right hand flashed, and
+a spot of red appeared above her left breast; then the knife in the
+left hand flashed, and another spot appeared over the right breast. At
+each stroke the multitude cried, “_Ah!_” as with one voice, and then
+were silent.
+
+Now the maddened dancer, ceasing her whirlings, leapt high into the
+air, clashing the knives above her head and crying, “Hear me, hear me,
+Baaltis!”
+
+Again she leapt, and this time the answer that came from her lips was
+spoken in another voice, which said, “I am present. What seek you?”
+
+A third time the priestess leapt, replying in her own voice, “Health
+for thy servant who is sick.” Then came the answer in the second
+voice—“I hear you, but I see no sacrifice.”
+
+“What sacrifice would’st thou, O Queen? A dove?”
+
+“Nay.”
+
+“What then, Queen?”
+
+“One only, the first-born child of a woman.”
+
+As this command, which they supposed to be divine and from above,
+issued out of the lips of the gashed and bleeding Pythoness, the
+multitude that hitherto had listened in perfect silence, shouted aloud,
+while the girl herself, utterly exhausted, fell to the earth swooning.
+
+Now the high priest of El, who was named the Shadid, none other indeed
+than the husband of her who lay sick, sprang upon the platform and
+cried:—
+
+“The goddess has spoken by the mouth of her oracle. She who is the
+mother of all demands one life out of the many she has given, that the
+Lady Baaltis, who is her priestess upon earth, may be recovered of her
+sickness. Say, who will lay down a life for the honour of the goddess,
+and that her regent in this land may be saved alive?”
+
+Now—for all this scene had been carefully prepared—a woman stepped
+forward, wearing the robe of a priestess, who bore in her arms a
+drugged and sleeping child.
+
+“I, father,” she cried in a shrill, hard voice, though her lips
+trembled as she spoke. “Let the goddess take this child, the
+first-fruit of my body, that our mother the Lady Baaltis may be cured
+of her sickness, and that I, her daughter, may be blessed by the
+goddess, and through me, all we who worship her.” And she held out the
+little victim towards him.
+
+The Shadid stretched out his arms to take it, but he never did take it,
+for at that moment appeared upon the platform the tall and bearded
+figure of Issachar clad in his white robes.
+
+“Hold!” he cried in a loud, clear voice, “and touch not the innocent
+child. Spawn of Satan, would you do murder to appease the devils whom
+you worship? Well shall they repay you, people of Zimboe. Oh! mine eyes
+are open and I see,” he went on, shaking his thin arms above his head
+in a prophetic frenzy. “I see the sword of the true God, and it flames
+above this city of idolaters and abominations. I see this place of
+sacrifice, and I tell you that before the moon is young again it shall
+run red with the blood of you, idol worshippers, and of you, women of
+the groves. The heathen is at your gates, ye followers of demons, and
+my God sends them as He sends the locusts of the north wind to devour
+you like grass, to sweep you away like the dust of the desert. Cry then
+upon El and Baaltis, and let El and Baaltis save you if they can. Doom
+is upon you; Azrael, angel of death, writes his name upon your
+foreheads, every one of you, giving your city to the owls, your bodies
+to the jackals, and your souls to Satan——”
+
+Thus far the priests and the spectators had listened to Issachar’s
+denunciations in bewildered amazement not unmixed with fear. Now with a
+roar of wrath they awoke, and suddenly he was dragged from the platform
+by a score of hands and struck down with many blows. Indeed, he would
+then and there have been torn to pieces had not a guard of soldiers,
+knowing that he was Sakon’s guest and in the train of the prince Aziel,
+snatched him from the maddened multitude, and borne him swiftly to a
+place of safety without the enclosure.
+
+While the tumult was at its height, a Phœnician, who had arrived in the
+temple breathless with haste, might have been seen to pluck Metem by
+the sleeve.
+
+“What is it?” Metem asked of the man, who was his servant.
+
+“This: the lady Baaltis is dead. I watched as you bade me, and, as she
+had promised to do, in token of the end, her woman waved a napkin from
+the casement of that tower where she lies.”
+
+“Do any know of this?”
+
+“None.”
+
+“Then say no word of it,” and Metem hurried off in search of Aziel.
+
+Presently he found him seeking for Issachar in company with his guards.
+
+“Have no fear, Prince,” Metem said, in answer to his eager questions,
+“he is safe enough, for the soldiers have borne the fool away. Pardon
+me that I should speak thus of a holy man, but he has put all our lives
+in danger.”
+
+“I do not pardon you,” answered Aziel hotly, “and I honour Issachar for
+his act and words. Let us begone from this accursed place whither you
+entrapped me.”
+
+Before Metem could reply a voice cried, “Close the doors of the
+sanctuary, so that none can pass in or go out, and let the sacrifice be
+offered.”
+
+“Listen, Prince,” said Metem, “you must stay here till the ceremony is
+done.”
+
+“Then I tell you, Phœnician,” answered Aziel, “that rather than suffer
+that luckless child to be butchered before my eyes I will cut my way to
+it with my guards, and rescue it alive.”
+
+“To leave yourself dead in place of it,” answered Metem sarcastically;
+“but, see, a woman desires to speak with you,” and he pointed to a girl
+in the robe of a priestess, whose face was hidden with a veil, and who,
+in the tumult and confusion, had worked her way to Aziel.
+
+“Prince,” whispered the veiled form, “I am Elissa. For your life’s sake
+keep still and silent, or you will be stabbed, for your words have been
+overheard, and the priests are mad at the insult that has been put upon
+them.”
+
+“Away with you, woman,” answered Aziel; “what have I to do with a girl
+of the groves and a murderess of children?”
+
+She winced at his bitter words, but said quietly:—
+
+“Then on your own head be your blood, Prince, which I have risked much
+to keep unshed. But before you die, learn that I knew nothing of this
+foul sacrifice, and that gladly would I give my own life to save that
+of yonder child.”
+
+“Save it, and I will believe you,” answered the prince, turning from
+her.
+
+Elissa slipped away, for she saw that the priestesses, her companions,
+were reforming their ranks, and that she must not tarry. When she had
+gone a few yards, a hand caught her by the sleeve, and the voice of
+Metem, who had overheard something of this talk, whispered in her ear:—
+
+“Daughter of Sakon, what will you give me if I show you a way to save
+the life of the child, and with it that of the prince, and at the same
+time to make him think well of you again?”
+
+“All my jewels and ornaments of gold, and they are many,” she answered
+eagerly.
+
+“Good; it is a bargain. Now listen: The lady Baaltis is dead; she died
+a few minutes since, and none here know it save myself and one other,
+my servant, nor can any learn it, for the gates are shut. Do you be,
+therefore, suddenly inspired—of the gods—and say so, for then the
+sacrifice must cease, seeing that she for whom it was to be offered is
+dead. Do you understand?”
+
+“I understand,” she answered, “and though the blasphemy bring on me the
+vengeance of Baaltis, yet it shall be dared. Fear not, your pay is
+good,” and she pressed forward to her place, keeping the veil wrapped
+about her head till she reached it unobserved, for in the general
+confusion none had noticed her movements.
+
+When the noise of shouting and angry voices had at length died away,
+and the spectators were driven back outside the sacred circle, the
+priest upon the platform cried:—
+
+“Now that the Jew blasphemer has gone, let the sacrifice be offered, as
+is decreed.”
+
+“Yea, let the sacrifice be offered,” answered the multitude, and once
+more the woman with the sleeping child stepped forward. But before the
+priest could take it another figure approached him, that of Elissa,
+with arms outstretched and eyes upturned.
+
+“Hold, O priest!” she said, “for the goddess, breathing on my brow,
+inspires me, and I have a message from the goddess.”
+
+“Draw near, daughter, and speak it in the ears of men,” the priest
+answered wondering, for he found it hard to believe in such
+inspiration, and indeed would have denied her a hearing had he dared.
+
+So Elissa climbed the platform, and standing upon it still with
+outstretched hands and upturned face, she said in a clear voice:—
+
+“The goddess refuses the sacrifice, since she has taken to herself her
+for whom it was to have been offered—the Lady Baaltis is dead.”
+
+At this tidings a groan went up from the people, partly of grief for
+the loss of a spiritual dignitary who was popular, and partly of
+disappointment because now the sacrifice could not be offered. For the
+Phœnicians loved these horrible spectacles, which were not, however,
+commonly celebrated by daylight and in the presence of the people.
+
+“It is a lie,” cried a voice, “but now the Lady Baaltis was living.”
+
+“Let the gates be opened, and send to see whether or no I lie,” said
+Elissa, quietly.
+
+Then for a while there was silence while a priest went upon the errand.
+At length he was seen returning. Pushing his way through the crowd, he
+mounted the platform, and said:—
+
+“The daughter of Sakon speaks truth; alas! the lady Baaltis is dead.”
+
+Elissa sighed in relief, for had her tidings proved false she could
+scarcely have hoped to escape the fury of the crowd.
+
+“Ay!” she cried, “she is dead, as I told you, and because of your sin,
+who would have offered human sacrifice in public, against the custom of
+our faith and city and without the command of the goddess.”
+
+
+Then in sullen silence the priests and priestesses reformed their
+ranks, and departed from the sanctuary, whence they were followed by
+the spectators, the most of them in no good mood, for they had been
+baulked of the promised spectacle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+THE HALL OF AUDIENCE
+
+
+When Elissa reached her chamber after the break up of the procession,
+she threw herself upon her couch, and burst into a passion of tears.
+Well might she weep, for she had been false to her oath as a priestess,
+uttering as a message from the goddess that which she had learnt from
+the lips of man. More, she could not rid herself of the remembrance of
+the scorn and loathing with which the Prince Aziel had looked upon her,
+or of the bitter insult of his words when he called her, “a girl of the
+groves, and a murderess of children.”
+
+It chanced that, so far as Elissa was concerned, these charges were
+utterly untrue. None could throw a slur upon her, and as for these rare
+human sacrifices, she loathed the very name of them, nor, unless forced
+to it, would she have been present had she guessed that any such
+offering was intended.
+
+Like most of the ancient religions, that of the Phœnicians had two
+sides to it—a spiritual and a material side. The spiritual side was a
+worship of the far-off unknown divinity, symbolised by the sun, moon
+and planets, and visible only in their majestic movements, and in the
+forces of nature. To this Elissa clung, knowing no truer god, and from
+those forces she strove to wring their secret, for her heart was deep.
+Lonely invocations to the goddess beneath the light of the moon
+appealed to her, for from them she seemed to draw strength and comfort,
+but the outward ceremonies of her faith, or the more secret and darker
+of them, of which in practice she knew little, were already an
+abomination in her eyes. And now what if the Jew prophet spoke truly?
+What if this creed of hers were a lie, root and branch, and there did
+lie in the heavens above a Lord and Father who heard and answered the
+prayers of men, and who did not seek of them the blood of the children
+He had given?
+
+A great doubt took hold of Elissa and shook her being, and with the
+doubt came hope. How was it—if her faith were true—that when she took
+the name of the goddess in vain, nothing had befallen her? She desired
+to learn more of this matter, but who was to teach her? The Levite
+turned from her with loathing as from a thing unclean, and there
+remained, therefore, but the prince Aziel, who had put her from him
+with those bitter words of scorn. Ah! why did they pain her so,
+piercing her heart as with a spear? Was it because—because—he had grown
+dear to her? Yes, that was the truth. She had learned it even as he
+cursed her; all her quick southern blood was alight with a new fire,
+the like of which she had never known before. And not her blood only,
+it was her spirit—her spirit that yearned to his. Had it not leapt
+within her at the first sight of him as to one most dear, one long-lost
+and found again? She loved him, and he loathed her, and oh! her lot was
+hard.
+
+As Elissa lay brooding thus in her pain, the door opened and Sakon, her
+father, hurried into the chamber.
+
+“What is it that chanced yonder?” he asked, for he had not been present
+in the sanctuary, “and, daughter, why do you weep?”
+
+“I weep, father, because your guest, the prince Aziel, has called me ‘a
+girl of the groves, and a murderess of children,’” she replied.
+
+“Then, by my head, prince that he is, he shall answer for it to me,”
+said Sakon, grasping at his sword-hilt.
+
+“Nay, father, since to him I must have seemed to deserve the words.
+Listen.” And she told him all that had passed, hiding nothing.
+
+“Now it seems that trouble is heaped upon trouble,” said the Phœnician
+when she had finished, “and they were mad who suffered the prince and
+that fierce Issachar to be present at the sacrifice. Daughter, I tell
+you this: though I am a worshipper of El and Baaltis, as my fathers
+were before me, I know that Jehovah of the Jews is a great and powerful
+Lord, and that His prophets do not prophesy falsely, for I have seen it
+in my youth, yonder in the coasts of Sidon. What did Issachar say? That
+before the moon was young again, this temple should run red with blood?
+Well, so it may happen, for Ithobal threatens war against us, and for
+your sake, my daughter.”
+
+“How for my sake, father?” she asked heavily, as one who knew what the
+answer would be.
+
+“You know well, girl. Ever since you danced before him at the great
+welcoming feast I made in his honour a month ago the man is besotted of
+you; moreover, he is mad with jealousy of this new-comer, the prince
+Aziel. He has demanded public audience of me this afternoon, and I have
+it privately that then he will formally ask you in marriage before the
+people, and if he is refused will declare war upon the city, with which
+he has many an ancient quarrel. Yes, yes, king Ithobal is that sword of
+God which the Jew said he saw hanging over us, and should it fall it
+will be because of you, Elissa.”
+
+“The Jew did not say that, father; he said it would be because of the
+sins of the people and their idolatries.”
+
+“What does it matter what he said?” broke in Sakon hastily. “How shall
+I answer Ithobal?”
+
+“Tell him,” she replied with a strange smile, “that he does wisely to
+be jealous of the prince Aziel.”
+
+“What! Of the stranger who this very day reviled you in words of such
+shame, and so soon?” asked her father astonished.
+
+Elissa did not speak in answer; she only looked straight before her,
+and nodded her head.
+
+“Had ever man such a daughter?” Sakon went on in petulant dismay.
+“Truly it is a wise saying which tells that women love those best who
+beat them, be it with the tongue or with the fist. Not but what I would
+gladly see you wedded to a prince of Israel and of Egypt rather than of
+this half-bred barbarian, but the legions of Solomon and of Pharaoh are
+far away, whereas Ithobal has a hundred thousand spears almost at our
+gate.”
+
+“There is no need to speak of such things, father,” she said, turning
+aside, “since, even were I willing, the prince would have nought to do
+with me, who am a priestess of Baaltis.”
+
+“The matter of religion might be overcome,” suggested Sakon; “but, no,
+for many reasons it is impossible. Well, this being so, daughter, I may
+answer Ithobal that you will wed him.”
+
+“I!” she said; “I wed that black-hearted savage? My father, you may
+answer what you will, but of this be sure, that I will go to my grave
+before I pass as wife to the board of Ithobal.”
+
+“Oh! my daughter,” pleaded Sakon, “think before you say it. As his wife
+at least you, who are not of royal blood, will be a queen, and the
+mother of kings. But if you refuse, then either I must force you, which
+is hateful to me, or there will be such a war as the city has not known
+for generations, for Ithobal and his tribes have many grievances
+against us. By the gift of yourself, for a while, at any rate, you can,
+as it chances, make peace between us, but if that is withheld, then
+blood will run in rivers, and perhaps this city, with all who live in
+it, will be destroyed, or at the least its trade must be ruined and its
+wealth stolen away.”
+
+“If it is decreed that all these things are to be, they will be,”
+answered Elissa calmly, “seeing that this war has threatened us for
+many years, and that a woman must think of herself first, and of the
+fate of cities afterwards. Of my own free will I shall never take
+Ithobal for husband. Father, I have said.”
+
+“Of the fate of cities, yes; but how of my fate, and that of those we
+love? Are we all to be ruined, and perhaps slaughtered, to satisfy your
+whim, girl?”
+
+“I did not say so, father. I said that of my own free will I would not
+wed Ithobal. If you choose to give me to him you have the right to do
+it, but know then that you give me to my death. Perhaps it is best that
+it should be thus.”
+
+Sakon knew his daughter well, and it did not need that he should glance
+at her face to learn that she meant her words. Also he loved her, his
+only child, more dearly than anything on earth.
+
+“In truth my strait is hard, and I know not which way to turn,” he
+said, covering his face with his hand.
+
+“Father,” she replied, laying her fingers lightly on his shoulder,
+“what need is there to answer him at once? Take a month, or if he will
+not give it, a week. Much may happen in that time.”
+
+“The counsel is wise,” he said, catching at this straw. “Daughter, be
+in the great hall of audience with your attendants three hours after
+noon, for then we must receive Ithobal boldly in all pomp, and deal
+with him as best we may. And now I go to ask peace for the Levite from
+the priests of El, and to discover whom the sacred colleges desire to
+nominate as the new Baaltis. Doubtless it will be Mesa, the daughter of
+her who is dead, though many are against her. Oh! if there were no
+priests and no women, this city would be easier to govern,” and with an
+impatient gesture Sakon left the room.
+
+
+It was three o’clock in the afternoon, and the great hall of audience
+in Zimboe was crowded with a brilliant assemblage. There sat Sakon, the
+governor, and with him his council of the notables of the city; there
+were prince Aziel and among his retinue, Issachar the prophet,
+fierce-eyed as ever, though hardly recovered from the rough handling he
+had experienced in the temple. There were representatives of the
+college of the priests of El. There were many ladies, wives and
+daughters of dignitaries and wealthy citizens, and with them a great
+crowd of spectators of all classes gathered in the lower part of the
+hall, for a rumour had spread about that the farewell audience given by
+Sakon to King Ithobal was likely to be stormy.
+
+When all were gathered, a herald announced that Ithobal, King of the
+Tribes, waited to take his leave of Sakon, Governor of Zimboe, before
+departing to his own land on the morrow.
+
+“Let him be admitted,” said Sakon, who looked weary and ill at ease.
+Then as the herald bowed and left, he turned and whispered something
+into the ear of his daughter Elissa, who stood behind his chair, her
+face immovable as that of an Egyptian Sphinx, but magnificently
+apparelled in gleaming robes and jewelled ornaments—which Metem,
+looking on them, reflected with satisfaction were now his property.
+
+Presently, preceded by a burst of savage music, Ithobal entered. He was
+gorgeously arrayed in a purple Tyrian robe decked with golden chains,
+while on the brow, in token of his royalty, he wore a golden circlet in
+which was set a single blood-red stone. Before him walked a
+sword-bearer carrying a sword of ceremony, a magnificent ivory-handled
+weapon encrusted with rough gems and inlaid with gold, while behind
+him, clad in barbaric pomp, marched a number of counsellors and
+attendants, huge and half-savage men who glared wonderingly at the
+splendour of the place and its occupants. As the king came, Sakon rose
+from his chair of state and, advancing down the hall, took him by the
+hand and led him to a similar chair placed at a little distance.
+
+Ithobal seated himself and looked around the hall. Presently his glance
+fell upon Aziel, and he scowled.
+
+“Is it common, Sakon,” he asked, “that the seat of a prince should be
+set higher than that of a crowned king?” And he pointed to the chair of
+Aziel, which was placed a little above his own upon the daïs.
+
+The governor was about to answer when Aziel said coldly:—
+
+“Where it was pointed out to me that I should sit, there I sat, though,
+for aught I care, the king Ithobal may take my place. The grandson of
+Pharaoh and of Solomon does not need to dispute for precedence with the
+savage ruler of savage tribes.”
+
+Ithobal sprang to his feet and cried, grasping his sword:—
+
+“By my father’s soul, you shall answer for this, Princelet.”
+
+“You should have sworn by your mother’s soul, King Ithobal,” replied
+Aziel quietly, “for doubtless it is the black blood in your veins that
+causes you to forget your courtesy. For the rest, I answer to no man
+save to my king.”
+
+“Yet there is one other who will make you answer,” replied Ithobal, in
+a voice thick with rage, “and here he is,” and he drew his sword and
+flashed it before the prince’s eyes. “Or if you fear to face him, then
+the wands of my slaves shall cause you to cry me pardon.”
+
+“If you desire to challenge me to combat, king Ithobal, for this
+purpose only I am your servant, though the fashion of your challenging
+is not that of any nation which I know.”
+
+Before Ithobal could reply, Sakon cried out in a loud voice:—
+
+“Enough, enough! Is this a place for brawling, king Ithobal, and would
+you seek to fix a quarrel upon my guest, the prince Aziel, here in my
+council chamber, and to bring upon me the wrath of Israel, of Tyre, and
+of Egypt? Be sure that the prince shall cross no swords with you; no,
+not if I have to set him under guard to keep him safe. To your
+business, king Ithobal, or I break up this assembly and send you under
+escort to our gates.”
+
+Now his counsellors plucked Ithobal by the sleeve and whispered to him
+some advice, which at last he seemed to take with an ill grace, for,
+turning, he said, “So be it. This is my business, Sakon: For many years
+I and the countless tribes whom I rule have suffered much at the hands
+of you Phœnicians, who centuries ago settled here in my country as
+traders. That you should trade we are content, but not that you should
+establish yourselves as a sovereign power, pretending to be my equals
+who are my servants. Therefore, in the name of my nation, I demand that
+the tribute which you pay to me for the use of the mines of gold shall
+henceforth be doubled; that the defences of this city be thrown down;
+and that you cease to enslave the natives of the land to labour in your
+service. I have spoken.”
+
+Now as these arrogant demands reached their ears, the company assembled
+in the hall murmured with anger and astonishment, then turned to wait
+for Sakon’s answer.
+
+“And if we refuse these small requests of yours, O King?” asked the
+governor sarcastically, “what then? Will you make war upon us?”
+
+“First tell me, Sakon, if you do refuse them?”
+
+“In the name of the cities of Tyre and Sidon whom I serve, and of Hiram
+my master, I refuse them one and all,” answered Sakon with dignity.
+
+“Then, Sakon, I am minded to bring up a hundred thousand men against
+you and to sweep you and your city from the face of earth,” said
+Ithobal. “Yet I remember that I also have Phœnician blood in my veins
+mixed with the nobler and more ancient blood at which yonder upstart
+jeers, and therefore I would spare you. I remember also that for
+generations there has been peace and amity between my forefathers and
+the Council of this city, and therefore I would spare you. Behold,
+then, I build a bridge whereby you may escape, asking but one little
+thing of you in proof that you are indeed my friend, and it is that you
+give me your daughter, the lady Elissa, whom I seek to make my queen.
+Think well before you answer, remembering that upon this answer may
+hang the lives of all who listen to you, ay, and of many thousand
+others.”
+
+For a while there was silence in the assemblage, and every eye was
+fixed upon Elissa, who stood neither moving nor speaking, her face
+still set like that of a Sphinx, and almost as unreadable. Aziel gazed
+at her with the rest, and his eyes she felt alone of all the hundreds
+that were bent upon her. Indeed, so strongly did they draw her, that
+against her own will she turned her head and met them. Then remembering
+what had passed between herself and the prince that very day, she
+coloured faintly and looked down, neither the glance nor the blush
+escaping the watchful Ithobal.
+
+Presently Sakon spoke:—
+
+“King Ithobal,” he said, “I am honoured indeed that you should seek my
+daughter as your queen, but she is my only child, whom I love, and I
+have sworn to her that I will not force her to marry against her will,
+whoever be the suitor. Therefore, King, take your answer from her own
+lips, for whatever it be it is my answer.”
+
+“Lady,” said Ithobal, “you have heard your father’s words; be pleased
+to say that you look with favour upon my suit, and that you will deign
+to share my throne and power.”
+
+Elissa took a step forward on the daïs and curtseyed low before the
+king.
+
+“O King!” she said, “I am your handmaid, and great indeed is the favour
+that you would do your servant. Yet, King, I pray of you search out
+some fairer woman of a more royal rank to share your crown and sceptre,
+for I am all unworthy of them, and to those words on this matter which
+I have spoken in past days I have none to add.” Then again she
+curtseyed, adding, “King, I am your servant.”
+
+Now a murmur of astonishment went up from the audience, for few of them
+thought it possible that Elissa, who, however beautiful, was but the
+daughter of a noble, could refuse to become the wife of a king. Ithobal
+alone did not seem to be astonished, for he had expected this answer.
+
+“Lady,” he said, repressing with an effort the passions which were
+surging within him, “I think that I have something to offer to the
+woman of my choice, and yet you put me aside as lightly as though I had
+neither name, nor power, nor station. This, as it seems to me, can be
+read in one way only, that your heart is given elsewhere.”
+
+“Have it as you will, King,” answered Elissa, “my heart is given
+elsewhere.”
+
+“And yet, lady, not four suns gone you swore to me that you loved no
+man. Since then it seems that you have learned to love, and swiftly,
+and it is yonder Jew whom you have chosen.” And he pointed to the
+prince Aziel.
+
+Again Elissa coloured, this time to the eyes, but she showed no other
+sign of confusion.
+
+“May the king pardon me,” she said, “and may the prince Aziel, whose
+name has thus been coupled with mine, pardon me. I said indeed that my
+heart was given elsewhere, but I did not say it was given to any man.
+May not the heart of a mortal maid-priestess be given to the
+Ever-living?”
+
+Now for a moment the king was silenced, while a murmur of applause at
+her ready wit went round the audience. But before it died away a voice
+at the far end of the hall called out:—
+
+“Perchance the lady does not know that yonder in Egypt, and in
+Jerusalem also, prince Aziel is named the Ever-living.”
+
+Now it was Elissa’s turn to be overcome.
+
+“Nay, I knew it not,” she said; “how should I know it? I spoke of that
+Dweller in the heavens whom I worship——”
+
+“And behold, the title fits a dweller on the earth whom you must also
+worship, for such omens do not come by chance,” cried the same voice,
+but from another quarter of the crowded hall.
+
+“I ask pardon,” broke in Aziel, “and leave to speak. It is true that
+owing to a certain birth-mark which I bear, among the Egyptians I have
+been given the bye-name of the Ever-living, but it is one which this
+lady can scarcely have heard, therefore jest no more upon a chance
+accident of words. Moreover, if you be men, cease to heap insult upon a
+woman. I who am almost a stranger here have not dared to ask the lady
+Elissa for her favour.”
+
+“Ay, but you will ask and she will grant,” answered the same voice, the
+owner of which none could discover—for he seemed to speak from every
+part of the chamber.
+
+“Indeed,” went on Aziel, not heeding the interruption, “the last words
+between us were words of anger, for we quarrelled on a matter of
+religion.”
+
+“What of that?” cried the voice; “love is the highest of religions, for
+do not the Phœnicians worship it?”
+
+“Seize yonder knave,” shouted Sakon, and search was made but without
+avail. Afterwards, however, Aziel remembered that once, when they were
+weather-bound on their journey from the coast, Metem had amused them by
+making his voice sound from various quarters of the hut in which they
+lay. Then Ithobal rose and said:—
+
+“Enough of this folly; I am not here to juggle with words, or to listen
+to such play. Whether the lady Elissa spoke of the gods she serves or
+of a man is one to me. I care not of whom she spoke, but for her words
+I do care. Now hearken, you city of traders: If this is to be thy
+answer, then I break down that bridge which I have built, and it is war
+between you and my Tribes, war to the end. But let her change her
+words, and whether she loves me or loves me not, come to be my wife,
+and, for my day, the bridge shall stand; for once that we are wed I can
+surely teach her love, or if I cannot, at least it is she I seek with
+or without her love. Reflect then, lady, and reply again, remembering
+how much hangs upon your lips.”
+
+“Do you think, king Ithobal,” Elissa answered, looking at him with
+angry eyes, “that a woman such as I am can be won by threats? I have
+spoken, king Ithobal.”
+
+“I know not,” he replied; “but I do know that she can be won by force,
+and then surely, lady, your pride shall pay the price, for you shall be
+mine, but not my queen.”
+
+Now one of the council rose and said:—
+
+“It seems, Sakon, that there is more in this matter than whether or no
+the king Ithobal pleases your daughter. Is the city then to be plunged
+into a great war, of which none can see the end, because one woman
+looks askance upon a man? Better that a thousand girls should be wedded
+where they would not than that such a thing should happen. Sakon,
+according to our ancient law you have the right to give your daughter
+in marriage where and when you will. We demand, therefore, that for the
+good of the commonwealth, you should exercise this right, and hand over
+the lady Elissa to king Ithobal.”
+
+This speech was received with loud and general shouts of approval, for
+no Phœnician audience would have been willing to sacrifice its
+interests for a thing so trivial as the happiness of a woman.
+
+“Between the desire of a beloved daughter to whom I have pledged my
+word and my duty to the great city over which I rule, my strait is hard
+indeed,” answered Sakon. “Hearken, king Ithobal, I must have time. Give
+me eight days from now in which to answer you, for if you will not, I
+deny your suit.”
+
+Ithobal seemed about to refuse the demand of Sakon. Then once more his
+counsellors plucked him by the sleeve, pointing out to him that if he
+did this, it was likely that none of them would leave the city alive.
+At some sign from the governor, they whispered, the captains of the
+guard were already hastening from the hall.
+
+“So be it, Sakon,” he said. “To-night I camp without your walls, which
+are no longer safe for one who has threatened war against them, and on
+the eighth day from this see to it that your heralds being me the Lady
+Elissa and peace—or I make good my threat. Till then, farewell.” And
+placing himself in the midst of his company king Ithobal left the hall.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+THE BLACK DWARF
+
+
+Some two hours had passed since the break-up of the assembly in the
+great hall. Prince Aziel was seated in his chamber, when the keeper of
+the door announced that a woman was without who desired to speak with
+him. He gave orders that she should be admitted, and presently a veiled
+figure entered the room and bowed before him.
+
+“Be pleased to unveil, and to tell me your business,” he said.
+
+With some reluctance his visitor withdrew the wrapping from her head,
+revealing a face which Aziel recognised as one that he had seen among
+the waiting women who attended on Elissa.
+
+“My message is for your ear, Prince,” she said, glancing at the man who
+had ushered her into the chamber.
+
+“It is not my custom to receive strangers thus alone,” said the prince;
+“but be it as you will,” and he motioned to the servant to retire
+without the door. “I await your pleasure,” he added, when the man had
+gone.
+
+“It is here,” she answered, and drew from her bosom a little papyrus
+roll.
+
+“Who wrote this?” he asked.
+
+“I know not, Prince; it was given to me to pass on to you.”
+
+Then he opened the roll and read. It ran thus: “Though we parted with
+bitter words, still in my sore distress I crave the comfort of your
+counsel. Therefore, since I am forbidden to speak with you openly, meet
+me, I beseech you, at moonrise in the palace garden under the shade of
+the great fig tree with five roots, where I shall be accompanied only
+by one I trust. Bring no man with you for my safety’s sake.—Elissa.”
+
+Aziel thrust the scroll into his robe, and thought awhile. Then he gave
+the waiting lady a piece of gold and said:—
+
+“Tell her who sent you that I obey her words. Farewell.”
+
+This message seemed to puzzle the woman, who opened her lips to speak.
+Then, changing her mind, she turned and went.
+
+Scarcely had she gone when the Phœnician, Metem, was ushered into the
+room.
+
+“O Prince,” he said maliciously, “pardon me if I caution you. Yet in
+truth if veiled ladies flit thus through your apartments in the light
+of day, it will reach the ears of the holy but violent Issachar, of
+whose doings I come to speak. Then, Prince, I tremble for you.”
+
+Aziel made a movement half-impatient and half-contemptuous. “The woman
+is a serving-maid,” he said, “who brought me a message that I
+understand but little. Tell me, Metem, for you know this place of old,
+does there stand in the palace garden a great fig tree with five
+roots?”
+
+“Yes, Prince; at least such a tree used to grow there when last I
+visited this country. It was one of the wonders of the town, because of
+its size. What of it?”
+
+“Little, except that I must be under it at moonrise. See and read,
+since whatever you may say of yourself, you are, I think, no traitor.”
+
+“Not if I am well paid to keep counsel, Prince,” Metem answered with a
+smile. Then he read the scroll.
+
+“I am glad that the noble lady brings an attendant with her,” he said
+as he returned it, with a bow. “The gossips of Zimboe are censorious,
+and might misinterpret this moonlight meeting, as indeed would Sakon
+and Issachar. Well, doves will coo and maids will woo, and unless I can
+make money out of it the affair is none of mine.”
+
+“Have I not told you that there is no question of wooing?” asked the
+prince angrily. “I go only to give her what counsel I can in the matter
+of the suit of this savage, Ithobal. The lady Elissa and I have
+quarrelled beyond repair over that accursed sacrifice——”
+
+“Which her ready wit prevented,” put in Metem.
+
+“But I promised last night that I would help her if I could,” the
+prince went on, “and I always keep my word.”
+
+“I understand, Prince. Well, since you turn from the lady, whose name
+with yours is so much in men’s mouths just now, doubtless you will give
+her wise counsel, namely, to wed Ithobal, and lift the shadow of war
+from this city. Then, indeed, we shall all be grateful to you, for it
+seems that no one else can move her stubbornness. And, by the way: If,
+when she has listened to your wisdom, the daughter of Sakon should
+chance to explain to you that the sight of this day’s attempted
+sacrifice filled her with horror, and that she parted with every jewel
+she owns to put an end to it—well, her words will be true. But, since
+you have quarrelled, they will have no more interest for you, Prince,
+than has my talk about them. So now to other matters.” And Metem began
+to speak of the conduct of Issachar in the sanctuary, and of the
+necessity of guarding him against assassination at the hands of the
+priests of El as a consequence of his religious zeal. Presently he was
+gone, leaving Aziel somewhat bewildered.
+
+Could it be true, as she herself had told him, and as Metem now
+asserted, that Elissa had not participated willingly in the dark rites
+in the temple? If so he had misjudged her and been unjust; indeed, what
+atonement could suffice for such words as he had used towards her?
+Well, to some extent she must have understood and forgiven them,
+otherwise she would scarcely have sought his aid, though he knew not
+how he could help her in her distress.
+
+
+When Elissa returned from the assembly, she laid herself down to rest,
+worn out in mind and body. Soon sleep came to her, and with the sleep
+dreams. At first these were vague and shadowy, then they grew more
+clear. She dreamed that she saw a dim and moonlit garden, and in it a
+vast tree with twisted roots that seemed familiar to her. Something
+moving among the branches of this tree attracted her attention, but for
+a long while she watched it without being able to discover what it was.
+Now she saw. The moving thing was a hideous black dwarf with beady
+eyes, who held in his hand a little ivory tipped bow, on the string of
+which was set an arrow. Her consciousness concentrated itself upon this
+arrow, and though she knew not how, she became aware that it was
+poisoned. What was the dwarf doing in the tree with a bow and poisoned
+arrow, she wondered? Suddenly a sound seemed to strike her ear, the
+sound of a man’s footsteps walking over grass, and she perceived that
+the figure of the dwarf, crouched upon the bough, became tense and
+alert, and that his fingers tightened upon the bow-string until the
+blood was driven from their yellow tips. Following the glance of his
+wicked black eyes, she saw advancing through the shadow a tall man clad
+in a dark robe. Now he emerged into a patch of moonlight and stood
+looking around him as though he were searching for some one. Then the
+dwarf raised himself to his knees upon the bough, and, aiming at the
+bare throat of the man, drew the bow-string to his ear. At this moment
+the victim turned his head and the moonlight shone full upon his face.
+It was that of the prince Aziel.
+
+
+Elissa awoke from her vision with a little cry, then rose trembling,
+and strove to comfort herself in the thought that although it was so
+very vivid she had dreamed but a dream. Still shaken and unnerved, she
+passed into another chamber, and made pretence to eat of the meal that
+was made ready for her, for it was now the hour of sunset. While she
+was thus employed, it was announced that the Phœnician, Metem, desired
+to speak with her, and she commanded that he should be admitted.
+
+“Lady,” he said bowing, so soon as her attendants had withdrawn to the
+farther end of the chamber, “you can guess my errand. This morning I
+gave you certain tidings which proved both true and useful, and for
+those tidings you promised a reward.”
+
+“It is so,” she said, and going to a chest she drew from it an ivory
+casket full of ornaments of gold and among them necklaces and other
+objects set with uncut precious stones. “Take them,” she said, “they
+are yours; that is, save this gold chain alone, for it is vowed to
+Baaltis.”
+
+“But lady,” he asked, “how can you appear before Ithobal the king thus
+robbed of all your ornaments?”
+
+“I shall not appear before Ithobal the king,” she answered sharply.
+
+“You say so! Then what will the prince Aziel think of you when he sees
+you thus unadorned?”
+
+“My beauty is my adornment,” she replied, “not these gems and gold.
+Moreover, it is nought to me what he thinks, for he hates me, and has
+reviled me.”
+
+Metem lifted his eyebrows incredulously and went on: “Still, I will not
+deprive you of this woman’s gear. Look now, I value it, and at no high
+figure,” and drawing out his writer’s palette and a slip of papyrus, he
+wrote upon it an acknowledgment of debt, which he asked her to sign.
+
+“This document, lady,” he said, “I will present to your father—or your
+husband—at a convenient season, nor do I fear that either of them will
+refuse to honour it. And now I take my leave, for you—have an
+appointment to keep—and,” he added with emphasis, “the time of moonrise
+is at hand.”
+
+“Your meaning, I pray you?” she asked. “I have no appointment at
+moonrise, or at any other hour.”
+
+Metem bowed politely, but in a fashion which showed that he put no
+faith in her words.
+
+“Again I ask your meaning, merchant,” she said, “for your dark hintings
+are scarcely to be borne.”
+
+The Phœnician looked at her; there was a ring of truth in her voice.
+
+“Lady,” he said, “will you indeed deny, after I have seen it written by
+yourself, that within some few minutes you meet the prince Aziel
+beneath a great tree in the palace gardens, there—so said the scroll—to
+ask his aid in this matter of the suit of Ithobal?”
+
+“Written by myself?” she said wonderingly. “Meet the prince Aziel
+beneath a tree in the palace gardens? Never have I thought of it.”
+
+“Yet, lady, the scroll I saw purported to be written by you, and your
+own woman bore it to the prince. As I think, she sits yonder at the end
+of the chamber, for I know her shape.”
+
+“Come hither,” called Elissa, addressing the woman. “Now tell me, what
+scroll was this that you carried to-day to the prince Aziel, saying
+that I sent you?”
+
+“Lady,” answered the girl confusedly, “I never told the prince Aziel
+that you sent him the scroll.”
+
+“The truth, woman, the truth,” said her mistress. “Lie not, or it will
+be the worse for you.”
+
+“Lady, this is the truth. As I was walking through the market-place an
+old black woman met me, and offered me a piece of gold if I would
+deliver a letter into the hand of the prince Aziel. The gold tempted
+me, for I had need of it, and I consented; but of who wrote the letter
+I know nothing, nor have I ever seen the woman before.”
+
+“You have done wrong, girl,” said Elissa, “but I believe your tale. Now
+go.”
+
+When she had gone, Elissa stood for a while thinking; and, as she
+thought, Metem saw a look of fear gather on her face.
+
+“Say,” she asked him, “is there anything strange about the tree of
+which the scroll tells?”
+
+“Its size is strange,” he answered, “and it has five roots that stand
+above the ground.”
+
+As he spoke Elissa uttered a little cry.
+
+“Ah!” she said, “it is the tree of my dream. Now—now I understand.
+Swift, oh! come with me swiftly, for see, the moon rises,” and she
+sprang to the door followed by the amazed Metem.
+
+Another minute, and they were speeding down the narrow street so fast
+that those who loitered there turned their heads and laughed, for they
+thought that a jealous husband pursued his wife. As Elissa fumbled at
+the hasp of the door of the garden, Metem overtook her.
+
+“What means this hunt?” he gasped.
+
+“That they have decoyed the prince here to murder him,” she answered,
+and sped through the gateway.
+
+“Therefore we must be murdered also. A woman’s logic,” the Phœnician
+reflected to himself as he panted after her.
+
+Swiftly as Elissa had run down the street, here she redoubled her
+speed, flitting through the glades like some white spirit, and so
+rapidly that her companion found it difficult to keep her in view. At
+length they came to a large open space of ground where played the level
+beams of the rising moon, striking upon the dense green foliage of an
+immense tree that grew there. Round this tree Elissa ran, glancing
+about her wildly, so that for a few seconds Metem lost sight of her,
+for its mass was between them. When he saw her again she was speeding
+towards the figure of a man who stood in the open, about ten paces from
+the outer boughs of the tree. To this she pointed as she came, crying
+out aloud, “Beware! Beware!”
+
+Another moment and she had almost reached the man, and still pointing
+began to gasp some broken words. Then, suddenly in the bright
+moonlight, Metem saw a shining point of light flash towards the pair
+from the darkness of the tree. It would seem that Elissa saw it also;
+at least, she leapt from the ground, her arm lifted above her head as
+though to catch the object. Then as her feet once more touched the
+earth her knees gave way, and she fell down with a moan of pain. Metem
+running on towards her, as he went perceived a shape, which looked like
+that of a black dwarf, slip from the shadow of the tree into some
+bushes beyond where it was lost. Now he was there, to find Elissa
+half-seated, half-lying on the ground, the prince Aziel bending over
+her, and fixed through the palm of her right hand, which she held up
+piteously, a little ivory-pointed arrow.
+
+“Draw it out from the wound,” he panted.
+
+“It will not help me,” she answered; “the arrow is poisoned.”
+
+With an exclamation, Metem knelt beside her, and, not heeding her
+groans of pain, drew the dart through the pierced palm. Then he tore a
+strip of linen from his robe, and knotting it round Elissa’s wrist, he
+took a broken stick that lay near and twisted the linen till it almost
+cut into her flesh.
+
+“Now, Prince,” he said, “suck the wound, for I have no breath for it.
+Fear not, lady, I know an antidote for this arrow poison, and presently
+I will be back with the salve. Till then, if you would live, do not
+suffer that bandage to be loosed, however much it pains you,” and he
+departed swiftly.
+
+Aziel put his lips to the hurt to draw out the poison.
+
+“Nay,” she said faintly, trying to pull away her hand, “it is not
+fitting, the venom may kill you.”
+
+“It seems that it was meant for me,” he answered, “so at the worst I do
+take but my own.”
+
+Presently, directing Elissa to hold her hand above her head, he put his
+arms about her and carried her a hundred paces or more into the open
+glade.
+
+“Why do you move me?” she asked, her head resting on his shoulder.
+
+“Because whoever it was that shot the arrow may return to try his
+fortune a second time, and here in the open his darts cannot reach us.”
+Then he set her down upon the grass and stood looking at her.
+
+“Listen, prince Aziel,” Elissa said after a while, “the venom with
+which these black men soak their weapons is very strong, and unless
+Metem’s salve be good, it may well chance that I shall die. Therefore
+before I die I wish to say a word to you. What brought you to this
+place to-night?”
+
+“A letter from yourself, lady.”
+
+“I know it,” she said, “but I did not write that letter; it was a
+snare, set, as I think, by the king Ithobal, who would do you to death
+in this way or in that. A messenger of his bribed my waiting-maid to
+deliver it, and afterwards I learnt the tale from Metem. Then, guessing
+all, I came hither to try to save you.”
+
+“But how could you guess all, lady?”
+
+“In a strange fashion, Prince.” And in a few words she told him her
+dream.
+
+“This is marvellous indeed, that you should be warned of my danger by
+visions,” he said wondering, and half-doubtingly.
+
+“So marvellous, Prince, that you do not believe me,” Elissa answered.
+“I know well what you think. You think that a woman to whom this very
+morning you spoke such words as women cannot well forgive, being
+revengeful laid a plot to murder you, and then, being a woman, changed
+her mind. Well, it is not so; Metem can prove it to you!”
+
+“Lady, I believe you,” he said, “without needing the testimony of
+Metem. But now the story grows still more strange, for if you had done
+me no wrong, how comes it that to preserve me from harm you set your
+tender flesh between the arrow and one who had reviled you?”
+
+“It was by chance,” she answered faintly. “I learnt the truth and ran
+to warn you. Then I saw the arrow fly towards your heart, and strove to
+grasp it, and it pierced me. It was by chance, by such a chance as made
+me dream your danger.” And she fainted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+AZIEL PLIGHTS HIS TROTH
+
+
+At first Aziel feared that the poison had done its work, and that
+Elissa was dead, till placing his hand upon her heart he felt it
+beating faintly, and knew that she did but swoon. To leave her to seek
+water or assistance was impossible, since he dared not loose his hold
+of the bandage about her wrist. So, patiently as he might, he knelt at
+her side awaiting the return of Metem.
+
+How beautiful her pale face seemed there in the moonlight, set in its
+frame of dusky hair. And how strange was this tale of hers, of a dream
+that she had dreamed, a dream which, to save his own, led her to offer
+her life to the murderer’s arrow. Many would not believe it, but he
+felt that it was true; he felt that even if she wished it she could not
+lie to him, for as he had known since first they met, their souls were
+open to each other. Yes, having thus been warned of his danger, she had
+offered her life for him—for him who that morning had called her,
+unjustly so Metem said, “a girl of the groves and a murderess.” How
+came it that she had done this, unless indeed she loved him as—he loved
+her?
+
+Aziel could no longer palter with himself, it was the truth. Last night
+when Issachar accused him, he had felt this, although then he would not
+admit it altogether, and now to-night he knew that his fate had found
+him. They would say that, after the common fashion of men, he had been
+conquered by a lovely face and form and a brave deed of devotion. But
+it was not so. Something beyond the flesh and its works and attributes
+drew him towards this woman, something that he could neither understand
+nor define (unless, indeed, the vision of Issachar defined it), but of
+which he had been conscious since first he set eyes upon her face. It
+was possible, it was even probable, that before another hour had gone
+by she would have passed beyond his reach, into the deeps of death,
+whither for a while he could not follow her. Yet he knew that the
+knowledge that she never could be his would not affect the love of her
+which burnt in him, for his desire towards her was not altogether a
+desire of the earth.
+
+Aziel bent down over the swooning girl, looking into her pale face,
+till her lips almost touched his own, and his breath beating on her
+brow seemed to give her life again. Now she stirred, and now she opened
+her eyes and gazed back at him a while, deeply and with meaning, even
+as he gazed at her.
+
+He spoke no word, for his lips seemed to be smitten with silence, but
+his heart said, “I love you, I love you,” and her heart heard it, for
+she whispered back:—
+
+“Bethink you who and what I am.”
+
+“It matters not, for we are one,” he replied.
+
+“Bethink you,” she said again, “that soon I may be dead and lost to
+you.”
+
+“It cannot be, for we are one,” he replied. “One we have been, one we
+are to-day, and one we shall be through all the length of life and
+death.”
+
+“Prince,” she said again, “once more and for the last time I say:
+Bethink you well, for it comes upon me that your words are true, and
+that if I take that which to-night you offer, it will be for ever and
+for aye.”
+
+“For ever and aye, let it be,” Aziel said, leaning towards her.
+
+“For ever and for aye, let it be,” she repeated, holding up her lips to
+his.
+
+And thus in the silent moonlit garden they plighted their strange
+troth.
+
+
+“Lady,” said a voice in their ears, the voice of Metem, “I pray you let
+me dress your hand, for there is no time to lose.”
+
+Aziel looked up to see the Phœnician bending over them with a sardonic
+smile, and behind him the tall form of Issachar, who stood regarding
+them, his arms folded on his breast.
+
+“Holy Issachar,” went on Metem with malice, “be pleased to hold this
+lady’s hand, since it seems that the prince here can only tend her
+lips.”
+
+“Nay,” answered the Levite, “what have I to do with this daughter of
+Baaltis? Cure her if you can, or if you cannot, let her die, for so
+shall a stone of stumbling be removed from the feet of the foolish.”
+And he glanced indignantly at Aziel.
+
+“Had it not been for this same stone at least the feet of the foolish
+by now would have pointed skywards. The gods send me such a stone if
+ever a black dwarf draws a poisoned arrow at me,” answered Metem, as he
+busied himself with his drugs. Then he added, “Nay, Prince, do not stop
+to answer him, but hold the lady’s hand to the light.”
+
+Aziel obeyed, and having washed out the wound with water, Metem rubbed
+ointment into it which burnt Elissa so sorely that she groaned aloud.
+
+“Be patient beneath the pain, lady,” he said, “for if it has not
+already passed into your blood, this salve will eat away the poison of
+the arrow.”
+
+Then half-leading and half-carrying her, they brought her back to the
+palace. Here Metem gave her over into the care of her father, telling
+him as much of the story as he thought wise, and cautioning him to keep
+silent concerning what had happened.
+
+At the door of the palace Issachar spoke to Aziel.
+
+“Did I dream, Prince,” he said, “or did my ears indeed hear you tell
+that idolatress that you loved her for ever, and did my eyes see you
+kiss her on the lips?”
+
+“It seems that you saw and heard these things, Issachar,” said Aziel,
+setting his face sternly. “Now hear this further, and then I pray you
+give me peace on this matter of the lady Elissa: If in any way it is
+possible, I shall make her my wife, and if it be not possible, then for
+so long as she may live at least I will look upon no other woman.”
+
+“Then that is good news, Prince, to me, who am charged with your
+welfare, for be sure, if I can prevent you, you shall never mix your
+life with that of this heathen sorceress.”
+
+“Issachar,” the prince replied, “I have borne much from you because I
+know well that you love me, and have stood to me in the place of a
+father. But now, in my turn, I warn you, do not seek to work harm to
+the lady Elissa, for in striking her you strike me, and such blows may
+bring my vengeance after them.”
+
+“Vengeance?” mocked the Levite. “I fear but one vengeance, and it is
+not yours, nor do I listen to the whisperings of love when duty points
+the path. Rather would I see you dead, prince Aziel, then lured down to
+hell by the wiles of yonder witch.”
+
+Then before Aziel could answer he turned and left him.
+
+
+As Issachar went to his own chamber full of bitterness and indignation,
+he passed the door of Elissa’s apartments, and came face to face with
+Metem issuing from them.
+
+“Will the woman live?” he asked of him.
+
+“Be comforted, worthy Issachar. I think so; that is, if the bandage
+does not slip. I go to tell the prince.”
+
+“Gladly would I give a hundred golden shekels to him who brought me
+tidings that it had slipped and the woman with it, down to the arms of
+her father Beelzebub,” broke in the Levite passionately.
+
+“Pretty words for a holy man,” said Metem, feigning amazement. “Well,
+Issachar, I will do most things for good money, but to shift that
+bandage would be but murder, and this I cannot work even for the gold
+and to win your favour.”
+
+“Fool,” answered Issachar, “did I ask you to do murder? I do not fight
+with such weapons; let the woman live or die as it is decreed. Nay,
+enter my chamber, for I would speak with you, who are a cunning man
+versed in the craft of courts. Listen now: I love this prince Aziel,
+for I have reared him from his childhood, and he has been a son to me
+who have none. More, I am sent hither to this hateful land to watch him
+and hold him from harm, and for all that chances to him I must account.
+And now, what has chanced? This woman, Elissa, by her witcheries——”
+
+“Softly, Issachar; what witcheries does she need beyond those lips and
+form and eyes?”
+
+“By her witcheries, I tell you, has ensnared him so that now he swears
+that he will wed her.”
+
+“What of it, Issachar? He might travel far to find a lovelier woman.”
+
+“What of it, do you ask, remembering who he is? What of it, when you
+know his faith, and that this fair idolater will sap it, and cause him
+to cast away his soul? What of it, when with your own ears you heard
+him swear to love her through all the deeps of life and death? Man, are
+you mad?”
+
+“No, but some might say that you are, holy father, who forget that I am
+also of this religion which you revile. But for good or ill, so the
+matter stands; and now what is it that you wish of me?”
+
+“I wish that you should make it impossible that the prince Aziel should
+take this woman to wife. Not by murder, indeed, for ‘thou shalt not
+kill,’ saith the law, but by bringing it about that she should marry
+the king Ithobal, or if that fail, in any other fashion which seems
+good to you.”
+
+“‘Thou shalt not kill,’ saith your law; tell me then, Issachar, does it
+say also that thou shalt hand over a woman to a fate that she chances
+to hold to be worse than death? Doubtless it is foolish of her, and we
+should not heed such woman’s folly. Yet this one has a certain strength
+of will, and I question if all the elders of the city will bring her
+living to the arms of Ithobal.”
+
+“It is nought to me, Metem, if she weds Ithobal, or weds him not, save
+that I do not love this heathen man, and surely her temper and her
+witcheries would bring ruin on him. What I would have you do is to
+prevent her from marrying Aziel; the way I leave to you.”
+
+“And what should I be paid for this service, holy Issachar?”
+
+The Jew thought and answered, “A hundred golden shekels.”
+
+“Two hundred gold shekels,” replied Metem reflectively, “nay, I am sure
+you said _two_ hundred, Issachar. At least, I do not work for less, and
+it is a small sum enough, seeing that to earn it I must take upon
+myself the guilt of severing two loving hearts. But I know well that
+you are right, and that this would be an evil marriage for the prince
+Aziel, and also for the lady Elissa, who then day by day and year by
+year must bear the scourge of your reproaches, Issachar. Therefore I
+will do my best, not for the money indeed, but because I see herein a
+righteous duty. And now here is parchment, give me the lamp that I may
+prepare the bond.”
+
+“My word is my bond, Phœnician,” answered the Levite haughtily.
+
+Metem looked at him. “Doubtless,” he said, “but you are old, and this
+is—a rough country where accidents chance at times. Still, the thing
+would read very ill, and, as you say, your word is your bond. Only
+remember, Issachar, two hundred shekels, bearing interest at two
+shekels a month. And now you are weary, holy Issachar, with plotting
+for the welfare of others, and so am I. Farewell, and good dreams to
+you.”
+
+The Levite watched him go, muttering to himself, “Alas that I should
+have fallen to such traffic with a knave, but it is for your sake and
+for your soul’s sake, O Aziel my son. I pray that Fate be not too
+strong for me and you.”
+
+
+For two days from this night Elissa lay almost senseless, and by many
+it was thought that she would die. But when Metem saw her on the
+morning after she had been wounded, and noted that her arm was but
+little swollen, and had not turned black, he announced that she would
+certainly live, whatever the doctors of the city might declare. Thereon
+Sakon, her father, and Aziel blessed him, but Issachar said nothing.
+
+As the Phœnician was walking through the market-place early on the next
+day an aged black woman, whom he did not know, accosted him, saying
+that she had a message for his ear from the king Ithobal who was camped
+without the city and who desired to see the merchandise that he had
+brought with him from the coasts of Tyre. Now Metem had already sold
+all his wares at a great advantage; still, as he would not neglect this
+opportunity of trade, he purchased others from his fellow merchants,
+and loading two camels with them, set out for the camp of Ithobal,
+riding on a mule. By midday he had reached it. The camp was pitched
+near water in a pleasant grove of trees, and on one of these not far
+from the tent of Ithobal Metem noted that there hung the body of a
+black dwarf.
+
+“Behold the fate of him who shoots at the buck and hits the doe. Well,
+I have always said that murder is a dangerous game, since blood calls
+out for blood,” thought Metem as he rode towards the tent.
+
+At its door stood king Ithobal looking very huge and sullen in the
+sunlight. Metem dismounted and prostrated himself obsequiously.
+
+“May the King live for ever,” he said, “the great King, the King to
+whom all the other kings of the earth are as the little gods to Baal,
+or the faint stars to the sun.”
+
+“Rise, and cease from flatteries,” said Ithobal shortly; “I may be
+greater than the other kings, but at least you do not think it.”
+
+“If the king says so, so let it be,” replied Metem calmly. “A woman
+yonder in the market-place told me that the king wished to trade for my
+merchandise. So I have brought the best of it; priceless goods that
+which much toil I have carried hither from Tyre,” and he pointed to the
+two camels laden with the inferior articles which he had purchased, and
+began to read the number and description of the goods from his tablets.
+
+“What value do you set upon the whole of them, merchant?” asked
+Ithobal.
+
+“To the traders of the country so much, but to you, O King, so much
+only,” and he named a sum twice that which he had paid in the city.
+
+“So be it,” assented Ithobal indifferently; “I do not haggle over
+wares. Though your price is large, presently my treasurer shall weigh
+you out the gold.”
+
+There was a moment’s pause, then Metem said:—
+
+“The trees in this camp of yours bear evil fruit, O King. If I might
+ask, why does that little black monkey hang yonder.”
+
+“Because he tried to do murder with his poisoned arrows,” answered
+Ithobal sullenly.
+
+“And failed? Well, it must comfort you to think that he did fail if he
+was of the number of your servants. It is strange now that some knave
+unknown attempted murder last night in the palace gardens, also with
+poisoned arrows. I say attempted, but as yet I cannot be sure that he
+did not succeed.”
+
+“What!” exclaimed Ithobal, “was——” and he stopped.
+
+“No, King, prince Aziel was not hit; the Lady Elissa took that shaft
+through her hand, and lies between life and death. I am doctoring her,
+and had it not been for my skill she would now be stiff and black—as
+the rogue who shot the arrow.”
+
+“Save her,” said Ithobal hoarsely, “and I will pay you a doctor’s fee
+of a hundred ounces of pure gold. Oh! had I but known, the clumsy fool
+should not have died so easily.”
+
+Metem took out his tablets and made a note of the amount.
+
+“Take comfort, King,” he said, “I think that I shall earn the fee. But
+to speak truth, this matter looks somewhat ugly, and your name is
+mentioned in it. Also it is said that your cousin, the great man whom
+the prince Aziel slew, was charged to abduct a certain lady by your
+order.”
+
+“Then false tales are told in Zimboe, and not for the first time,”
+answered Ithobal coldly. “Listen, merchant, I have a question to ask of
+you. Will the prince Aziel meet me in single combat with whatever
+weapons he may choose?”
+
+“Doubtless, and—pardon me if I say it—slay you as he slew your cousin,
+for he is a fine swordsman, who has studied the art in Egypt, where it
+is understood, and your strength would not avail against him. But your
+question is already answered, for though the prince would be glad
+enough to fight you, Sakon will have none of it. Have you nothing else
+to ask me, King?”
+
+Ithobal nodded and said:—
+
+“Listen, merchant. I know your repute of old, that you love money and
+will do much to gain it, and that you are craftier than any hill-side
+jackal. Now, if you can do my will, you will have more wealth than ever
+you won in your life before.”
+
+“The offer sounds good in a poor man’s ears, King, but it depends upon
+what is your will.”
+
+Ithobal went to the door of the tent, and commanded the sentries who
+stood without to suffer none to disturb him or draw near. Then he
+returned and said:—
+
+“I will tell you, but beware that you do not betray my counsels in this
+or in any other matter, for I have sharp ears and a long arm. You know
+how things are between me and the lady Elissa and her father Sakon and
+the city which he governs. They stand thus: Unless within eight days
+she is given to me in marriage, I have sworn that I will make war upon
+Zimboe. Ay, and I will make it, for, filled with hate for the white
+man, already the great tribes are gathering to my banners in ten
+armies, each of them ten thousand strong. Once let them march beneath
+yonder walls, and before they leave it Zimboe, city of gold, shall be
+nothing but a heap of ruins, and a habitation of the dead. Such shall
+be my vengeance; but I seek love more than vengeance, for what will it
+avail me to butcher all that people of traders if—as well may chance in
+the accidents of war—I lose her whom I desire, whose beauty shall be my
+crown of crowns, and whose mind shall make me great indeed?
+
+“Therefore, Metem, if may be, I would win her without war; let the war
+come afterwards, as come it must, for the time is ripe. And though she
+turned from me, this I should have done, had it not been for yonder
+prince Aziel, whom she met in a strange fashion, and straightway
+learned to love. Now the thing is more difficult. Nay, while the prince
+Aziel can take her to wife it is well-nigh impossible, since no threats
+of war or ruin can turn a woman’s heart from him she seeks—to him she
+flies. Therefore, I ask you——”
+
+“Your pardon, King,” Metem broke in, “I see that you, like your rival,
+are so besotted with the beauty of this girl, that in all with which
+she has to do you have lost the rule of your own reason. I would save
+you perchance from saying words to which I do not wish to listen, and
+when you find a quiet mind again, that you may regret having spoken. If
+you were about to require of me that I should cause or be privy to the
+death of the prince Aziel, you would require it in vain; yes, even if
+you were willing to pay me gold in mountains, and gems in camel loads.
+With murder I will have nothing to do; moreover, the prince, your
+rival, is my friend and master, and I will not harm him. Further, I may
+tell you that after the adventure of last night none will be able to
+come near him to hurt a hair of his head, seeing that through daylight
+and through darkness he is guarded by two men.”
+
+“With a woman’s body to set before him as a shield,” said Ithobal
+bitterly. “But you speak too fast; I was not about to ask you to kill
+this man, or even to procure his death, because I know it would be
+useless, but rather that you should so contrive that he cannot take
+Elissa. How you contrive it I care nothing, so that she is not harmed.
+You may kidnap him, or stir up the city against him, as one destined to
+be the source of war, and cause him to be despatched back to the great
+sea, or bribe the priests of El to hide him away, or what you will, if
+only you separate him from this woman for ever. Say, merchant, are you
+willing to undertake the task, or must my good gold go elsewhere?”
+
+Metem pondered awhile and answered:—
+
+“I think that I will undertake it, King; that is, if we come to terms,
+though whether I shall succeed is another matter. I will undertake it
+not only because I seek to enrich myself, but because I and others who
+serve him think it is a very evil thing that this prince, Aziel, whose
+blood is the most royal in the whole world, without the consent of the
+great king of Israel, his grandfather, should wed the daughter of a
+Phœnician officer, however beautiful and loving she may be. Also I love
+yonder city, which I have known for forty years, and would not see it
+plunged in a bloody war and perhaps destroyed because a certain man
+desires to call a certain girl his sweetheart. And now if I succeed in
+this, what will you give me?”
+
+Ithobal named a great sum.
+
+“King,” replied Metem, “you must double it, for that amount you speak
+of I shall be forced to spend in bribes. More; you must give me the
+gold now, before I leave your camp, or I will do nothing.”
+
+“That you may steal it—and do nothing,” laughed Ithobal angrily.
+
+“As you will, King. Such are my terms; if they do not please you, well,
+let me go. But if you accept them, I will sign a bond under which if
+within eight days I do not make it impossible for the prince Aziel to
+marry the lady Elissa, you may reclaim so much of the gold as I do not
+prove to you to have been spent upon your service, and no bond of Metem
+the Phœnician was ever yet dishonoured. No, on second thought I will
+learn wisdom from Issachar the Levite and put my hand to no writing
+which it would pain me that some should read. King, my sworn word must
+content you. Another thing, soon war may break out, or I may be forced
+to fly. Therefore, I demand of you a pass sealed with your seal that
+will enable me to ride with twenty men and all my goods and treasure,
+even through the midst of your armies. Moreover you shall swear the
+great oath to me that notice of this pass will be given to your
+generals and that it shall be respected to the letter. Do you consent
+to these terms?”
+
+“I consent,” said the king presently.
+
+
+That evening Metem returned to the city of Zimboe, but those who led
+his two camels little guessed that now they were laden, not with
+merchandise, but with treasure.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+GREETING TO THE BAALTIS
+
+
+When Metem accepted bribes from Issachar and from Ithobal, in
+consideration of his finding means to make the union of Aziel and
+Elissa impossible, he had already thought out his scheme. It was one
+which, while promoting, as he considered, the true welfare of the
+lovers, if successful would separate them effectually and for ever.
+
+It will be remembered that Elissa had explained to the prince how, on
+the death of the lady Baaltis, another woman was elected by the
+colleges of the priests and priestesses to fill her place. This lady
+could marry, indeed she was expected to do so, but her husband must
+take the title of Shadid, and for her lifetime act as high-priest of
+El. Therefore, thought Metem, if it could be brought about that Elissa
+should be chosen as the new Baaltis, it was obvious that there would be
+an end of the possibility of her marriage to Aziel. Then, in order to
+wed her, he must renounce his own religion—a thing which no Jew would
+do—and pose as the earthly incarnation of one whom he considered a
+false divinity or a devil.
+
+Indeed, not only marriage, but any further intimacy between the pair
+would be rendered impracticable, for upon this point the religious law,
+lax enough in many particulars, was very strict. In fact, so strict was
+it that for the lady Baaltis of the day to be found alone with any man
+meant death to her and him. The reason of this severity was that she
+was supposed to represent the goddess; and her husband, the Shadid, a
+god, so that any questionable behaviour on her part became an insult to
+the most powerful divinities of Heaven, which could only be atoned by
+the death of their unworthy incarnations. That these laws were actual
+and not formal only was proved by the instance that within the hundred
+years before the birth of Elissa, a lady Baaltis had been executed for
+some such offence, having been hurled indeed from the topmost pinnacle
+of the fortress above the temple to the foot of the precipice beneath.
+
+All these sacerdotal customs were familiar to Metem, who argued from
+them that to procure the nomination of Elissa as the Baaltis would be
+to build an impassable wall between her and the prince Aziel. Also, by
+way of compensation, that office would confer upon her the highest
+dignity and honour which could be attained by any woman in the city.
+Moreover, her election would place her beyond the reach of the
+persecutions of Ithobal, since as lady Baaltis she was entitled to
+choose her own husband without hindrance or appeal, provided only that
+he was of pure white blood, which Ithobal was not.
+
+Having thought the matter out, and convinced himself that such a course
+would not only benefit his own pocket, but prove to the lasting
+advantage of all concerned, Metem, filled with a glow of righteous
+zeal, set about his task with the promptitude and cunning of his race.
+It was not an easy task, for although she had enemies and rivals, the
+daughter of the dead Baaltis, Mesa by name, was considered to be
+certain of election at the poll of the priests and priestesses. This
+ceremony was to take place within two days. Nothing discouraged,
+however, by the scant time at his disposal or other difficulties,
+without her knowledge or that of her father, Metem began his canvass on
+behalf of Elissa.
+
+First with a great sum of gold he bought over the ex-Shadid, the
+husband of the late lady Baaltis. As it chanced, this worthy had
+quarrelled with his daughter. Therefore it followed that he would
+prefer to see some stranger chosen in her place in the hope that,
+notwithstanding his years, by choosing him in marriage she might
+confirm him in his position of spouse to the goddess.
+
+All Metem’s further negotiations need not be followed: money played a
+part in most of them; jealousy and dislike in some. A few there were
+also whom he won over by urging the beauty and wisdom of Elissa, and
+her extraordinary fitness for the post, as evinced by her recent
+inspiration in the temple! He found his most powerful allies, however,
+among the members of the council of the city. To these grandees he
+pointed out that Elissa was a woman of great strength of character, who
+would certainly never consent to be forced into a marriage with
+Ithobal, although her refusal should mean a desperate war, and that her
+father was so much under her influence that he could not be brought to
+put pressure upon her. Therefore it was obvious that the only way out
+of the difficulty was her election as Baaltis. This must prove a
+perfect answer to the suit of the savage king, since the goddess could
+not be compelled, and even Ithobal, fearing the vengeance of Heaven,
+would shrink from offering her violence.
+
+Their support gained, having first sworn him to secrecy, he attacked
+Sakon himself, using similar arguments with him. He pointed out, in
+addition, that if the governor hoped to see his daughter married to
+prince Aziel, who was in love with her, however dazzling might be the
+prospects of such a match, it would certainly bring upon him the
+present wrath of Ithobal, and, in all probability, future trouble with
+the Courts of Egypt, of Israel, and through them, of Tyre. Thus working
+in many ways, Metem laboured incessantly to win his end, so that when
+at last the hour of election came he awaited its issue, fairly
+confident of success.
+
+It was on this same afternoon that for the first time since she had
+received the arrow which was meant for his heart, Aziel was admitted to
+see Elissa. Now at length her recovery was certain, although she had
+not shaken off her weakness, and her right arm and wrist were still
+stiff and swollen. Except for two or three of her women, who were
+seated at their work behind a screen near the far end of the great
+chamber, she was alone, lying upon a couch in the recess of the
+window-place. Advancing to her, Aziel bent down to kiss her wounded
+hand.
+
+“Nay,” said Elissa, hiding it beneath the folds of her robe, “it is
+still black and unsightly with the poison.”
+
+“The more reason that I should kiss it, seeing how the stain came
+there,” he answered.
+
+Her eyes met his, and she whispered, “Not my hand, but my brow, Prince,
+for so I shall be crowned.”
+
+He pressed his lips upon her forehead, and replied:—
+
+“Queen of my heart you are already, and though the throne be humble it
+is sure. The life you saved is yours, and no other’s.”
+
+“I did but repay a debt,” she answered; “but speak of it no more.
+Gladly would I have died to save you; should such choice arise, would
+you do so for me, I wonder?”
+
+“There is little need to ask such a question, lady; for your sake I
+would not only die, I would even endure shame—that is worse than
+death.”
+
+“Sweet words, Aziel,” she answered, smiling, “of which we shall learn
+the value when the hour of trial comes, as come, I think, it will. You
+told me but now that you were mine, and no other’s; but is it so? I
+have heard the story of a certain princess of Khem with whom your name
+was mingled. Tell me, if you will, what was it that set you journeying
+to this far city of ours?”
+
+“The desire to find you,” he answered smiling; then seeing that she
+still looked at him with questioning eyes, he added, “Nay, this is the
+truth, if you seek truth. Indeed, it is the best that I should tell
+you, since it seems that already you have heard something of the tale.
+A while ago I was sent to the Court of the Pharaoh of Egypt, by the
+will of my grandsire, the king of Israel, upon an embassy of
+friendship, and to escort thence a certain beautiful princess, my
+cousin, who was affianced by treaty to an uncle of mine, a great prince
+of Israel. This I did, showing to the lady courtesy, and no more. But
+the end of the matter was that when we came to Jerusalem the princess
+refused to be married to my uncle, to whom she was betrothed——” and he
+hesitated.
+
+“Nay, be not timid, Prince,” said Elissa sharply; “continue, I pray
+you. I have heard that the lady added somewhat to her refusal.”
+
+“That is so, Elissa. She declared before the king that she would wed no
+man except myself only, whereon my uncle was very angry, and accused me
+of playing him false, which, indeed, I had not done.”
+
+“Although the lady was so fair, Aziel? But what said the great king?”
+
+“He said that never having seen him to whom she was affianced, he would
+not suffer that she should be forced into marriage with him against her
+will. Yet that her will might be uninfluenced, he commanded that I
+should be sent upon a long journey. That was his judgment, lady.”
+
+“Yes, but not all of it; surely he added other words?” she broke in
+eagerly.
+
+“He added,” continued Aziel, with some reluctance, “that if while I was
+on this journey the princess changed her mind, and chose to wed my
+uncle, it would be well. But, when I returned from it, if she had not
+changed her mind, and chose—to marry me—then it would be well also,
+and, though he was little pleased, with this saying my uncle must be
+satisfied.”
+
+“It does not satisfy me, prince Aziel,” Elissa answered, the tears
+starting to her dark eyes. “I know full well that the lady will not
+change her mind, and take a man who is in years, and whom she hates, in
+place of one who is young, and whom she loves. Therefore, when you
+return hence to Jerusalem, by the king’s command you will wed her.”
+
+“Nay, Elissa; if I am already married that cannot be,” he said.
+
+“In Judea, Prince, I am told that men take more wives than one; also,
+they divorce them,” she replied; then added, “Oh, return not there
+where I shall lose you. If, indeed, you love me, I pray you return not
+there.”
+
+Before he could answer, a sound of singing and of all sorts of music
+caught Aziel’s ear. Looking through the casement, he saw a great
+procession of the priests and priestesses of El and Baaltis clad in
+their festal robes and accompanied by many dignitaries of the city, a
+multitude of people and bands of musicians, advancing across the square
+towards the door of the palace.
+
+“Why, what passes?” he exclaimed. As he spoke the door opened and two
+richly arrayed heralds, wands of office in their hands, entered and
+prostrated themselves before Elissa.
+
+“Greeting to you, most noble and blessed lady, the chosen of the gods!”
+they cried with one voice. “Prepare, we beseech you, to hear glad
+tidings, and to receive those who are sent to tell them.”
+
+“Glad tidings?” said Elissa. “Has Ithobal then withdrawn his suit?”
+
+“Nay, lady; it is not of Ithobal that the messengers come to speak.”
+
+“Then I cannot receive them,” she said, sinking back in apprehension.
+“I am still ill and weak, and I pray to be excused.”
+
+“Nay, lady,” answered the herald, “that which they have to tell will
+cure your sickness.”
+
+Again Elissa protested. Before the words had left her lips there
+appeared in the doorway he who had been husband of the dead Baaltis,
+followed by priests and priestesses, by Sakon her father, with whom was
+Metem, and many other nobles and dignitaries.
+
+“All hail, lady!” they cried, prostrating themselves before her. “All
+hail, lady, chosen of the gods!”
+
+Elissa looked at them bewildered.
+
+“Your pardon,” she said, “I do not understand.”
+
+Then, rising from his knees, he who was still the Shadid until his
+successor was appointed, addressed her as spokesman.
+
+“Listen,” he said, “and learn, lady, the great thing that has befallen
+you. Know, O divine One, that by the inspiration of El and Baaltis,
+rulers of the heavens, the colleges of the priests and priestesses of
+the city, following the voice of the oracles and the pointing of the
+omens, have set you in that high place which death has emptied.
+Greeting to you, holder of the spirit of the goddess! Greeting to the
+Baaltis!”
+
+“I did not seek this honour,” she murmured in the silence that
+followed, “and I refuse it. The throne of the goddess is Mesa’s right;
+let her take it, or if she will not, then find some other woman who is
+more worthy.”
+
+“Lady,” said the Shadid, “these words become you well, but it has
+pleased the gods to choose you and not my daughter, the lady Mesa, or
+any other woman, and the choice of the gods may not be set aside. Till
+death shall take you, you and you alone are the lady Baaltis whom we
+obey.”
+
+“Must I then be made divine against my will,” she pleaded, and turned
+to Aziel as though for counsel.
+
+“Be pleased to stand back, prince Aziel,” said the stern voice of the
+Shadid, interposing. “Remember that henceforth no man may speak to the
+Baaltis save he whom she names with the name of Shadid to be her
+husband. Henceforward you are parted, since to seek her company would
+be to cause her death.”
+
+Now understanding that the doom of life-long separation had fallen upon
+them like the sudden sword of fate, Aziel and Elissa gazed at each
+other in despair. Then, before either of them could speak a word, at a
+sign from the Shadid, the priestesses closed round Elissa. Throwing a
+white veil over her head, they broke into a joyful pæan of song, and
+half-led, half-carried her from the chamber to enthrone her in the
+palace of the goddess, which was henceforth to be her home.
+
+Presently all the company, including the waiting women, having joined
+the procession, the chamber was empty, with the exception of Aziel,
+Metem and Issachar the Levite, who, drawn by the sound of singing, had
+entered the place unnoticed.
+
+“Take comfort, Prince,” said the Phœnician in a half-bantering voice,
+“if you and the lady Baaltis are truly dear to each other she may still
+be yours, for you have but to bow the knee to El, and she will name you
+Shadid and husband.”
+
+“Blaspheme not,” cried Issachar sternly. “Shall a worshipper of the God
+of Israel do sacrifice to a demon to win a woman’s smile?”
+
+“That time will prove,” answered Metem, shrugging his shoulders; “at
+least it is certain that he will win it in no other way. Prince,” he
+added, changing his tone, “if you have any such thoughts, abandon them,
+I pray of you, for on this matter the law may not be broken. The man
+spoke truth, moreover, when he told you that should you be found with
+the Baaltis, not being her husband, you would cause her death.”
+
+Aziel took no notice of his words, but turning to the Levite, he asked
+in a quiet voice:—
+
+“Did you plot this to separate us, Issachar? If so, you shall live to
+mourn the deed.”
+
+“Listen, Prince,” broke in Metem, “it was not Issachar who plotted that
+the lady Elissa should be chosen Baaltis, but I, or at least I helped
+the plot. Shall I tell you why I did this? It was to save you and her,
+and if possible to prevent a great war also. You could not wed this
+woman who is not of your race, or rank, or religion; and if you could,
+it would bring about a struggle that must cost thousands their lives,
+and this city its wealth. Nor could you make of her less than a wife,
+seeing that she is well-born and that you are her father’s guest.
+Therefore for your own sake it is best that she should be placed beyond
+your reach. For her sake also it is best, since she is ambitious and
+born to rule, who henceforth will be clothed with power for all her
+days. Moreover, had it been otherwise, in the end she must have passed
+to that savage Ithobal, whom she hates. Now this is scarcely possible,
+for the lady Baaltis can wed no man who is not of pure white blood, and
+whom she does not choose of her own free will. That is a decree which
+may not be broken even by Ithobal. So revile me not, but thank me,
+though for a little while your heart be sore.”
+
+“My heart is sore indeed,” answered Aziel, “and if you think your words
+be wise, their medicine does not soothe, Phœnician. You may have
+laboured for my welfare and for that of the lady Elissa, or, like the
+huckster that you are, for your own advantage, or for both—I know not,
+and do not care to know. But this I know, that you, and Issachar also,
+are striving to snare Fate in a web of sand, and that Fate will be too
+strong for it and you. I love this woman and she loves me, because such
+is our destiny, and no barriers which man may build can serve to
+separate us. Also of this I am assured, that by your plots you draw the
+evils you would ward away upon the heads of us all, for from them shall
+spring war, and deaths, and misery.
+
+“For the rest, do not think, Metem and Issachar, that I, whom you
+betrayed, and the woman you have ruined with a crown of greatness she
+did not seek, are clay to be moulded at your will. It is another hand
+than yours which fashioned the vessel of our destiny; nor can you stay
+our lips from drinking of the pure wine that fills it. Farewell,” and
+with a grave inclination of the head he left the room.
+
+Metem watched him go, then he turned to Issachar and said:—
+
+“I have earned my hire well, and you must pay the price, but now it
+troubles me to think that I touched this business. Why it is I cannot
+say, but it comes upon me that the prince speaks truth, and that no
+plot of ours can avail to separate these two who were born to each
+other, although it well may happen that we shall unite them in death
+alone. Issachar,” he added with fierce conviction, “I will not take
+your gold, for it is the price of blood! I tell you it is the price of
+blood!”
+
+“Take it or no, as you will, Phœnician,” answered the Levite; “at least
+I am well pleased that the promise of it bought your service. Even
+should the prince Aziel discharge this day’s work with his young life,
+it is better that he should perish in the body than that he should lose
+his soul for the bribe of a woman’s passing beauty. Whatever else be
+lost, that is saved to him, since those sorceress lips of hers are set
+beyond his reach. An Israelite cannot mate with the oracle of Baaltis,
+Metem.”
+
+“You say so, Issachar, but I have seen men climb high to pluck such
+fruit. Yes, I have seen them climb even when they knew that they must
+fall before the fruit was reached.”
+
+Then he went also, leaving Issachar alone and oppressed with a dread of
+the future which was none the less real because it could not be
+defined.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+THE EMBASSY
+
+
+Weak as she was still with recent illness, half-fainting also from the
+shock of the terrible and unexpected fate which had overtaken her,
+Elissa was borne in triumph to the palace that now was hers. Around her
+gilded litter priestesses danced and sang their wild chants,
+half-bacchanalian and half-religious; before it marched the priests of
+El, clashing cymbals and crying, “Make way, make way for the new-born
+goddess! Make way for her whose throne is upon the horned moon!” while
+all about the multitude of spectators prostrated themselves in worship.
+
+Elissa was borne in triumph. Vaguely she heard the shouts and music,
+dimly she saw the dancing-girls and the bowing crowds. But all the
+while her heart was alive with pain and her brain, crushed beneath the
+menace of this misery, could grasp nothing clearly save the
+completeness of her loss. Loss! Yes, she was lost indeed. One short
+hour ago and she was rejoicing in the presence of the man she loved,
+and who, as she believed, loved her, while in her mind rose visions of
+some happy life with him far away from this city and the dark rites of
+the worshippers of Baal. And now she found herself the chief priestess
+of that worship which already she had learned to fear if not to hate.
+More, as its priestess, till death should come to comfort her, she was
+cut off for ever from him whom she adored, cut off also from the hope
+of that new spiritual light which had begun to dawn upon her soul.
+
+Elissa looked upon the beautiful women who leapt and sang about her
+litter, listening to the clash of their ornaments of gold, and as she
+listened and looked her eyes seemed to gain power to behold the spirits
+within them. Surely she could see these, dark and hideous things, with
+shifting countenances, terrible to look on, and themselves wearing in
+their eyes of flame a stamp of eternal terror, while in her ears the
+music of their golden necklaces was changed to a clank as of fetters
+and of instruments of torment. Yes; and there before the dancers in the
+red cloud of dust which rose from their beating feet, floated the dim
+shape of that demon of whom she had been chosen the high-priestess.
+
+Look at her mocking, inhuman countenance, and her bent brow of power!
+Look at her spread and flaming hair and her hundred hands outstretched
+to grasp the souls of men! Hark! the clamour of the cymbals and the cry
+of the dancers blended together and became her voice, a dreadful voice
+that gave greeting to her princess, promising her pride of place and
+life-long power in payment for her service.
+
+“I desire none of these,” her heart seemed to answer; “I desire him
+only whom I have lost.”
+
+“Is it so?” replied the Voice. “Then bid him burn incense upon my altar
+and take him to yourself. Have I not given you enough of beauty to
+snare a single soul from among the servants of my enemy the God of the
+Jews?”
+
+“Nay, nay!” her heart cried; “I will not tempt him to do this evil
+thing.”
+
+“Yea, yea!” mocked the phantom Voice; “for your sake he shall burn
+incense upon my altar.”
+
+
+The phantasy passed, and now the golden gates of the palace of Baaltis
+rolled open before Elissa. Now, too, the priestesses bore her to the
+golden throne shaped like a crescent moon, and threw over her a black
+veil spangled with stars, symbol of the night. Then having shut out the
+uninitiated, they worshipped her after their secret fashion till she
+sank down upon the throne overcome with fear and weariness. Then at
+last they carried her to that wonder of workmanship and allegorical
+art, the ivory bed of Baaltis, and laid her down to sleep.
+
+
+At dawn upon the following day an embassy, headed by Sakon, governor of
+the city, in whose train were Metem and Aziel, went to the camp of
+Ithobal. The mission of these envoys was to give the king answer to his
+suit, for he refused to come to Zimboe unless he were allowed to bring
+a larger force than it was thought prudent to admit into the city
+gates. At some distance from the tents they halted, while messengers
+were sent forward inviting Ithobal to a conference on the plain, as it
+seemed scarcely safe to trust themselves within the stout thorn fence
+which had been built about the camp. Metem, who said that he had no
+fear of the king, went with these men, and on reaching the _zeriba_ was
+at once bidden to the pavilion of Ithobal. He found the great man
+pacing its length sullenly.
+
+“What seek you here, Phœnician?” he asked, glancing at him over his
+shoulder.
+
+“My fee, King. The king was pleased to promise me a hundred ounces of
+gold if I saved the life of the Lady Elissa. I come, therefore, to
+assure him that my skill has prevailed against the poisoned arrow of
+that treacherous dog of the desert, which pierced her hand as she spoke
+with the prince Aziel the other night, and to claim my reward. Here is
+a note of the amount,” and he produced his tablets.
+
+“If half of what I hear is true, rogue,” answered Ithobal savagely,
+“the tormentor and the headsman alone could satisfy all my debt to you.
+Say, merchant, what return have you made me for that sackful of gold
+which you bore hence some few days gone?”
+
+“The best of all returns, King,” answered Metem cheerfully, although in
+truth he began to feel afraid. “I have kept my word, and fulfilled the
+command of the king. I have made it impossible that the prince Aziel
+should wed the daughter of Sakon.”
+
+“Yes, rogue, you have made it impossible by causing her to be
+consecrated Baaltis, and thus building a barrier which even I shall
+find too hard to climb. It is scarcely to be hoped that now she will
+choose me of her own will, and to offer violence to the Baaltis is a
+sacrilege from which any man—yes, even a king—may shrink, for such
+deeds draw the curse of Heaven. Know that for this service I am minded
+to settle my account with you in a fashion of which you have not
+thought. Have you heard, Phœnician, that the chiefs of certain of my
+tribes love to decorate their spear-shafts with the hide of white men,
+and to bray their flesh into a medicine which gives courage to its
+eater?”
+
+With this pleasing and suggestive query Ithobal paused, and looked
+towards the door of the tent as though he were about to call his guard.
+
+Now Metem’s blood ran cold, for he knew that this royal savage was not
+one who uttered idle threats. Yet the coolness and cunning which had so
+often served him well did not fail him in his need.
+
+“I have heard that your people have strange customs,” he answered with
+a laugh, “but I think that even a spear-shaft would scarcely gain
+beauty from my wrinkled hide, and if anything, the eating of my flesh
+would make tradesmen and not warriors of your chiefs. Well, let the
+jest pass, and listen. King, in all my schemings one thought never
+crossed my mind, namely, that you were a man to suffer scruples to
+stand between you and the woman you would win. You think that now she
+is a goddess? Well, if that be so—and it is not for me to say—who could
+be a fitter mate for the greatest king upon the earth than a goddess
+from the heavens? Take her, king Ithobal, take her, and this I promise
+you, that when your armies are encamped without the walls, the priests
+of El will absolve you of the crime of aspiring to the fair lips of
+Baaltis.”
+
+“The lips of Baaltis,” broke in Ithobal; “do you think that I shall
+find them sweet when another man has rifled them? Secret chambers are
+many yonder in the palace of the gods, and doubtless the Jew will find
+his way there.”
+
+“Nay, King, for between these two I have indeed built a wall which
+cannot be climbed. The worshipper of the Lord of Israel may not traffic
+with the high-priestess of Ashtoreth. Moreover, I shall bring it about
+that ere long Prince Aziel’s face is set seawards.”
+
+“Do that, and I will believe you, merchant, though it would be better
+if you could bring it about that his face was set earthwards, as I will
+if I can. Well, this time I spare you, though be sure that if aught
+miscarry, you shall pay the price, how, I have told you. Now I go to
+talk with these traders, these outlanders, of Zimboe. Why do you wait?
+You are dismissed and—alive.”
+
+Metem looked steadily at the tablets which he still held in his hand.
+
+“I have heard,” he said humbly, “that the king Ithobal, the great king,
+always pays his debts, and as I—an outlander—shall be leaving Zimboe
+shortly under his safe conduct, I desire to close this small account.”
+
+Ithobal went to the door of his tent and commanded that his treasurer
+should attend him, bringing money. Presently he came, and at his lord’s
+bidding weighed out one hundred ounces of gold.
+
+“You are right, Phœnician,” said Ithobal; “I always pay my debts,
+sometimes in gold and sometimes in iron. Be careful that I owe you no
+more, lest you who to-day are paid in gold, to-morrow may receive the
+iron, weighed out in the fashion of which I have spoken. Now, begone.”
+
+Metem gathered up the treasure, and hiding it in his ample robe, bowed
+himself from the royal presence and out of the thorn-hedged camp.
+
+“Without doubt I have been in danger,” he said to himself, wiping his
+brow, “since at one time that black brute, disregarding the sanctity of
+an envoy, had it in his mind to torture and to kill me. So, so, king
+Ithobal, Metem the Phœnician is also an honest merchant who ‘always
+pays his debts,’ as you may learn in the market-places of Jerusalem, of
+Sidon and of Zimboe, and I owe you a heavy bill for the fright you have
+given me to-day. Little of Elissa’s company shall you have if I can
+help it; she is too good for a cross-bred savage, and if before I go
+from these barbarian lands I can set a drop of medicine in your wine,
+or an arrow in your gizzard, upon the word of Metem the Phœnician, it
+shall be done, king Ithobal.”
+
+
+When Metem reached Sakon and the envoys, he found that a message had
+already been sent to them announcing that Ithobal would meet them
+presently upon the plain outside his camp. But still the king did not
+come; indeed, it was not until Sakon had despatched another messenger,
+saying that he was about to return to the city, that at length Ithobal
+appeared at the head of a bodyguard of black troops. Arranging these in
+line in front of the camp, he came forward, attended by twelve or
+fourteen counsellors and generals, all of them unarmed. Half-way
+between his own line and that of the Phœnicians, but out of bowshot of
+either, he halted.
+
+Thereon Sakon, accompanied by a similar number of priests and nobles,
+among whom were Aziel and Metem, all of them also unarmed, except for
+the knives in their girdles, marched out to meet him. Their escort they
+left drawn up upon the hillside.
+
+“Let us to business, King,” said Sakon, when the formal words of
+salutation had passed. “We have waited long upon your pleasure, and
+already troops move out from the city to learn what has befallen us.”
+
+“Do they then fear that I should ambush ambassadors?” asked Ithobal
+hotly. “For the rest, is it not right that servants should bide at the
+door of their king till it is his pleasure to open?”
+
+“I know not what they fear,” answered Sakon, “but at least we fear
+nothing, for we are too many,” and he glanced at his soldiers, a
+thousand strong, upon the hillside. “Nor are the citizens of Zimboe the
+servants of any man unless he be the king of Tyre.”
+
+“That we shall put to proof, Sakon,” said Ithobal; “but say, what does
+the Jew with you?” and he pointed to Aziel. “Is he also an envoy from
+Zimboe?”
+
+“Nay, King,” answered the prince laughing, “but my grandsire, the
+mighty ruler of Israel, charged me always to take note of the ways of
+savages in peace and war, that I might learn how to deal with them.
+Therefore, I sought leave to accompany Sakon upon this embassy.”
+
+“Peace, peace!” broke in Sakon. “This is no time for gibes. King
+Ithobal, since you did not dare to venture yourself again within the
+walls of our city, we have come to answer the demands you made upon us
+in the Hall of Audience. You demanded that our fortifications should be
+thrown down, and this we refuse, since we do not court destruction. You
+demanded that we should cease to enslave men to labour in the mines,
+and to this we answer that for every man we take we will pay a tax to
+his lawful chief, or to you as king. You demanded that the ancient
+tribute should be doubled. To this, out of love and friendship, and not
+from fear, we assent, if you will enter into a bond of lasting peace,
+since it is peace we seek, and not war. King, you have our answer.”
+
+“Not all of it, Sakon. How of that first condition—that Lady Elissa the
+fair, your daughter, should be given me to wife?”
+
+“King, it cannot be, for the gods of heaven have taken this matter from
+our hands, anointing the lady Elissa their high-priestess.”
+
+“Then as I live,” answered Ithobal with fury, “I will take her from the
+hands of the gods and anoint her my dancing-woman. Do you think to make
+a mock of me, you people of Zimboe, whom I have honoured by desiring
+one of your daughters in marriage? You seek to trick me with your
+priests’ juggling that you may keep her to be the toy of yonder
+princeling? So be it, but I tell you that I will tear your city stone
+from stone, and anoint its ruins with your blood. Yes, your young men
+shall labour in the mines for me, and your high-born maidens shall wait
+upon my queens. Listen you,”—and he turned to his generals—“let the
+messengers who are ready start east and west, and north and south, to
+the chiefs whose names you have, bidding them to meet me with their
+tribesmen, at the time and place appointed. When next I speak with you,
+Elders of Zimboe, it shall be at the head of a hundred thousand
+warriors.”
+
+“Then, King, on your hands be all the innocent lives that these words
+of yours have doomed, and may the weight of their wasted blood press
+you down to ruin and death.”
+
+Thus answered Sakon proudly, but with pale lips, for do what they would
+to hide it, something of the fear they felt for the issue of this war
+was written on the faces of all his company.
+
+Ithobal turned upon his heel, deigning no reply, but as he went he
+whispered a word into the ear of two of his captains, great men of war,
+who stayed behind the rest of his party searching for something upon
+the ground. Sakon and his counsellors also turned, walking towards
+their escort, but Aziel lingered a little, fearing no danger, and being
+curious to learn what the men sought.
+
+“What do you seek, captains?” he asked courteously.
+
+“A gold armlet that one of us has lost,” they answered.
+
+Aziel let his eyes wander on the ground, and not far away perceived the
+armlet half-hidden in a tussock of dry grass, where, indeed, it had
+been placed.
+
+“Is this the ring?” he asked, lifting it and holding it towards them.
+
+“It is, and we thank you,” they answered, advancing to take the
+ornament.
+
+The next moment, before Aziel even guessed their purpose, the captains
+had gripped him by either arm and were dragging him at full speed
+towards their camp. Understanding their treachery and the greatness of
+his danger, he cried aloud for help. Then throwing himself swiftly to
+the ground, he set his feet against a stone that chanced to lie in
+their path in such fashion that the sudden weight tore his right arm
+from the grip of the man that held him. Now, quick as thought, Aziel
+drew the dagger from his girdle, and, still lying upon his back,
+plunged it into the shoulder of the second man so that he loosed him in
+his pain. Next he sprang to his feet, and, leaping to one side to
+escape the rush of his captors, ran like a deer towards the party of
+Sakon, who had wheeled round at the sound of his cry.
+
+Ithobal and his men had turned also and sped towards them, but at a
+little distance they halted, the king shouting aloud:—
+
+“I desired to hold this foreigner, who is the cause of war between us,
+hostage for your daughter’s sake, Sakon, but this time he has escaped
+me. Well, it matters nothing, for soon my turn will come. Therefore, if
+you and he are wise, you will send him back to the sea, for thither
+alone I promise him safe conduct.”
+
+Then without more words he walked to his camp, the gates of which were
+closed behind him.
+
+
+“Prince Aziel,” said Sakon, as they went towards the city, “it is ill
+to speak such words to an honoured guest, but it cannot be denied that
+you bring much trouble on my head. Twice now you have nearly perished
+at the hands of Ithobal, and should that chance, doubtless I must earn
+the wrath of Israel. On your behalf, also, the city of Zimboe is this
+day plunged into a war that well may be her last, since it is because
+you have grown suddenly dear to her that my daughter has continued to
+refuse the suit of Ithobal, and because of his outraged pride at this
+refusal that he has raised up the nations against us. Prince, while you
+remain in this city there is no hope of peace. Do not, therefore, hate
+me, your servant, if I pray of you to leave us while there is yet
+time.”
+
+“Sakon,” answered Aziel, “I thank you for your open speech, and will
+pay you back in words as honest as your own. Gladly would I go, for
+here nothing but sorrow has befallen me, were it not for one thing
+which to you may seem little, but to me, and perhaps to another, is all
+in all. I love your daughter as I have never loved a woman before, and
+as my mind is to hers, so is hers to mine. How, then, can I go hence
+when the going means that I must part from her for ever?”
+
+“How can you stay here, Prince, when the staying means that you must
+bring her to shame and death, and yourself with her? Say now, are you
+prepared, for the sake of this maiden, to abandon the worship of your
+fathers and to become the servant of El and Baaltis?”
+
+“You know well that I am not so prepared, Sakon. For nothing that the
+world could give me would I do this sin.”
+
+“Then, Prince, it is best that you should go, for that and no other is
+the price you must pay if you would win my daughter Elissa. Should you
+seek to do so by other means, I tell you that neither your high rank
+nor the power of my rule and friendship, nor pity for your youth and
+hers, can save you both from death, since to forgive you then would be
+to bring down the wrath of its outraged gods upon Zimboe. Oh! Prince,
+for your own sake and for the sake of her whom both you and I love thus
+dearly, linger no longer in temptation, but turn your back upon it as a
+brave man should, for so shall my blessing follow you to the grave and
+your years be filled with honour.”
+
+Aziel covered his eyes with his hand, and thought a while; then he
+answered:—
+
+“Be it as you will, friend. I go, but I go broken-hearted.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+METEM SELLS IMAGES
+
+
+Upon reaching the palace, Aziel went to the apartments of Issachar.
+Finding no keeper at the door, he entered, to discover the old priest
+kneeling in prayer at the window, which faced towards Jerusalem. So
+absorbed was he in his devotions that it was not until he had ended
+them and risen that Issachar saw Aziel standing in the chamber.
+
+“Behold, an answer to my prayer,” he said. “My son, they told me that
+some fresh danger had overtaken you, though none knew its issue.
+Therefore it was that I prayed, and now I see you unharmed.” And taking
+him in his arms, he embraced him.
+
+“It is true that I have been in danger, father,” answered Aziel, and he
+told him the story of his escape from Ithobal.
+
+“Did I not pray thee not to accompany this embassy?”
+
+“Yes, father, yet I have returned in safety. Listen: I come with
+tidings which you will think good. Not an hour ago I promised Sakon
+that I would leave Zimboe, where it seems my presence breeds much
+trouble.”
+
+“Good tidings, indeed!” exclaimed Issachar, “and never shall I know a
+peaceful hour until we have seen the last of the towers of this doomed
+city and its accursed people of devil-worshippers.”
+
+“Yes, good for you, father, but for me most ill, for here I shall leave
+my youth and happiness. Nay, I know what you think; that this is but
+some passing fancy bred of the pleasant beauty of a woman, but it is
+not so. I say that from the moment when first I saw Elissa, she became
+life of my life, and soul of my soul and that I go hence beggared of
+joy and hope, and carrying with me a cankering memory which shall eat
+my heart away. You deem her a witch, one to whom Baaltis has given
+power to drag the minds of men to their destruction, but I tell you
+that her only spell is the spell of her love for me, also that she whom
+you named so grossly is no longer the servant of the demon Baaltis.”
+
+“Elissa not the servant of Baaltis? How comes she then to be her
+high-priestess? Aziel, your passion has made you mad.”
+
+“She is high-priestess because Metem and others brought about her
+election without her will, urged on to it by I know not whom.” And he
+looked hard at Issachar, who turned away. “But what matters it who did
+the ill deed,” he continued, “since this, at least, is certain, that
+here my presence breeds sorrow and bloodshed, and therefore I must go
+as I have promised.”
+
+“When do we depart, Prince?” queried Issachar.
+
+“I know not, it is naught to me. Here comes Metem, ask of him.”
+
+“Metem,” said the Levite, “the prince desires to leave Zimboe and march
+to the coast, there to take ship to Tyre. When can your caravan be
+ready?”
+
+“So I have heard, Issachar, for Sakon tells me that he has come to an
+agreement with the prince upon this matter. Well, I am glad to learn
+it, for troubles thicken here, and I think that the woe you prophesied
+is not far from this city of Zimboe where every man seeks to serve his
+own hand, and is ready to sell his neighbour. When can the caravan be
+got ready? Well, the night after next; at least, we can start that
+night. To-morrow evening, so soon as the sun is down, I will send on
+the camels by ones and twos, and with them the baggage and treasure, to
+a secret place I know of in the mountains, where we and the prince’s
+guard can follow upon the mules and join them. As it chances, I have a
+safe conduct from Ithobal. Still I should not wish to put his troops
+into temptation by marching through them with twenty laden camels, or
+to lose certain earnings of my own that will be hidden in the baggage.
+Moreover, if our departure becomes known, half the city would wish to
+join us, having no love of soldiering, and misdoubting them much of the
+issue of this war with Ithobal.”
+
+“As you will,” said Issachar, “you are captain of the caravan, and
+charged with the safety of the prince upon his journeyings. I am ready
+whenever you appoint, and the quicker that hour comes, the more praise
+you will have from me.”
+
+“Come with me, I wish to speak with you,” said Aziel to the Phœnician
+as they left the presence of Issachar. “Listen,” he added, when they
+had reached his chamber, “we leave this city soon, and I have farewells
+to make.”
+
+“To the Baaltis?” suggested Metem.
+
+“To the lady Elissa. I desire to send her a letter of farewell; can you
+deliver it into her own hand?”
+
+“It may be managed, Prince, at a price—nay, from you I ask no price. I
+have still some images that I wish to sell, and we merchants go
+everywhere, even into the presence of the Baaltis if it pleases her to
+admit them. Write your scroll and I will take it, though, to be plain,
+it is not a task which I should have sought.”
+
+So Aziel wrote slowly and with care. Then having sealed the writing he
+gave it to Metem.
+
+“Your face is sad, Prince,” he said, as he hid it in his robe, “but,
+believe me, you are doing what is right and wise.”
+
+“It may be so,” answered Aziel, “yet I would rather die than do it, and
+may my curse lie heavy upon the heads of those who have so wrought that
+it must be done. Now, I pray you, deliver this scroll into the hands of
+her you know, and bring me the answer if there be any, betraying it to
+none, for I will double whatever sum is offered for that treachery.”
+
+“Have no fear, Prince,” said Metem quietly, but without taking offence,
+“this errand is undertaken for friendship, not for profit. The risk is
+mine alone; the gain—or loss—is yours.”
+
+
+An hour later the Phœnician stood in the palace of the gods, demanding,
+under permit from Sakon, governor of the city, to be admitted into the
+presence of the Baaltis, to whom he desired to sell certain sacred
+images cunningly fashioned in gold. Presently it was announced that he
+was allowed to approach, and the officers of the temple led him through
+guarded passages, to the private chambers of the priestesses. Here he
+found Elissa in a long, low hall, sweet with scented woods, rich with
+gold, and supported by pillars of cedar.
+
+She was seated alone at the far end of this hall, beneath the
+window-plate, clad in her white robes of office, richly broidered with
+emblems of the moon. Her women, most of whom were employed in
+needle-work, though some whispered idly to each other, were gathered at
+the lower end of the hall near to its door.
+
+Metem saluted them as he entered, and they detained him, answering his
+greeting by requests for news and with jests, not too refined, or by
+demands for presents of jewels, in return for which they promised him
+the blessings of the goddess. To each he made some apt reply, for even
+the priestesses of Baaltis could not abash Metem. But while he bandied
+words, his quick eyes noted one of their number who did not join in
+this play. She was a spare, thin-lipped woman whom he knew for Mesa,
+the daughter of the dead Baaltis, who had been a rival candidate for
+the throne of the high-priestess when Elissa was chosen in her place.
+
+When he entered the hall Mesa was seated upon a canvas stool, a little
+apart from the others, her chin resting upon her hand, staring with an
+evil look towards the place where Elissa was enthroned. Nor did her
+face grow more gentle at the sight of the cunning merchant, for she
+knew well it was through his plots and bribery that she had been ousted
+from her mother’s place.
+
+“A woman to be feared,” thought Metem to himself as, shaking off the
+priestesses, he passed her upon his way up the long chamber. Presently
+he had reached the end of it, and was saluting the presence of the
+Baaltis by kneeling and touching the carpet with his brow.
+
+“Rise, Metem,” said Elissa, “and set out your business, for the hour of
+the sunset prayer is at hand, and I cannot talk long with you.”
+
+So he rose, and, looking at her while he laid out his store of images,
+saw that her face was sad, and that her eyes were full of a strange
+fear.
+
+“Lady,” he said, “on the second night from now I depart from this city
+of yours, and glad shall I be to leave it living. Therefore I have
+brought you these four priceless images of the most splendid
+workmanship of Tyre, thinking that it might please you to purchase them
+for the service of the goddess.”
+
+“You depart,” she whispered; “alone?”
+
+“No lady, not alone; the holy Issachar goes with me, also the escort of
+the prince Aziel—and the prince himself, whose presence is no longer
+desired in Zimboe.” Here he stopped, for he saw that Elissa was about
+to betray her agitation, and whispered, “Be not foolish, for you are
+watched; I have a letter for you. Lady,” he continued in a louder
+voice, “if it will please you to examine this precious image in the
+light, you will no longer hesitate or think the price too high,” and
+bowing low he led the way behind the throne, whither Elissa followed
+him.
+
+Now they were standing beneath the window-place, which they faced, and
+hidden from the gaze of the women by the gilded back of the high seat.
+
+“Here,” he said, thrusting the parchment into her hand, “read quickly,
+and return it to me.”
+
+She snatched the roll from him, and as her eyes devoured the lines, her
+face fell in, and her lips grew pale with anguish.
+
+“Be brave,” murmured Metem, for his heart was stirred to pity; “it is
+best for all that he should go.”
+
+“For him, perchance it is best,” she answered; as with an unwilling
+hand she gave him back the letter which she dared not keep, “but what
+of me? Oh! Metem, what of me?”
+
+“Lady,” he said sadly, “I have no words to soothe your sorrow save that
+the gods have willed it thus.”
+
+“What gods?” she asked fiercely; “not those they bid me worship.” She
+shuddered, then went on, “Metem, be pitiful! Oh! if ever you have loved
+a woman, or have been loved of one, for her sake be pitiful. I must see
+him for the last time in farewell, and you can help me to it.”
+
+“I! In the name of Baal, how?”
+
+“When do you have to leave the city, Metem?”
+
+“At moonrise on the night after next.”
+
+“Then an hour before moonrise I will be in the temple, whither I can
+come by the secret way that leads thither from this palace, and he can
+enter there, for the little gate shall be left unbarred. Pray him to
+meet me, then—for the last time.”
+
+“Lady,” he urged, “this is but madness, and I refuse. You must find
+another messenger.”
+
+“Madness or not it is my will, and beware how you thwart me in it,
+Metem, for at least I am the Lady Baaltis, and have power to kill
+without question. I swear to you that if I do not see him, you shall
+never leave this city living.”
+
+“A shrewd argument, and to the point,” said Metem reflectively. “Well,
+I have prepared myself a rock-hewn tomb at Tyre, and do not wish that
+my graven sarcophagus of best Egyptian alabaster should be wasted, or
+sold to some upstart for a song.”
+
+“As assuredly it will be, if you do not obey me in this matter, Metem.
+Remember—an hour before moonrise, at the foot of the pillar of El in
+the inner court of the temple.”
+
+As she spoke Metem started, for his quick ears had caught a sound.
+
+“O Queen divine,” he said in a loud voice, as he led the way to the
+front of the throne, “you are a hard bargainer! Were there many such, a
+poor trader could not make a living. Ah! here is one who knows the
+value of such priceless works of art,” and he pointed to Mesa, who,
+with folded arms and downcast eyes, stood within five paces of the
+throne, as near, indeed, as custom allowed her to approach. “Lady,” he
+went on addressing you, “you will have heard the price I asked; say,
+now, is it too much?”
+
+“I have heard nothing, sir. I stand here, waiting the return of my holy
+mistress that I may remind her that the hour of sunset prayer is at
+hand.”
+
+“Would that I had so fair a mentor,” exclaimed Metem, “for then I
+should lose less time.” But to himself he said, “She _has_ heard
+something, though I think but little,” then added aloud: “Well judge
+between us, lady. Is fifty golden shekels too much for these images
+which have been blessed and sprinkled with the blood of children by the
+high priest of Baal at Sidon?”
+
+Mesa lifted her cold eyes and looked at them. “I think it too much,”
+she said, “but it is for the lady Baaltis to judge. Who am I that I
+should open my lips in the presence of the lady Baaltis?”
+
+“I have appealed to the oracle, and it has spoken against me,” said
+Metem, wringing his hands in affected dismay. “Well, I abide the
+result. Queen, you offered me forty shekels and for forty you shall
+take them, for the honour of the holy gods, though in truth I lose ten
+shekels by the bargain. Give your order to the treasurer, and he will
+pay me to-morrow. So now farewell,” and bowing till his forehead
+touched the ground, he kissed the hem of her robe.
+
+Elissa bent her head in acknowledgment of the salute, and as he rose
+her eyes met his. In them was written a warning which he could not fail
+to understand, and although she did not speak, her lips seemed to shape
+the word, “Remember.”
+
+Ten minutes later Metem stood in the chamber of Aziel.
+
+“Has she seen the letter, and what did she answer?” asked the prince,
+springing up almost as he passed the threshold.
+
+“In the name of all the gods of all the nations I pray you not to speak
+so loud,” answered Metem when he had closed the door and looked
+suspiciously about him. “Oh! if ever I find myself safe in Tyre again,
+I vow a gift, and no mean one, to each of them that has a temple there,
+and they are many; for no single god is strong enough to bring me safe
+out of this trouble. Have I seen the lady Elissa? Oh, yes, I have seen
+her. And what think you that this innocent lamb, this undefiled dove of
+yours, threatens me with now? Death! nothing less than death, if I will
+not carry out her foolish wishes. More, she means the threat, and has
+the strength to fulfil it, for to the lady Baaltis is given power over
+the lives of men, or at the least, if she takes life none question the
+authority of the goddess. Unless I do her will I am a dead man, and
+that is the reward I get for mixing myself up in your mad love
+affairs.”
+
+“Hold!” broke in Aziel, “and tell me, man, what is her will?”
+
+“Her will is—what do you think? To meet you in farewell an hour before
+you leave this city. Well, as my throat is at stake, by Baal! it shall
+be gratified if I can find the means, though I tell you that it is
+madness and nothing else. But listen to the story——” and he repeated
+all that had passed. “Now,” he added, “are you ready to take the risk,
+Prince?”
+
+“I should be a coward indeed if I did not,” answered Aziel, “when she,
+a woman, dares a heavier.”
+
+“And I am a coward, that is why I take it, for otherwise I also must
+dare a heavier. But what of Issachar? This meeting can scarcely be kept
+a secret from him.”
+
+Aziel thought awhile and said:—
+
+“Go fetch him here.” So Metem went, to return presently with the
+Levite, to whom, without further ado, the prince told all, hiding
+nothing.
+
+Issachar listened in silence. When both Aziel and Metem had done
+speaking, he said:—
+
+“At least, I thank you, Prince, for being open with me; and now without
+more words I pray you to abandon this rash plan, which can end only in
+pain, and perhaps in death.”
+
+“Abandon it not, Prince,” interrupted Metem, “seeing that if you do it
+will certainly end in my death, for the girl is mad, and will have her
+way. Or if she does not, then I must pay the price.”
+
+“Have no fear,” answered Aziel smiling. “Issachar, this must be done
+or——”
+
+“Or what, Prince?”
+
+“I will not leave the city. It is true that Sakon may thrust me from
+it, but it shall be as a dead man. Nay, waste no words, since she
+desires it; I must and will meet the Lady Elissa for the last time, not
+as lover meets lover, but as those meet who part for ever in the
+world.”
+
+“You say so, Prince; then have I your permission to accompany you?”
+
+“Yes, if you wish it, Issachar; but there is danger.”
+
+“Danger! What care I for danger? The will of Heaven be done to me. So
+be it, we will go together, but the end of it is not with us.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+THE TRYST
+
+
+Two days had gone by, and at the appointed hour three figures, wrapped
+in dark cloaks, might have been seen walking swiftly towards the little
+entrance of the temple fortress. Although it was near to midnight the
+city was still astir with men, for this very evening news had reached
+it that Ithobal was advancing at the head of tens of thousands of the
+warriors of the Tribes. More, it was rumoured freely that within the
+next few days the siege of Zimboe would begin. Late as it was, the
+council had been just summoned to the palace of Sakon to consider the
+conduct of the defence, while in every street stood knots of men
+engaged in anxious discussion, and from many a smithy rose the sound of
+armourers at their work. Here marched parties of soldiers of various
+races, there came long strings of mules laden with dried flesh and
+grain; yonder a woman beat her breast, and wept loudly because her
+three sons had been impressed by order of the council, two of them to
+serve as archers and the third to carry blocks of stone for the
+fortifications.
+
+Passing unnoticed through all this crowd and tumult, Aziel, Issachar
+and Metem entered a winding passage in the temple wall, and came to the
+little gate. Metem tried it, and whispered:—
+
+“She has kept her word; it is unlocked. Now enter to your love-tryst,
+holy Issachar.”
+
+“Do you not come with us?” asked the Levite.
+
+“No, I am too old for such adventures. Listen, I go to make ready.
+Within an hour the mules with the prince’s bodyguard will stand in the
+archway near the small gate of the palace, for by now the baggage and
+its escort await us a day’s march from this accursed city. Will you
+meet me there? No; I think it is best that I should come to your
+chambers to fetch you, and, I pray you, let there be no delay, for it
+is dangerous in many ways. When once the prince has done with his
+tender interview, and wiped away his tears, there should be nothing to
+stay him, since the farewell cup with Sakon has been already drunk.
+Enter now swiftly before some prowling priest happens upon you, and
+pray that you may come out as sound as you go in. Oh! what a sight! A
+prince of Israel and an aged Levite of established reputation going to
+keep a tryst at midnight with the high-priestess of Baaltis in the
+sanctuary of her god! Nay, answer not; there is no time”—and he was
+gone.
+
+
+Having passed the gate, Aziel and Issachar crept down the winding
+passages of stone, groping their path by such light as fell from the
+narrow line of sky above them, till at length they reached the court of
+the sanctuary. Here the place was as silent as death, for the noise
+from the city without could not pierce its towering walls of massive
+granite.
+
+“It is the very pit of Tophet,” murmured Issachar, peering through the
+dense shadows, “the house of Beelzebub, where his presence dwells.
+Whither now, Aziel?”
+
+The prince pointed to two objects that were visible in the starlight,
+and answered:—
+
+“Thither, at the foot of the pillar of El.”
+
+“Ah! I remember,” said Issachar, “where the accursed woman would have
+offered sacrifice, and the priests struck me down because I prophesied
+to them of the wrath to come, and that is now at hand. An ill-omened
+spot, indeed, and an ill-omened tryst with the fiends for witnesses.
+Well, lead on, and I pray you to be brief as may be, for this place
+weighs down my soul, and I feel danger in it—danger to the body and the
+spirit.”
+
+So they went forward. “Be careful,” whispered Aziel presently. “The pit
+of sacrifice is at your feet.”
+
+“Yes, yes,” he answered, “we walk upon the edge of the pit, and, in
+truth, I grow fearful, for at the threshold of such places the angel of
+the Lord deserts us.”
+
+“There is nothing to fear,” said Aziel. But even as he spoke, although
+he could not see it, a white face rose above the edge of the pit, like
+that of some ghost struggling from the tomb, watched them a moment with
+cold eyes, then disappeared again.
+
+Now they were near the greater pillar, and now from its shadow glided a
+black-veiled shape.
+
+“Elissa?” murmured Aziel.
+
+“It is I,” whispered a soft voice; “but who comes with you?”
+
+“I, Issachar,” said the Levite, “who would not suffer that he of whom I
+am given charge should seek such company alone. Now, priestess, say
+your say with the prince yonder and let us be gone swiftly from this
+blood-stained place.”
+
+“You speak harsh words to me, Issachar,” she said gently, “yet I am
+most glad that you have come, for, believe me, I sought no lovers’
+meeting with the prince Aziel. Listen, both of you: you know that they
+have consecrated me high-priestess of Baaltis against my will. Now, I
+tell you, Issachar, what I have already told the prince Aziel—that I am
+no longer a worshipper of Baaltis. Yes, here in her very temple I
+renounce her, even though she takes my life in vengeance. Oh! since
+they made me priestess I have been forced to learn all her worship,
+which before I never even guessed, and to see sights that would chill
+your blood to hear of them. Now I tell you, prince Aziel and Issachar,
+that I will bear no more. From El and Baaltis I turn to Him you
+worship, though, alas! little time is left to me in which to plead for
+pardon.”
+
+“Why is little time left?” broke in Aziel.
+
+“Because my death is very near me, Prince, for if I live, see what a
+fate is mine. Either I must remain high-priestess of Baaltis and to her
+day by day bow the knee, and month by month make sacrifice—of what
+think you? Well, to be plain, of the blood of maids and children. Or,
+perhaps, should their fears overcome their scruples, I shall be given
+by the council as a peace-offering to Ithobal.
+
+“I say that I will bear neither of these burdens of blood or shame;
+they are too heavy for me. Prince, so soon as you are gone I too shall
+leave this city, not in the body, but in the spirit, searching for
+peace or sleep. It was for this reason that I sought to speak with you
+in farewell, since in my weakness I desired that you should learn the
+truth of the cause and manner of my end.
+
+“Now you know all, and as for me there is no escape, farewell for ever,
+prince Aziel, whom I have loved, and whom I can scarcely hope to meet
+again, even beyond the grave.” Then with a little despairing motion of
+her hand she turned to go.
+
+“Stay,” said Aziel hoarsely, “we cannot be parted thus; since by your
+own act you can dare to leave the world, will you not dare to fly this
+place with me?”
+
+“Perhaps, Prince,” she answered with a little laugh, “but would you
+dare to take me, and if so, would Issachar here suffer it? No, no; go
+your own path in life, and leave me death—it is the easier way.”
+
+“In this matter I am master and not Issachar,” said Aziel, “though it
+be true that should it please him, he can warn the priests of El.
+Listen, Elissa: either you leave this city with me, or I stay in it
+with you. You hear me, Issachar?”
+
+“I hear you,” said the Levite, “but perchance before you throw more
+sharp words at my head, you will suffer me to speak. Self-murder is a
+crime, yet I honour this woman who would shed her own blood, rather
+than the blood of the innocent in sacrifice to Baal, and who refuses to
+be given in marriage to one she hates; who, moreover, has found
+strength and grace to trample on her devil-worship, if so in truth she
+has. If therefore she will come with us and we can escape with her,
+why, let her come. Only swear to me, Aziel, that you will make no wife
+of her till the king, your grandsire, has heard this tale and given
+judgment on it.”
+
+“That I will swear for him,” exclaimed Elissa; “is it not so, Aziel?”
+
+“As you will, lady,” he answered. “Issachar, you have my word that
+until then she shall be as my sister, and no more.”
+
+“I hear and I believe you,” said Issachar, adding: “And now, lady, we
+go at once, so if you desire to accompany us, come.”
+
+“I am ready,” she replied, “and the hour is well chosen for I shall not
+be missed till dawn.”
+
+So they turned and left the temple. None stayed or hindered them, yet
+although they reached the chambers of Aziel in safety, their hearts,
+which should have been light, were still heavy with the presage of new
+sorrow to come.
+
+Scarcely could they have been heavier, indeed, had they seen a
+white-faced woman creep from the pit of death and follow them
+stealthily till they had passed from the temple into the palace doors,
+then turn and run at full speed towards the college of the priests of
+El.
+
+In the chamber of Aziel they found Metem.
+
+“I rejoice to see you back again in safety, since it is more than I
+thought to do,” he said, while they entered, adding, as the
+black-veiled shape of Elissa followed them into the room, “but who is
+the third? Ah! I see, the lady Elissa. Does the Baaltis accompany us
+upon our journey?”
+
+“Yes,” answered Aziel shortly.
+
+“Then with her high Grace on the one side and the holy Issachar on the
+other it should not lack for blessings. Surely that evil must be great
+from which, separately or together, they are unable to defend us. But,
+lady, if I may ask it, have you bid farewell to your most honoured
+father?”
+
+“Torment me not,” murmured Elissa.
+
+“Indeed, I did not wish to, though you may remember that not so long
+ago you threatened to silence me for ever. Well, doubtless your
+departure is too hurried for farewells, and, fortunately, foreseeing
+it, I have provided spare mules. So my deeds are kinder than my words.
+I go to see that all is prepared. Now eat before you start; presently I
+will return for you,” and he left the chamber.
+
+When he had gone they gathered round the table on which stood food, but
+could touch little of it; for the hearts of all three of them were
+filled with sad forebodings. Soon they heard a noise as of people
+talking excitedly outside the palace gates.
+
+“It is Metem with the mules,” said Aziel.
+
+“I hope so,” answered Elissa.
+
+Again there was silence, which, after a while, was broken by a loud
+knocking at the door.
+
+“Rise,” said Aziel, “Metem comes for us.”
+
+“No, no,” cried Elissa, “it is Doom that knocks, not Metem.”
+
+As the words passed her lips the door was burst open, and through it
+poured a mob of armed priests, at the head of whom marched the Shadid.
+By his side was his daughter Mesa, in whose pale face the eyes burned
+like torches in a wind.
+
+“Did I not tell you so?” she said in a shrill voice, pointing at the
+three. “Behold the Lady Baaltis and her lover, and with them that
+priest of a false faith who called down curses upon our city.”
+
+“You told us indeed, daughter,” answered the Shadid; “pardon us if we
+were loth to believe that such a thing could be.” Then with a cry of
+rage he added, “Take them.”
+
+Now Aziel drew his sword, and sprang in front of Elissa to protect her,
+but before he could strike a blow it was seized from behind, and he was
+gripped by many hands, gagged, bound and blindfolded. Then like a man
+in a dream he felt himself carried away through long passages, till at
+length he reached an airless place, where the gag and bandages were
+removed.
+
+“Where am I?” Aziel asked.
+
+“In the vaults of the temple,” answered the priests as they left the
+prison, barring its great door behind them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+THE SACRILEGE OF AZIEL
+
+
+How long he lay in his dungeon, lost in bitter thought and tormented by
+fears for Elissa, Aziel could not tell, for no light came there to mark
+the passage of the hours. In the tumult of his mind, one terrible
+thought grew clear and ever clearer; he and Elissa had been taken
+red-handed, and must pay the price of their sin against the religious
+customs of the city. For the Baaltis to be found with any man who was
+not her husband meant death to him and her, a doom from which there was
+little chance of escape.
+
+Well, to his own fate he was almost indifferent, but for Elissa and
+Issachar he mourned bitterly. Truly the Levite and Metem had been wise
+when they cautioned him, for her sake and his own, to have nothing to
+do with a priestess of Baal. But he had not listened; his heart would
+not let him listen—and now, unless they were saved by a miracle—or
+Metem—in the fulness of their youth and love, the lives of both of them
+were forfeited.
+
+Worn out with sore fears and vain regrets Aziel fell at length into a
+heavy sleep. He was awakened by the opening of the door of his dungeon,
+and the entry of priests—grim, silent men who seized and blindfolded
+him. Then they led him away up many stairs, and along paths so steep
+that from time to time they paused to rest, till at length he knew, by
+the sound of voices, that he had reached some place where people were
+assembled. Here the bandage was removed from his eyes. He stepped
+backwards, recoiling involuntarily at the glare of light that poured
+upon him from the setting sun, whereon, uttering an exclamation, those
+who stood near seized and held him. Presently he saw the reason. He was
+standing on the brink of a precipice at the back of and dominating the
+dim and shadow-clad city, while far beneath him lay a gloomy rift along
+which ran the trade road to the coast.
+
+Here in this dizzy spot was a wide space of rock, walled in upon three
+sides. The precipice formed the fourth side of its square, in which,
+seated upon stones that seemed to have been set there in semi-circles
+to serve as judgment chairs, were gathered the head priests and
+priestesses of El and Baaltis, clad in their sacerdotal robes. To the
+right and left of these stood knots of favoured spectators, among whom
+Aziel recognised Metem and Sakon, while at his side, but separated from
+him by armed priests, were Elissa herself, wrapped in a dark veil, and
+Issachar. Lastly, in front of him, a fire flickered upon a little
+altar, and behind the altar stood a shrine containing a symbolical
+effigy of Baaltis fashioned of gold, ivory and wood to the shape of a
+woman with a hundred breasts.
+
+Seeing all this, Aziel understood that they three had been brought here
+for trial, and that the priests and priestesses before him were their
+judges. Indeed, he remembered that the place had been pointed out to
+him as one where those who had offended against the gods were carried
+for judgment. Thence, if found guilty, such unfortunates were hurled
+down the face of the precipice and left, a shapeless mass of broken
+bone, to crumble on the roadway at its foot.
+
+After a long and solemn pause, at a sign from the Shadid, he who had
+been the husband of the dead Baaltis, the veil was removed from Elissa.
+At once she turned, looked at Aziel, and smiled sadly.
+
+“Do you know the fate that waits us?” the prince asked of Issachar in
+Hebrew.
+
+“I know, and I am ready,” answered the old Levite, “for since my soul
+is safe I care little what these dogs may do to my body. But, oh! my
+son, I weep for you, and cursed be the hour when first you saw that
+woman’s face.”
+
+“Spare to reproach me in my misfortune,” murmured Elissa; “have I not
+enough to bear, knowing that I have brought death upon him I love? Oh!
+curse me not, but pray that my sins may be forgiven me.”
+
+“That I will do gladly, daughter,” replied Issachar more gently, “the
+more so that, although you seem to be the cause of them, these things
+can have happened only by the will of Heaven. Therefore I was wrong to
+revile you, and I ask your pardon.”
+
+Before she could answer the Shadid commanded silence. At the same
+moment the woman Mesa stepped from behind the effigy of the goddess on
+the shrine.
+
+“Who are you and what do you here?” asked the Shadid, as though he did
+not know her.
+
+“I am Mesa, the daughter of her who was the lady Baaltis,” she
+answered, “and my rank is that of Mother of the priestesses of Baaltis.
+I appear to give true evidence against her, who is the anointed
+Baaltis, against the Israelitish stranger named Aziel, and the priest
+of the Lord of the Jews.”
+
+“Lay your hand upon the altar and speak, but beware what you speak,”
+said the Shadid.
+
+Mesa bowed her head, took the oath of truth by touching the altar with
+her fingers, and began:—
+
+“From the time that she was appointed I have been suspicious of the
+lady Baaltis.”
+
+“Why were you suspicious?” asked the Shadid.
+
+The witness let her eyes wander towards Metem, then hesitated.
+Evidently for some reason of her own she did not wish to implicate him.
+
+“I was suspicious,” she answered, “because of certain words that came
+from the lips of the Baaltis, when she had been thrown into the holy
+trance before the fire of sacrifice. As is my accustomed part, I bent
+over her to hear and to announce the message of the gods, but in place
+of the hallowed words there issued babblings about this Hebrew stranger
+and of a meeting to be held with him at one hour before moonrise by the
+pillar of El in the courtyard of the temple. Thereafter for several
+nights as was my duty I hid myself in the pit of offerings in the
+courtyard and watched. Last night at an hour before the moonrise the
+Lady Baaltis came disguised by the secret way and waited at the pillar,
+where presently she was joined by the Jew Aziel and the Levite, who
+spoke with her.
+
+“What they said I could not hear, because they were too far from me,
+but at length they left the temple and I traced them to the chambers of
+the Jew Aziel, in the palace of Sakon. Then, Shadid, I warned you, and
+the priests and you accompanied me and took them. Now, as Mother of the
+priestesses, I demand that justice be done upon these wicked ones,
+according to the ancient custom, lest the curse of Baaltis should fall
+upon this city.”
+
+When she had finished her evidence, with a cold stare of triumphant
+hate at her rival, Mesa stepped to one side.
+
+“You have heard,” said the Shadid addressing his fellow-judges. “Do you
+need further testimony? If so, it must be brief, for the sun sinks.”
+
+“Nay,” answered the spokesman, “for with you we took the three of them
+together in the chamber of the prince Aziel. Set out the law of this
+matter, O Judge, and let justice be done according to the strict letter
+of the law—justice without fear or favour.”
+
+“Hearken,” said the Shadid. “Last night this woman Elissa, the daughter
+of Sakon, being the lady Baaltis duly elected, met men secretly in the
+courts of the temple and accompanied them, or one of them, to the
+chamber of Aziel, a prince of Israel, the guest of Sakon. Whether or no
+she was about to fly with him from the city which he should have left
+last night, we cannot tell, and it is needless to inquire, at least she
+was with him. This, however, is sure, that they did not sin in
+ignorance of our law, since with my own mouth I warned them both that
+if the lady Baaltis consorts with any man not her husband duly named by
+her according to her right, she must die and her accomplice with her.
+Therefore, Aziel the Israelite, we give you to death, dooming you
+presently to be hurled from the edge of yonder precipice.”
+
+“I am in your power,” said the prince proudly, “and you can murder if
+you will, because, forsooth, I have offended against some law of Baal,
+but I tell you, priest, that there are kings in Jerusalem and Egypt who
+will demand my blood at your hands. I have nothing more to say except
+to beseech you to spare the life of the lady Elissa, since the fault of
+the meeting was not hers, but mine.”
+
+“Prince,” answered the Shadid gravely, “we know your rank and we know
+also that your blood will be required at our hands, but we who serve
+our gods, whose vengeance is so swift and terrible, cannot betray their
+law for the fear of any earthly kings. Yet, thus says this same law, it
+is not needful that you should die since for you there is a way of
+escape that leads to safety and great honour, and she who was the cause
+of your sin is the mistress of its gate. Elissa, holder of the spirit
+of Baaltis upon earth, if it be your pleasure to name this man husband
+before us all, then as the spouse of Baaltis he goes free, for he whom
+the Baaltis chooses cannot refuse her gift of love, but for so long as
+she shall live must rule with her as Shadid of El. But if you name him
+not, then as I have said, he must die, and now. Speak.”
+
+“It seems that my choice is small,” said Elissa with a faint smile.
+“Praying you to pardon me for the deed, to save your life, prince
+Aziel, according to the ancient custom and privilege of the Baaltis, I
+name you consort and husband.”
+
+Now Aziel was about to answer her when the Shadid broke in hurriedly,
+“So be it,” he said. “Lady, we hear your choice, and we accept it as we
+must, but not yet, prince Aziel, can you take your wife and with her my
+place and power. Your life is safe indeed, for since the Baaltis, being
+unwed, names you as her mate, you have done no sin. Yet she has sinned
+and doom awaits her, for against the law she has chosen as husband one
+who worships a strange god, and of all crimes that is the greatest.
+Therefore, either you must take incense and before us all make offering
+to El and Baaltis upon yonder altar, thus renouncing your faith and
+entering into ours, or she must die and you, your rank having passed
+from you with her breath, will be expelled from the city.”
+
+Now Aziel understood the trap that had been laid for him, and saw in it
+the handiwork of Sakon and Metem. Elissa having flagrantly violated the
+religious law, and he, being the cause of her crime, even the authority
+of the governor of the city could not prevent his daughter and his
+guest from being put upon their trial. Therefore, they had arranged
+this farce, for so it would seem to them, whereby both the offenders
+might escape the legal consequences of their offence, trusting,
+doubtless, to accident and the future to unravel this web of forced
+marriage, and to free Aziel from a priestly rank which he had not
+sought. It was only necessary that Elissa should formally choose him as
+her husband, and that Aziel should go through the rite of throwing a
+few grains of incense upon an altar, and, the law satisfied, they would
+be both free and safe. What Metem, and those who worked with him, had
+forgotten was, that this offering of incense to Baal would be the most
+deadly of crimes in the eyes of any faithful Jew—one, indeed, which,
+were he alone concerned, he would die rather than commit.
+
+When the prince heard this decree, and the full terror of the choice
+came home to his mind, his blood turned cold, and for a while his
+senses were bewildered. There was no escape for him; either he must
+abjure his faith at the price of his own soul, or, because of it, the
+woman whom he loved, now, before his eyes, must suffer a most horrible
+and sudden death. It was hideous to think of, and yet how could he do
+this sin in the face of heaven and of these ministers of Satan?
+
+The moment was at hand; a priest held out to him a bowl of incense, a
+golden bowl, he noticed idly, with handles of green stone fashioned in
+the likeness of Baaltis, whose servant he was asked to declare himself.
+He, Aziel of the royal house of Israel, a servant of Baal and Baaltis,
+nay, a high-priest of their worship! It was monstrous, it might not be.
+But Elissa? Well, she must die—if this was not a farce, and in truth
+they meant to murder her; her life could not be bought at such a price.
+
+“I cannot do it,” he gasped with dry lips, thrusting aside the bowl.
+
+Now all looked astonished, for his refusal had not been foreseen. There
+was a pause, and once more the woman Mesa, in her character of
+prosecutrix on behalf of the outraged gods, appeared before the altar,
+and said in her cold voice:
+
+“The Jew whom the lady Baaltis has chosen as husband will not do homage
+to her gods. Therefore, as Mother of the priestesses and Advocate of
+Baaltis, I demand that Elissa, daughter of Sakon, be put to death, and
+the throne of Baaltis be purged of one who has defiled it, lest the
+swift and terrible vengeance of the goddess should fall upon this
+city.”
+
+The Shadid motioned to her to be silent, and addressed Aziel:—
+
+“We pray you to think a while,” he said, “before you give one to death
+whose only sin is that, being the high-priestess of our worship, she
+has named an unbeliever to fill the throne of El and be her husband.
+Out of pity for her fate we give you time to think.”
+
+Now Sakon, taking advantage of the pause, rushed forward, and throwing
+his arms about Aziel’s knees, implored him in heart-breaking accents to
+preserve his only child from so horrible a doom. He said that did he
+refuse to save her because of his religious scruples, he would be a dog
+and a coward, and the scorn of all honest men for ever. It was for love
+of him that she had broken the priestly law, to violate which was
+death, and although he had been warned of her danger, yet in his
+wickedness and folly he had brought her to this pass. Would he then
+desert her now?
+
+But Issachar thrust him aside, and broke in with fiery words:—
+
+“Hearken not to this man, Aziel,” he said, “who strives to work upon
+your weakness to the ruin of your soul. What! To save the life of one
+woman, whose fair face has brought so much trouble upon us all, would
+you deny your Lord and become the thrall of Baal and Ashtoreth? Let her
+die since die she must, and keep your own heart pure, for be assured,
+should you do otherwise, Jehovah, whom you renounce, will swiftly be
+avenged on you and her. At the beginning I warned you, and you would
+not listen. Now, Aziel, I warn you again, and woe! woe! woe! to you
+should you shut your ears to my message.” Then lifting his hands
+towards the skies, he began to pray aloud that Aziel might be constant
+in his trial.
+
+Meanwhile, Metem, who had drawn near, spoke in a low voice:—
+
+“Prince,” he said, “I am not chicken-hearted, and there are so many
+young women in the world that one more or less can scarcely matter;
+still, although she threatened to murder me three days ago, I cannot
+bear to see this one come to so dreadful a death. Prince, do not heed
+the howlings of that old fanatic, but remember that after all you are
+the cause of this lady’s plight, and play the part of a man. Can you
+for the sake of your own scruples, however worthy, or of your own soul
+even, however valuable to yourself, doom the fair body of a woman who
+risked all for you to such an end as that?” And shuddering he nodded
+towards the gloomy precipice.
+
+“Is there no other way?” Aziel asked him.
+
+“None, I swear it. They did not wish to kill her, except that wild-cat
+Mesa who seeks her place, but having put her on her public trial, if
+you persist—they must.
+
+“This is one of the few laws which cannot be broken for favour or for
+gold, since the people, who are already half-mad with fear of Ithobal,
+believe that to break it would bring the curses of heaven upon their
+city. Perhaps we might have found some other plan, but none of us even
+dreamed that you would refuse so small a thing for the sake of a woman
+whom you swore you loved.”
+
+“A small thing!” broke in Aziel.
+
+“Yes, Prince, a very small thing. Remember, this offering of incense is
+but a form to which you are forced against your will—you can do penance
+for it afterwards when I have arranged for both of you to escape the
+city. If your God can be angry with you for burning a pinch of dust to
+save a woman, who at the least has dared much for you, then give me
+Baal, for he is less cruel.”
+
+Now Aziel looked towards him who held the bowl of incense. But Elissa
+who all this while had stood silent, stepped forward and spoke:—
+
+“Prince Aziel,” she said in a calm and quiet voice, “I named you
+husband to save your life, but with all my strength I pray of you, do
+not this thing to save mine, which is of little value and perhaps best
+ended. Remember, prince Aziel, that being what you are, a Jew, this act
+of offering, however small it seems, is yet the greatest of sins, and
+one with which you should not dare to stain your soul for the sake of a
+woman, who has chanced to love you to your sorrow. Be guided,
+therefore, by the true wisdom of Issachar and by my humble prayer. Make
+an end of your doubts and let me die, knowing that we do but part a
+while, since in the Gate of Death I shall wait for you, prince Aziel.”
+
+Before Aziel could answer, the Shadid, either because his patience was
+outworn, or because he wished to put him to a sharper trial, uttered a
+command. “Be it done to her as she desires.”
+
+Thereon four priests seized Elissa by the wrists and ankles. Carrying
+her to the edge of the precipice, they thrust her back till she hung
+over it, her long hair streaming downwards, and the red light of the
+sunset shining upon her upturned ghastly face. Then they paused,
+waiting for the signal to let her go. The Shadid raised his wand and
+said:—
+
+“Is it your pleasure that this woman should die or live, prince Aziel?
+Decide swiftly, for my arm is weak, and when the wand falls opportunity
+for choice will have passed from you.”
+
+Now all eyes were fixed upon the wand, and the intense silence was only
+broken by Sakon’s cry of despair. Metem wrung his hands in grief; even
+Issachar veiled his eyes with his robe, to shut out the sight of dread,
+and the priest, who bore the bowl of incense, thrust it towards Aziel
+imploringly.
+
+For some seconds, three perhaps, though to him they seemed an age, the
+heart of Aziel was racked and torn in this terrific contest. Then he
+glanced at the agonized face of the doomed woman, and just as the wand
+began to bend, his human love and pity conquered.
+
+“May He Whom I blaspheme forgive me,” he murmured, adding aloud, “I
+will do sacrifice.” Taking the incense in his hand now he cast it into
+the flames upon the altar, repeating mechanically after the Shadid: “By
+this sacrifice and homage, body and soul I give myself to you and
+worship you, El and Baaltis, the only true gods.”
+
+
+The echo of Aziel’s voice died away, and the fumes of the incense rose
+in a straight dense column upon that quiet air. To his tormented mind,
+it seemed as though its smoke took the form of an avenging angel,
+holding in the hand a sword of flame, wherewith to drive away his
+perjured soul from Heaven, as our first forefathers were driven from
+the shining gates of paradise. Yes, and they were not human, those
+spectators who, in the intense glow of the sunset, stood in their still
+ranks and stared at him with wide and eager eyes. Surely they were
+fiends red with the blood of men, fiends gathered from the Pit to bear
+everlasting witness to the unpardonable sin of his apostasy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+THE MARTYRDOM OF ISSACHAR
+
+
+It was done, and from the mouths of the circle of priests and
+priestesses leapt a shrill and sudden cry of triumph. For had not their
+gods conquered? Had not this high-placed servant of the hated Lord of
+Israel been caught by the bait of a priestess of Baaltis, and seduced
+by her distress to deny and reject Him? Was not evil once more
+triumphant, and must not they, its ministers, rejoice?
+
+Again the Shadid raised his wand and they were silent.
+
+“Brother you have, indeed, done well and wisely,” he said, addressing
+Aziel. “Now take to wife the divine lady who has chosen you,” and he
+pointed to Elissa, who lay prostrated on the rock. “Yes, take her and
+be happy in her love, sitting in my seat, which henceforth is yours, as
+ruler of the priests of El and master of their mysteries, forgetting
+the follies of your former faith, and spitting on its altars. Hail to
+you, Shadid, Lord of the Baaltis and chosen of El! Take him, you
+priests, and with him the divine lady, his wife, to bear them in
+triumph to their high house.”
+
+“What of the Levite?” asked the woman Mesa.
+
+The Shadid glanced at Issachar, who all this while had stood like one
+stricken to the soul, woe stamped upon his face, and a stare of horror
+in his eyes. “Jew,” he said, “I had forgotten you, but you also are on
+your trial, who dared against the law to hold secret meeting with the
+lady Baaltis. For this sin the punishment is death, nor, as I think,
+would any woman name you husband to save you. Still in this hour of joy
+we will be merciful; therefore do as your master did, cast incense on
+the altar, uttering the appointed words, and go your way.”
+
+“Before I make my offering on yonder altar according to your command, I
+have indeed some words to say, O priest of El,” answered Issachar
+quietly, but in a voice that chilled the blood of those who listened.
+
+“First, I address myself to you, Aziel, and to you, woman,” and he
+pointed to Elissa, who had risen, and leaned, trembling, upon her
+father. “My dream is fulfilled. Aziel, you have sinned indeed, and must
+bear the appointed punishment of your sin. Yet hear a message of mercy
+spoken through my lips: Because you have sinned through love and pity,
+your offence is not unto death. Still shall you sorrow for it all your
+life’s days, and in desolation of heart and bitterness of soul shall
+creep back to the feet of Him you have forsworn.
+
+“Woman, your spirit is noble and your feet are set in the way of
+righteousness, yet through you has this offence come. Therefore your
+love shall bear no fruit, nor shall the blasphemy of your beloved save
+your flesh from doom. Upon this earth there is no hope for you,
+daughter of Sakon; set your eyes beyond it, for there alone is hope.
+
+“Yonder she stands who swore our lives away?” and he fixed his burning
+gaze on Mesa. “Priestess, you plotted this that you might succeed to
+the throne of Baaltis; now hear your fate: You shall live to sweep the
+huts and bear the babes of savages. You, priest,” and he pointed to the
+Shadid, “I read your heart; you design to murder this apostate whom you
+greet as your successor that you may usurp his place. I show you yours:
+it lies in the bellies of the jackals of the desert.
+
+“For you priests and priestesses of El and Baaltis, think of my words,
+and raise the loud song of triumph to your gods when you yourselves are
+their offering, and the red flame of the fire burns you up, all of you
+save your sins, which are immortal. O citizens of an accursed city,
+look on the hill-top yonder and tell me, what do you see in the light
+of the dying day? A sheen of spears, is it not? They draw near to your
+hearts, you whose day is done indeed, citizens of an accursed city
+whereof the very name shall be forgotten, and the naked towers shall
+become but a source of wonder to men unborn.
+
+“And now, O priest, having said my say, as you bid me, I make my
+offering upon your altar.”
+
+Then, while all stood fearful and amazed, Issachar the Levite sprang
+forward, and seizing the ancient image of Baaltis, he spat upon it and
+dashed the priceless consecrated thing down upon the altar, where it
+broke into fragments, and was burned with the fire.
+
+“My offering is made,” he said; “may He whom I serve accept it. Now
+after the offering comes the sacrifice; son Aziel, fare you well.”
+
+
+For a few moments a silence of horror and dismay fell upon the assembly
+as they gazed at the shattered and burning fragments of their holy
+image. Then moved by a common impulse, with curses and yells of fury,
+the priests and priestesses sprang from their seats and hurled
+themselves upon Issachar, who stood awaiting them with folded arms.
+They smote him with their ivory rods, they rent and tore him with their
+hands and teeth, worrying him as dogs worry a fox of the hills, till at
+length the life was beaten and trampled out of him and he lay dead.
+
+Thus terribly, but yet by such a death of martyrdom as he would have
+chosen, perished Issachar the Levite.
+
+Unarmed though he was, Aziel had sprung to his aid, but Metem and
+Sakon, knowing that he would but bring about his own destruction, flung
+themselves upon him and held him back. Whilst he was still struggling
+with them the end came, and Issachar grew still for ever. Then, as the
+sun sank and the darkness fell, Aziel’s strength left him, and
+presently he slipped to the ground senseless.
+
+
+Thereafter it seemed to Aziel that he was plunged in an endless and
+dreadful dream, and that through its turmoil and shifting visions, he
+could see continually the dreadful death of Issachar, and hear his
+stern accents prophesying woe to him who renounces the God of his
+forefathers to bow the knee to Baal.
+
+At length he awoke from that horror-haunted sleep to find himself lying
+in a strange chamber. It was night, and lamps burned in the chamber,
+and by their light he saw a man whose face he knew mixing a draught in
+a glass phial. So weak was he that at first he could not remember the
+man’s name, then by slow degrees it came to him.
+
+“Metem,” he said, “where am I?”
+
+The Phœnician looked up from his task, smiled, and answered:—
+
+“Where you should be, Prince, in your own house, the palace of the
+Shadid. But you must not speak, for you have been ill; drink this and
+sleep.”
+
+Aziel swallowed the draught and was instantly overcome by slumber. When
+he awoke the sun was shining brightly through the window place, and its
+rays fell upon the shrewd, kindly face of Metem, who, seated on a
+stool, watched him, his chin resting in his hand.
+
+“Tell me all that has befallen, friend,” said Aziel presently,
+“since——” and he shuddered.
+
+“Since you were married after a new fashion and that bigoted but most
+honourable fool, Issachar, went to his reward. Well, I will when you
+have eaten,” answered Metem as he gave him food. “First,” he said,
+after a while, “you have lain here for three days raving in a fever,
+nursed by myself and visited by your wife the lady Baaltis, whenever
+she could escape from her religious duties——”
+
+“Elissa! Has she been here?” asked Aziel.
+
+“Calm yourself, Prince, certainly she has, and, what is more, she will
+be back soon. Secondly: Ithobal has been as good as his word, and
+invests the city with a vast army, cutting off all supplies and
+possibilities of escape. It is believed that he will try an assault
+within the next week, which many think may be successful. Thirdly: to
+avoid this risk it is rumoured that the priests and priestesses, at the
+instance of the council, are discussing the wisdom of giving over to
+the king the person of the daughter of Sakon. This, it is said, could
+be done on the plea that her election as the lady Baaltis was brought
+about with bribery, and is, therefore, void, as she was not chosen by
+the pure and unassisted will of the goddess.”
+
+“But,” said Aziel, “she is my wife according to their religious law;
+how then can she be given in marriage to another?”
+
+“Nay, Prince, if she is not the lady Baaltis your husbandship falls to
+the ground with the rest, for you are not the Shadid, an office with
+which perchance you can dispense. But all this priestly juggling means
+little, the truth being that the city in its terror is ready to throw
+her—or for the matter of that, Baaltis herself if they could lay hands
+on her—as a sop to Ithobal, hoping thereby to appease his rage. The
+lady Elissa knows her danger—but here she comes to speak for herself.”
+
+As he spoke the curtains at the end of the chamber were drawn, and
+through them came Elissa, clad in her splendid robes of office and
+wearing upon her brow the golden crescent of the moon.
+
+“How goes it with the prince, Metem?” she asked in her soft voice,
+glancing anxiously towards the couch which was half-hidden in the
+shadow of the wall.
+
+“Look for yourself, lady,” answered the Phœnician bowing before her.
+
+“Elissa, Elissa!” cried Aziel, raising himself and opening his arms.
+
+She saw and heard, then, with a low cry, she ran swiftly to him and was
+wrapped in his embrace. Thus they stayed a while, murmuring words of
+love and greeting.
+
+“Is it your pleasure that I should leave you?” asked Metem presently.
+“No? Then, Prince, I would have you remember that you are still very
+weak and should not give way to violent emotions.”
+
+“Listen, Aziel,” said Elissa, untwining his arms from about her neck,
+“there is no time for tenderness; moreover, you should show none to one
+who, in name at least, is still the high-priestess of Baaltis, though
+in truth she worships her no longer. It was noble of you indeed to
+offer incense upon the altar of El that my life might be saved. But
+when I prayed you not, I spoke from the heart, and bitterly, bitterly
+do I grieve that for my sake you should have stained your hands with
+such a sin. Moreover, it will avail nothing, for the doom of the
+prophet Issachar lies upon us, and I cannot escape from death, neither
+can you escape remorse, and as I think, that worst of all desires—the
+desire for the dead.”
+
+“Can we not still flee the city?” asked Aziel.
+
+“Metem will tell you that it is impossible; day and night I am watched
+and guarded, yes, Mesa dogs me from door to door. Also Ithobal holds
+Zimboe so firmly in his net that no sparrow could fly out of it and he
+not know. And there is worse to tell: Beloved, they purpose to give me
+up as a peace-offering to Ithobal. Yes, even my father is of the plot,
+for in his despair he thinks it his duty to sacrifice his daughter to
+save the town, if, indeed, that will suffice to save us.”
+
+“But you are the Baaltis and inviolate.”
+
+“In such a time the goddess herself would not be held inviolate in
+Zimboe, much less her priestess, Aziel. I have discovered that this
+very night they have laid their plans to seize me. Mesa and others have
+been chosen for the deed, and afterwards they think to offer me as a
+bribe to Ithobal, who will take no other price.”
+
+Aziel groaned aloud: “It were better that we should die,” he said.
+
+She nodded and answered: “It were better that _I_ should die. But hear
+me, for I also have a plan, and there is still hope, though very
+little. Perhaps, as you drew near to Zimboe by the coast road, you may
+have noted three miles or more from the gates of the city, and almost
+overhanging the path on which you travelled, a shoulder of the mountain
+where the rock is cut away, showing the narrow entrance to a cave
+closed with a gate of bronze?”
+
+“I saw it,” answered Aziel, “and was told that there was the most
+sacred burying-place of the city.”
+
+“It is the tomb of the high-priestesses of Baaltis,” went on Elissa,
+“and this day at sunset I must visit it to lay an offering upon the
+shrine of her who was the Baaltis before me, entering alone, and
+closing the gate, for it is not lawful that any one should pass in
+there with me. Now, the plan is to lay hands on me as I go back from
+the tomb to the palace—but I shall not go back. Aziel, I shall stay in
+the tomb—nay, do not fear—not dead. I have hidden food and water there,
+enough for many days, and there with the departed I shall live—till I
+am of their number.”
+
+“But if so, how can it help you, Elissa, for they will break in the
+gates of the place, and drag you away?”
+
+“Then, Aziel, they will drag away a corpse, and that they will scarcely
+care to present to Ithobal. See, I have hidden poison in my breast, and
+here at my girdle hangs a dagger; are not the two of them enough to
+make an end of one frail life? Should they dare to touch me, I shall
+tell them through the bars that most certainly I shall drink the bane,
+or use the knife; and when they know it, they will leave me unharmed,
+hoping to starve me out, or trusting to chance to snare me living.”
+
+“You are bold,” murmured Aziel in admiration, “but self-murder is a
+sin.”
+
+“It is a sin that I will dare, beloved, as in past days I would have
+dared it for less cause, rather than be given alive into the hands of
+Ithobal; for to whoever else I may be false, to you through life and
+death I will be true.”
+
+Now Aziel groaned in his doubt and bitterness of heart; then turning to
+Metem, he asked:—
+
+“Have you anything to say, Metem?”
+
+“Yes, Prince, two things,” answered the Phœnician. “First, that the
+lady Elissa is rash, indeed, to speak so openly before me who might
+carry her words to the council or the priests.”
+
+“Nay, Metem, I am not rash, for I know that, although you love money,
+you will not betray me.”
+
+“You are right, lady, I shall not, for money would be of little service
+to me in a city that is about to be taken by storm. Also I hate
+Ithobal, who threatened my life—as you did also, by the way—and will do
+my best to keep you from his clutches. Now for my second point: it is
+that I can see little use in all this because Ithobal, being defrauded
+of you, will attack, and then——”
+
+“And then he may be beaten, Metem, for the citizens will at any rate
+fight for their lives, and the Prince Aziel here, who is a general
+skilled in war, will fight also if he has recovered strength——”
+
+“Do not fear, Elissa; give me two days, and I will fight to the death,”
+said Aziel.
+
+“At the least,” she went on, “this scheme gives us breathing time, and
+who knows but that fortune will turn. Or if it does not, since it is
+impossible for me to escape from the city, I have no better.”
+
+“No more have I,” said Metem, “for at length the oldest fox comes to
+his last double. I could escape from this city, or the prince might
+escape, or the lady Elissa even might possibly escape disguised, but I
+am sure that all three of us could not escape, seeing that within the
+walls we are watched and without them the armies of Ithobal await us.
+Oh! prince Aziel, I should have done well to go, as I might have gone
+when you and Issachar were taken after that mad meeting in the temple,
+from which I never looked for anything but ill; but I grow foolish in
+my old age, and thought that I should like to see the last of you.
+Well, so far we are all alive, except Issachar, who, although bigoted,
+was still the most worthy of us, but how long we shall remain alive I
+cannot say.
+
+“Now our best chance is to defeat Ithobal if we can, and afterwards in
+the confusion to fly from Zimboe and join our servants, to whom I have
+sent word to await us in a secret place beyond the first range of
+hills. If we cannot—why then we must go a little sooner than we
+expected to find out who it is that really shapes the destinies of men,
+and whether or no the sun and moon are the chariots of El and Baaltis.
+But, Prince, you turn pale.”
+
+“It is nothing,” said Aziel, “bring me some water, the fever still
+burns in me.”
+
+Metem went to seek for water, while Elissa knelt by the couch and
+pressed her lover’s hand.
+
+“I dare stay no longer,” she whispered, “and Aziel, I know not how or
+when we shall meet again, but my heart is heavy, for, alas! I think
+that doom draws near me. I have brought much sorrow upon you, Aziel,
+and yet more upon myself, and I have given you nothing, except that
+most common of all things, a woman’s love.”
+
+“That most perfect of all things,” he answered, “which I am glad to
+have lived to win.”
+
+“Yes, but not at the price that you have paid for it. I know well what
+it must have cost you to cast that incense on the flame, and I pray to
+your God, who has become my God, to visit the sin of it on my head and
+to leave yours unharmed. Aziel, Aziel! woman or spirit, while I have
+life and memory, I am yours, and yours only; clean-handed I leave you,
+and if we may meet again in this or in any other world, clean and
+faithful I shall come to you again. Glad am I to have lived, because in
+my life I have known you and you have sworn you love me. Glad shall I
+be to live again if again I may know you and hear that oath—if not, it
+is sleep I seek; for life without you to me would be a hell. You grow
+weak, and I must go. Farewell, and living or dead, forget me not; swear
+that you will not forget me.”
+
+“I swear it,” he answered faintly; “and Heaven grant that I may die for
+you, not you for me.”
+
+“That is no prayer of mine,” she whispered; and, bending, kissed him on
+the brow, for he was too weak to lift his lips to hers.
+
+Then she was gone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+ELISSA TAKES SANCTUARY
+
+
+Two more hours had passed, and in the evening light a procession of
+priestesses might be seen advancing slowly towards the holy tomb along
+a narrow road of rock cut in the mountain face. In front of this
+procession, wearing a black veil over her broidered robes, walked
+Elissa with downcast eyes and hair unbound in token of grief, while
+behind her came Mesa and other priestesses bearing in bowls of
+alabaster the offerings to the dead, food and wine, and lamps of oil,
+and vases filled with perfumes. Behind these again marched the
+mourners, women who sang a funeral dirge and from time to time broke
+into a wail of simulated grief. Nor, indeed, was their woe as hollow as
+might be thought, since from that mountain path they could see the
+outposts of the army of Ithobal upon the plain, and note with a shudder
+of fear the spear-heads of his countless thousands shining in the
+gorges of the opposing heights. It was not for the dead Baaltis that
+they mourned this day, but for the fate which overshadowed them and
+their city of gold.
+
+“May the curse of all the gods fall on her,” muttered one of the
+priestesses as she toiled forward beneath her load of offerings;
+“because she is beautiful and pettish, we must be put to the spear, or
+become the wives of savages,” and she pointed with her chin to Elissa,
+who walked in front, lost in her own thoughts.
+
+“Have patience,” answered Mesa at her side, “you know the plan—to-night
+that proud girl and false priestess shall sleep in the camp of
+Ithobal.”
+
+“Will he be satisfied with that,” asked the woman, “and leave the city
+in peace?”
+
+“They say so,” answered Mesa with a laugh, “though it is strange that a
+king should exchange spoil and glory for one round-eyed, thin-limbed
+girl who loves his rival. Well, let us thank the gods that made men
+foolish, and gave us women wit to profit by their folly. If he wants
+her, let him take her, for few will be poorer by her loss.”
+
+“You at least will be richer,” said the other woman, “and by the crown
+of Baaltis. Well, I do not grudge it you, and as for the daughter of
+Sakon, she shall be Ithobal’s if I take her to him limb by limb.”
+
+“Nay, sister, that is not the bargain; remember she must be delivered
+to him without hurt or blemish; otherwise we shall do sacrilege in
+vain. Be silent, here is the cave.”
+
+Reaching the platform in front of the tomb, the procession of mourners
+ranged themselves about it in a semi-circle. They stood with their
+backs to the edge of a cliff that rose sheer for sixty feet or more
+from the plain beneath, across which, but at a little distance from the
+foot of the precipice ran the road followed by the caravans of
+merchants in their journeys to and from the coast. Then, a hymn having
+been sung invoking the blessing of the gods on the dead priestess,
+Elissa, as the Baaltis, unlocked the gates of bronze with a golden key
+that hung at her girdle, and the bearers of the bowls of offerings
+pushed them into the mouth of the tomb, whose threshold they were not
+allowed to pass. Next, with bowed heads and hands crossed upon her
+breast, Elissa entered the tomb, and locking the bronze gate behind
+her, took up two of the bowls and vanished with them into its gloomy
+depths.
+
+“Why did she lock the gates?” asked a priestess of Mesa. “It is not
+customary.”
+
+“Doubtless because it was her pleasure to do so,” answered Mesa
+sharply, though she also wondered why Elissa had locked the gate.
+
+When an hour was gone by and Elissa had not returned, her wonder turned
+to fear and doubt.
+
+“Call to the lady Baaltis,” she said, “for her prayers are long, and I
+fear lest she should have come to harm.”
+
+So they called, setting their lips against the bars of the gate till
+presently, Elissa, holding a lamp in her hand, came and stood before
+them.
+
+“Why do you disturb me in the sanctuary?” she asked.
+
+“Lady, because they set the night watch on the walls,” answered Mesa,
+“and it is time to return to the temple.”
+
+“Return then,” said Elissa, “and leave me in peace. What, you cannot,
+Mesa? Nay, and shall I tell you why? Because you had plotted to deliver
+me this night to those who should lead me as a peace-offering to
+Ithobal, and when you come to them empty-handed they will greet you
+with harsh words. Nay, do not trouble to deny it, Mesa. I also have my
+spies, and know all the plan; and, therefore, I have taken sanctuary in
+this holy place.”
+
+Now Mesa pressed her thin lips together and answered:—
+
+“Those who dare to lay hands upon the person of the living Baaltis will
+not shrink from seeking her in the company of her dead sisters.”
+
+“I know it, Mesa; but the gates are barred, and here I have food and
+drink in plenty.”
+
+“Gates, however strong, can be broken,” answered the priestess, “so,
+lady, do not wait till you are dragged hence like some discovered
+slave.”
+
+“Ay,” replied Elissa, with a little laugh, “but what if rather than be
+thus dishonoured, I should choose to break another gate, that of my own
+life? Look, traitress, here is poison and here is bronze, and I swear
+to you that should any lay a hand upon me, by one or other of them I
+will die before their eyes. Then, if you will, bear these bones to
+Ithobal and take his thanks for them. Now, begone, and give this
+message to my father and to all those who have plotted with him, that
+since they cannot bribe Ithobal with my beauty, they will do well to be
+men, and to fight him with their swords.”
+
+Then she turned and left them, vanishing into the darkness of the tomb.
+
+Great indeed was the dismay of the councillors of Zimboe and of the
+priests who had plotted with them when, an hour later, Mesa came, not
+to deliver Elissa into their hands, but to repeat to them her threats
+and message. In vain did they appeal to Sakon, who only shook his head
+and answered:—
+
+“Of this I am sure, that what my daughter has threatened that she will
+certainly do if you force her to the choice. But if you will not
+believe me, go ask her and satisfy yourselves. I know well what she
+will answer you, and I hold that this is a judgment upon us, who first
+made her Baaltis against her will, then threatened her with death
+because of the prince Aziel, and now would do sacrilege to her sacred
+office and violence to herself by tearing her from her consecrated
+throne, breaking her bond of marriage and delivering her to Ithobal.”
+
+So the leaders of the councillors visited the holy tomb and reasoned
+with Elissa through the bars. But they got no comfort from her, for she
+spoke to them with the phial of poison in her bosom and the naked
+dagger in her hand, telling them what she had told Mesa—that they had
+best give up their plottings and fight Ithobal like men, seeing that
+even if she surrendered herself to him, when he grew weary of her the
+war must come at last.
+
+“For a hundred years,” she added, “this storm has gathered, and now it
+must burst. When it has rolled away it will be known who is master of
+the land—the ancient city of Zimboe, or Ithobal king of the Tribes.”
+
+So they went back as they had come, and next day at the dawn, with a
+bold face but heavy hearts, received the messengers of king Ithobal,
+and told them their tale. The messengers heard and laughed.
+
+“We are glad,” they answered, “since we, who are not in love with the
+daughter of Sakon, desire war and not peace, holding as we do that the
+time has come when you upstart white men—you outlanders—who have
+usurped our country to suck away its wealth should be set beneath our
+heel. Nor do we think that the task will be difficult for surely we
+have little to fear from a city of low money seekers whose councillors
+cannot even conquer the will of a single maid.”
+
+Then in their despair the elders offered other girls to Ithobal in
+marriage, as many as he would, and with them a great bribe in money.
+But the envoys took their leave, saying that nothing would avail since
+they preferred spear-thrusts to gold, for which they had little use,
+and Ithobal, their king, had fixed his fancy on one woman alone.
+
+So with a heavy and foreboding heart, the city of Zimboe prepared
+itself to resist attack, for as they had guessed, when he learned all,
+the rage of Ithobal was great. Nor would he listen to any terms that
+they could offer save one which they had no power to grant—that Elissa
+should be delivered unharmed into his hands. Councils of war were held,
+and to these, so soon as he was sufficiently recovered from his
+sickness, the prince Aziel was bidden, for he was known to be a skilled
+captain; therefore, though he had been the cause of much of their
+trouble, they sought his aid. Also, should the struggle be prolonged,
+they hoped through him to win Israel, and perhaps Egypt, to their
+cause.
+
+Aziel’s counsel was that they should sally out against the army of
+Ithobal by night, since he expected to attack and not to be attacked,
+but to that advice they would not listen, for they trusted to their
+walls. Indeed, in this Metem supported them, and when the prince argued
+with him, he answered:—
+
+“Your tactics would be good enough, Prince, if you had at your back the
+lions of Judah, or the wild Arab horsemen of the desert. But here you
+must deal with men of my own breed, and we Phœnicians are traders, not
+fighting men. Like rats, we fight only when there is no other chance
+for our lives; nor do we strike the first blow. It is true that there
+are some good soldiers in the city, but they are foreign mercenaries;
+and as for the rest, half-breeds and freed slaves, they belong as much
+to Ithobal as to Sakon, and are not to be trusted. No, no; let us stay
+behind our walls, for they at least were built when men were honest and
+will not betray us.”
+
+Now in Zimboe were three lines of defence; first, that of a single wall
+built about the huts of the slaves upon the plain, then that of a
+double wall of stone with a ditch between thrown round the Phœnician
+city, and lastly, the great fortress-temple and the rocky heights
+above. These, guarded as they were by many strongholds within whose
+circle the cattle were herded, as it was thought, could only be taken
+with the sword of hunger.
+
+At last the storm burst, for on the fifth morning after Elissa had
+barred herself within the tomb, Ithobal attacked the native town.
+Uttering their wild battle-cries, tens of thousands of his savage
+warriors, armed with great spears and shields of ox-hide, and wearing
+crests of plumes upon their heads, charged down upon the outer wall.
+Twice they were driven back, but the work was in bad repair and too
+long to defend, so that at the third rush they flowed over it like
+lines of marching ants, driving its defenders before them to the inner
+gates. In this battle some were killed, but the most of the slaves
+threw down their arms and went over to Ithobal, who spared them,
+together with their wives and children.
+
+Through all the night that followed, the generals of Zimboe made ready
+for the onslaught which must come. Everywhere within the circuit of the
+inner wall troops were stationed, while the double southern gateway,
+where prince Aziel was the captain in command, was built up with loose
+blocks of stone.
+
+A while before the dawn, just as the eastern sky grew grey, Aziel,
+watching from his post above the gate of the wall, heard the fierce
+war-song of the Tribes swell suddenly from fifty thousand throats and
+the measured tramp of their innumerable feet. Then the day broke, and
+he saw them advancing in three armies towards the three points chosen
+for attack, the largest of the armies, headed by Ithobal the king,
+directing its march upon the walled gate of which he was in command.
+
+It was a wondrous and a fearful sight, that of these hordes of plumed
+warriors, their broad spears flashing in the sunrise, and their fierce
+faces alight with hereditary hate and the lust of slaughter. Never had
+Aziel seen such a spectacle, nor could he look upon it without dreading
+the issue of the war, for if they were savages, these foes were brave
+as the lions of their own plains, and had sworn by the head of their
+king to drag down the sheltering walls of Zimboe with their naked
+hands, or die to the last man.
+
+Turning his head with a sigh of doubt, Aziel found Metem standing at
+his side.
+
+“Have you seen her?” he asked eagerly.
+
+“No, Prince. How could I see her at night when she sits in a tomb like
+a fox in his burrow? But I have heard her.”
+
+“What did she say? Quick man, tell me.”
+
+“But little, Prince, for the tomb is watched and I dared not stay there
+long. She sent you her greetings and would have you know that her heart
+will be with you in the battle, and her prayers beseech the throne of
+Heaven for your safety. Also she said that she is well, though it is
+lonesome there in the grave among the bodies of the dead priestesses of
+Baaltis whose spirits, as she vows, haunt her dreams, reviling her
+because she desecrates their sepulchre and has renounced their god.”
+
+“Lonesome, indeed,” said Aziel with a shudder; “but tell me, Metem, had
+she no other word?”
+
+“Yes, Prince, but not of good omen, for now as always she is sure that
+her doom is at hand, and that you two will meet no more. Still she bade
+me tell you that all your life long her spirit shall companion you
+though it be unseen, to receive you at the last on the threshold of the
+underworld.”
+
+Aziel turned his head away, and said presently:—
+
+“If that be so, may it receive me soon.”
+
+“Have no fear, Prince,” replied Metem with a grim laugh, “look yonder,”
+and he pointed to the advancing hosts.
+
+“These walls are strong and we shall beat them back,” said Aziel.
+
+“Nay, Prince, for strong walls do not avail without strong hearts to
+guard them, and those of the womanish citizens of Zimboe and their
+hired soldiers are white with fear. I tell you that the prophecies of
+Issachar the Levite, made yonder in the temple on the day of the
+sacrifice, and again in the hour of his death, have taken hold of the
+people, and by eating out their valour, fulfil themselves.
+
+“Men hint at them, the women whisper them in closets, and the very
+children cry them in the streets.
+
+“More—one man last night pointed to the skies and shrieked that in them
+he saw that fiery sword of doom of which the prophet spoke hanging
+point downwards above the city, whereon all present vowed they saw it
+too, though, as I think, it was but a cross of stars. Another tells how
+that he met the very spirit of Issachar stalking through the
+market-place, and that peering into the eyes of the wraith, as in a
+mirror, he saw a great flame wrapping the temple walls, and by the
+light of it his own dead body. This man was the priest who first struck
+down the holy Levite yonder in the place of judgment.
+
+“Again, when the lady Mesa did sacrifice last night on behalf of the
+Baaltis who has fled, the child they offered, an infant of six months,
+stirred on the altar after it was dead and cried with a loud voice that
+before three suns had set, its blood should be required at their hands.
+That is the story, and if I do not believe it, this at least is true,
+that the priestesses fled fast from the secret chamber of death, for I
+met them as they ran shrieking in their terror and tearing at their
+robes. But what need is there to dwell on omens, true or false, when
+cowards man the walls, and the spears of Ithobal shine yonder like all
+the stars of heaven? Prince, I tell you that this ancient city is
+doomed, and in it, as I fear, we must end our wanderings upon earth.”
+
+“So be it, if it must be,” answered Aziel, “at the least I will die
+fighting.”
+
+“And I also will die fighting, Prince, not because I love it, but
+because it is better than being butchered in cold blood by a savage
+with a spear. Oh! why did you ever chance to stumble upon the lady
+Elissa making her prayer to Baaltis, and what evil spirit was it which
+filled your brains with this sudden madness of love towards each other?
+That was the beginning of the trouble, which, but for those eyes of
+hers, would have held off long enough to see us safe at Tyre, though
+doubtless soon or late it must have come. But see, yonder marches
+Ithobal at the head of his guard. Give me a bow, the flight is long,
+but perchance I can reach his black heart with an arrow.”
+
+“Save your strength,” answered Aziel, “the range is too great, and
+presently you will have enough of shooting,” and he turned to talk to
+the officers of the guard.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+THE CAGE OF DEATH
+
+
+An hour later the attack commenced at chosen points of the double wall,
+one of them being the southern gate. In front of the advancing columns
+of savages were driven vast numbers of slaves, many of whom had been
+captured, or had surrendered in the outer town. These men were laden
+with faggots to fill the ditch, rude ladders wherewith to scale the
+walls, and heavy trunks of trees to be used in breaching them. For the
+most part, they were unarmed, and protected only by their burdens,
+which they held before them as shields, and by the arrows of the
+warriors of Ithobal. But these did little harm to the defenders, who
+were hidden behind the walls, whereas the shafts of the garrison,
+rained on them from above, killed or wounded the slaves by scores, who,
+poor creatures, when they turned to fly, were driven onward by the
+spear-points of the savages, to be slain in heaps like game in a
+pitfall. Still, some of them lived, and running under the shelter of
+the wall, began to breach it with the rude battering rams, and to raise
+the scaling ladders till death found them, or they were worn out with
+excitement, fear and labour.
+
+Then the real attack began. With fierce yells, the threefold column
+rushed at the wall, and began to work the rams and scale the ladders,
+while the defenders above showered spears and arrows upon them, or
+crushed them with heavy stones, or poured upon their heads boiling
+pitch and water, heated in great cauldrons which stood at hand.
+
+Time after time they were driven back with heavy loss; and, time upon
+time, fresh hordes of them advanced to the onslaught. Thrice, at the
+southern gate, were the ladders raised, and thrice the stormers
+appeared above the level of the wall, to be hurled back, crushed and
+bleeding, to the earth beneath.
+
+Thus the long day wore on and still the defenders held their own.
+
+“We shall win,” shouted Aziel to Metem, as a fresh ladder was cast down
+with its weight of men to the death-strewn plain.
+
+“Yes, here we shall win because we fight,” answered the Phœnician, “but
+elsewhere it may be otherwise.” Indeed for a while the attack upon the
+south gate slackened.
+
+Another hour passed and presently to the left of them rose a wild yell
+of triumph, and with it a shout of “Fly to the second wall. The foe is
+in the fosse!”
+
+Metem looked and there, down the great ditch, 300 paces to their left,
+a flood of savages poured towards them. “Come,” he said, “the outer
+wall is lost.” But as he spoke once more the ladders rose against the
+gates and flanking towers and once more Aziel sprang to cast them down.
+When the deed was done, he looked behind him to find that he was cut
+off and surrounded. Metem and most of his men indeed had gained the
+inner wall in safety, while he with twelve only of his bravest
+soldiers, Jews of his own following, who had stayed to help him to
+throw back the ladders, were left upon the gateway tower. Nor was
+escape any longer possible, for both the plain without and the fosse
+within were filled with the men of Ithobal who advanced also by
+hundreds down the broad coping of the captured wall.
+
+“Now there is but one thing that we can do,” said Aziel; “fight bravely
+till we are slain.”
+
+As he spoke a javelin cast from the wall beneath struck him upon the
+breastplate, and though the bronze turned the iron point, it brought
+him to his knees. When he found his feet again, he heard a voice
+calling him by name, and looking down, saw Ithobal clad in golden
+harness and surrounded by his captains.
+
+“You cannot escape, prince Aziel,” cried the king; “yield now to my
+mercy.”
+
+Aziel heard, and setting an arrow to his bow, loosed it at Ithobal
+beneath. He was a strong and skilful archer, and the heavy shaft
+pierced the golden helmet of the king, cutting his scalp down to the
+bone.
+
+“That is my answer,” cried Aziel, as Ithobal rolled upon the ground
+beneath the shock of the blow. But very soon the king was up and crying
+his commands from behind the shield-hedge of his captains.
+
+“Let the prince Aziel, and the Jews with him, be taken alive and
+brought to me,” he shouted. “I will give a great reward in cattle to
+those who capture them unharmed; but if any do them hurt, they
+themselves shall be put to death.”
+
+The captains bowed and issued their orders, and presently Aziel and his
+companions saw lines of unarmed men creeping up ladders set at every
+side of the lofty tower. Again and again they cast off the ladders,
+till at length, being so few, they could stir them no more because of
+the weight upon them, but must hack at the heads of the stormers as
+they appeared above the parapet, killing them one by one.
+
+In this fashion they slew many, but their arms grew weary at last, and
+ever under the eye of their king, the brave savages crept upward,
+heedless of death, till, with a shout, they poured over the battlements
+and rushed at the little band of Jews.
+
+Now rather than be taken, Aziel sought to throw himself from the tower,
+but his companions held him, and thus at last it came about that he was
+seized and bound.
+
+As they dragged him to the stairway he looked across the fosse and saw
+the mercenaries flying from the inner wall, although it was still
+unbreached, and saw the citizens of Zimboe streaming by thousands to
+the narrow gateway of the temple fortress.
+
+Then Aziel groaned in his heart and struggled no more, for he knew that
+the fate of the ancient town was sealed, and that the prophecy of
+Issachar would be fulfilled.
+
+
+A while later Aziel and those with him, their hands bound behind their
+backs, were led by hide ropes tied about their necks through the army
+of the Tribes that jeered and spat upon them as they passed, to a tent
+of sewn hides on the plain, above which floated the banner of Ithobal.
+Into this tent the prince was thrust alone, and there forced upon his
+knees by the soldiers who held him. Before him upon a couch covered
+with a lion skin lay the great shape of Ithobal, while physicians
+washed his wounded scalp.
+
+“Greeting, son of Israel and Pharaoh,” he said in a mocking voice;
+“truly you are wise thus to do homage to the king of the world.”
+
+“A poor jest,” answered Aziel, glancing at those who held him down;
+“true homage is of the heart, king Ithobal.”
+
+“I know it, Jew, and this also you shall give me when you are humbler.
+Who taught you the use of the bow? You shoot well,” and he pointed to
+his blood-stained helm, which was still transfixed by the arrow.
+
+“Nay,” answered Aziel, “I shot but ill, for my arm was weary. When next
+I draw a string against your breast, king Ithobal, I promise you a
+straighter shaft.”
+
+“Well said,” answered the king with a laugh, “but know, dog of a Jew,
+that now it is my turn to draw the string—how, I will show you
+afterwards. Have they told you that the city has fallen, and that my
+captains hold the gates, while the cowards of Zimboe are penned like
+sheep within the temple and on the cliff-edged height above? They have
+fled hither for safety, but I tell you that they would be more safe on
+yonder plain, for I have the key of their stronghold, a certain passage
+leading from the palace of the Baaltis to the temple; you know of it, I
+think. Yes, and if I had not, very soon hunger and thirst would work
+for me.
+
+“Well, Jew, I have won, and with less trouble than I thought, and now I
+hold the great city in hostage, to save or to destroy as it shall
+please me, though that arrow of yours went near to robbing me of my
+crown of victory.”
+
+“So be it,” answered Aziel, indifferently; “I have played my part, now
+things must go as Fate may will.”
+
+“Yes, Jew, you fought well till they deserted you, and the doom of
+cowards is little to a brave man. But what of the lady Elissa? Nay, I
+know all; she has taken refuge in the tomb of Baaltis, has she not,
+with poison in her bosom and bronze at her girdle to be used against
+her own life, should they lay hands on her or give her to me? And all
+this she does for the love of you, prince Aziel; for the love of you
+she refuses to become my queen, ruling over that city which I have
+conquered, and all my unnumbered tribes.
+
+“Do you guess now why I caused you to be taken living? I will tell you;
+that you may be the bait to draw her to me. To kill you would be easy;
+but how would that serve, seeing that then she herself would choose to
+die? But, perchance, to save your life she will live also—yes, and give
+herself to me. At least, I will try it; should the plan fail—then you
+can pay the price of her pride with your blood, prince Aziel.”
+
+“That I would do gladly,” answered Aziel, “but oh! what a cross-bred
+hound you are who thus can seek to torture the heart of a helpless
+woman! Have you then no manhood that you can stoop to such a coward’s
+plot?”
+
+“Fool! it is because of my manhood that I do stoop to it,” said Ithobal
+angrily. “Doubtless you think that a mad fancy and naught else drives
+me to the deed, but it is not so, although in truth my heart—like
+yours—chooses this woman to be my wife and none other. That fondness I
+might conquer, but look you, of all things living this lady alone has
+dared to cross my will, so that to-day even the sentries on their
+rounds and the savage women in the kraals tell each other of how
+Ithobal, the great king of an hundred tribes, has been baffled and
+mocked at by a girl who despises him because his blood is not all
+white. Thus I am become a laughing-stock, and therefore I will win her,
+cost me what it may.”
+
+“And I, king Ithobal, tell you that you will not win her—no, not if you
+torture me to death before her eyes.”
+
+“That we shall see,” said the king with a sneer. Then he called to his
+guard and added, “Let this man and his companions be taken to the place
+prepared for them.”
+
+Now Aziel was dragged from the tent and thrust into a wooden cage, such
+as were used for carrying slaves and women from place to place upon the
+backs of camels. His soldiers, who had been taken with him, were thrust
+also into cages, and, with himself laden upon camels that were waiting,
+two cages to each camel. Then a cloth was thrown over them, and, rising
+to their feet, the camels began to march.
+
+When they had covered a league or more of ground Aziel learned from the
+motion of the camel upon which he was secured, and the sound of the
+repeated blows of its drivers, that they were ascending some steep
+place. At length they reached the top of it, and were unloaded from the
+beasts like merchandise, but he could see nothing, for by now the night
+had fallen. Then, still in the cages, they were carried to a tent,
+where food and water were given them through the bars, after which, so
+weary was Aziel with war, misery and the remains of recent illness,
+that he fell asleep.
+
+At daybreak he awoke, or rather was awakened, by the sound of a
+familiar voice, and, looking through his bars, perceived Metem standing
+before them, guarded but unbound, with indignation written on his face,
+and tears in his quick eyes.
+
+“Alas!” he cried, “that I should have lived to see the seed of Israel
+and Pharaoh thus fastened like a wild beast in a den, while barbarians
+make a mock of him. Oh! Prince, it were better that you should die
+rather than endure such shame.”
+
+“Misfortunes are the master of man, not man of his misfortunes, Metem,”
+said Aziel quietly, “and in them is no true disgrace. Even if I had the
+means to kill myself, it would be a sin; moreover, it might bring
+another to her death. Therefore, I await my doom, whatever it may be,
+with such patience as I can, trusting that my sufferings and ignominy
+may expiate my crimes in the sight of Him whom I renounced. But how
+come you here, Metem?”
+
+“I came under the safe-conduct of Ithobal who gave me leave to visit
+you, doubtless for some ends of his own. Have you heard, Prince, that
+he holds the gates of the city, though as yet no harm has been done to
+it, and that its inhabitants are crowded within the temple, and upon
+the heights above; also that in his despair Sakon has fallen on his
+sword and slain himself?”
+
+“Is it so?” answered Aziel. “Well, Issachar foretold as much. On their
+own heads be the doom of these devil-worshippers and cowards. Have you
+any tidings of the lady Elissa?”
+
+“Yes, Prince. She still sits yonder in the tomb, resolute in her
+purpose, and giving no answer to those who come to reason with her.”
+
+As he spoke the guard let fall the front of the tent so that the
+sunlight flowed into it, revealing Aziel and his twelve companions,
+each fast in his narrow and shameful prison. “See,” said Metem, “do you
+know the place?”
+
+The prince struggled to his knees, and saw that they were set upon the
+top of a hill, built up of granite boulders, which rose eighty feet or
+more from the surface of the plain. Opposite to them at a distance of
+under a hundred paces was a precipice in the face of which could be
+seen a cave closed with barred gates of bronze, while between the rocky
+hill and the precipice ran a road.
+
+“I know it, Metem; there runs the path by which we travelled from the
+coast, and there is the tomb of Baaltis. Why have we been brought
+here?”
+
+“The lady Elissa sits behind the bars of yonder tomb whence her view of
+all that happens upon this mount must be very good indeed,” answered
+Metem with meaning. “Now, can you guess why you were brought here,
+prince Aziel.”
+
+“Is it that she may witness our sufferings under torment?” he asked.
+
+Metem nodded.
+
+“How will they deal with us, Metem?”
+
+“Wait and see,” he answered sadly.
+
+As he spoke Ithobal himself appeared followed by certain evil-looking
+savages. Having greeted Metem courteously he turned to the Hebrew
+soldiers in the cages and asked them which of their number was most
+prepared to die.
+
+“I, Ithobal, who am their leader,” said Aziel.
+
+“No, Prince,” replied Ithobal with a cruel smile, “your time is not
+yet. Look, there is a man who has been wounded; to put him out of his
+pain will be a kindness. Slaves, bear that Jew to the edge of the rock,
+and—as the prince will wish to study a new mode of death—bring his cage
+also.”
+
+The order was obeyed, Aziel being set down upon the very verge of the
+cliff. Close to him a spur of granite jutted out twenty feet or so from
+the edge. At the end of the spur a groove was cut and over this groove,
+suspended by a thin chain from a pole, hung a wedge of pure crystal
+carefully shaped and polished. While Aziel wondered what evil purpose
+this stone might serve, the slaves had fastened a fine rope to the cage
+containing the wounded Hebrew soldier and secured its end. Then they
+set the rope in the groove of the granite spur, and pushed the cage
+over the edge of the cliff, so that it dangled in mid-air.
+
+“Now I will explain,” said Ithobal. “This is a method of punishment
+that I have borrowed from those followers of Baal who worship the sun,
+by means of which Baal claims his own sacrifice, and none are guilty of
+the victim’s blood. You see yonder crystal—well, at any appointed hour,
+for it can be hung as you will, the rays of the sun shining through it
+cause the fibres of the grass rope to smoke and smoulder till at length
+they part and—Baal takes his sacrifice. Should a cloud hide the sun at
+the appointed hour, then, Baal having spared him, the victim is set
+free. But, as you will note, at this season of the year there are no
+clouds.
+
+“What, Prince, have you nothing to say?” he went on, for Aziel had
+listened in silence to the tale of this devilish device. “Well, learn
+that it depends upon the lady Elissa yonder whether or not this fate
+shall be yours. Send now and pray her to save you. Think what it will
+be to hang as at this moment your servant hangs over that yawning gulf
+of space, waiting through the long hours till at last you see the
+little wreaths of smoke begin to curl from the tinder of the cord. Why!
+before the end found them I have known men go mad, and, like wolves,
+tear with their teeth at the wooden bars.
+
+“You will not. Then, Metem, do you plead for your friend. Bid the
+Baaltis look forth at one hour before noon and see the sight of yonder
+wretch’s death, remembering that to-morrow this fate shall be her
+lover’s unless she foregoes her purpose of self-murder and gives
+herself to me. Nay, no words! an escort shall lead you through the
+lower city to the gateway of the tomb and there listen to your speech.
+See that it does not fail you, merchant, unless you also seek to hang
+in yonder cage. Tell the lady Elissa that to-morrow at sunrise I will
+come in person for her answer. If she yields, then the prince and his
+companions shall be set free and with you, Metem, to guide them, be
+mounted on swift camels to carry them unharmed to their retinue beyond
+the mountains. But if she will not yield, then—Baal shall take his
+sacrifice. Begone.”
+
+So, having no choice, Metem bowed and went, leaving the caged Aziel
+upon the edge of the cliff, and the Hebrew soldier hanging from the
+spur of rock.
+
+Now Aziel roused himself from the horror in which his soul was sunk,
+and strove to comfort his doomed comrade, praying with him to Heaven.
+
+Slowly as they prayed, the hours drew on till at length, upon the
+opposite cliff, he saw men whom he knew to be Metem and his escort,
+approach the mouth of the tomb, and faintly heard him call through the
+bars of the gateway. Turning himself in his cage, Aziel glanced at the
+rope, and watched the spot of light born from the burning glass of the
+crystal creep to its side.
+
+Now the fatal moment was at hand, and Aziel saw a little wreath of
+smoke rise in the still air and bade his wretched servant close his
+eyes. Then came the end. Suddenly the taut rope, eaten through by the
+sun’s fire, flew back and the cage with the soldier in it vanished from
+his sight, while, from far below, rose the sound of a heavy fall, and
+from the tomb of Baaltis rang the echo of a woman’s shriek.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+“THERE IS HOPE”
+
+
+It was dawn. Ithobal the king stood without the gates of the tomb of
+Baaltis, the grey light glimmering faintly on his harness, and knocked
+upon the brazen bars with the handle of his sword.
+
+“Who troubles me now?” said a voice within.
+
+“Lady, it is I, Ithobal, who, as I promised by Metem the Phœnician, am
+come to learn your will as to the fate of my prisoner, the Prince
+Aziel. Already he hangs above the gulf, and within one short hour, if
+you so decree it, he will fall and be dashed to pieces. Or, if you so
+decree it, he will be set free to return to his own land.”
+
+“At what price will he be set free, king Ithobal?”
+
+“Lady, you know the price; it is yourself. Oh! I beseech you, be wise!
+spare his life and your own. Listen: spare his life, and I will spare
+this city which lies in the hollow of my hand, and you shall rule it
+with me.”
+
+“You cannot bribe me thus, king Ithobal. My father whom I loved is
+dead, and shall I give myself to you for the sake of a city and a Faith
+that would have betrayed me into your hands?”
+
+“Nay, but for the sake of the man to whom you are dear, you shall do
+even this, Elissa. Think: if you refuse, his blood will be upon your
+head, and what will you have gained?”
+
+“Death, which I seek, for I weary of the struggle of my days.”
+
+“Then end it in my arms, lady. Soon this fancy will escape your mind,
+and you will remain one of the mightiest queens of men.”
+
+Elissa returned no answer, and for a while there was silence.
+
+“Lady,” said Ithobal at length, “the sun rises and my servants yonder
+await a signal.”
+
+Then she spoke like one who hesitates.
+
+“Are you not afraid, king Ithobal, to trust your life to a woman won in
+such a fashion?”
+
+“Nay,” answered Ithobal, “for though you say that their fate does not
+concern you, the lives of all those penned-up thousands are hostages
+for my own. Should you by chance find a means to stab me unawares, then
+to-night fire and sword would rage through the city of Zimboe. Nor do I
+fear the future, since I know well that you who think you hate me now,
+very soon will learn to love me.”
+
+“You promise, king Ithobal, that if I yield myself you will set the
+prince Aziel free; but how can I believe you who twice have tried to
+murder him?”
+
+“Doubt me if you will, Elissa, at least, you cannot doubt your own
+eyes. Look, his road to the sea runs beneath this rock. Come from the
+tomb and take your stand upon it and you shall see him pass; yes, and
+should you wish, speak with him in farewell that you may be sure that
+it is he and alive. Further, I swear to you by my head and honour, that
+no finger shall be laid upon you till he is gone by, and that no
+pursuit of him shall be attempted. Now choose.”
+
+Again there was silence for a while. Then Elissa spoke in a broken
+voice.
+
+“King Ithobal, I have chosen. Trusting to your royal word I will stand
+upon the rock and when I have seen the prince Aziel go by in safety,
+then, since you desire it, you shall put your arms about me and bear me
+whither you will. You have conquered me, king Ithobal! Henceforward
+these lips of mine are yours and no other man’s. Give the signal, I
+pray you, and I will cast aside the dagger and the poison and come out
+living from this tomb.”
+
+Aziel hung in his cage over the abyss of air, awaiting death, and glad
+to die, because now he was sure that Elissa had refused to purchase his
+life at the expense of her own surrender. There he hung, dizzy and sick
+at heart, making his prayer to heaven and waiting the end, while the
+eagles that would prey upon his shattered flesh swept past him.
+
+Presently, from the opposing cliff, came the sound of a horn blown
+thrice. Then, while Aziel wondered what this might mean, the cage in
+which he lay was drawn in gently over the edge of the precipice, and
+carried down the steeps of the granite hill as it had been carried up
+them.
+
+At the foot of the hill its covering was torn aside, and he saw before
+him a caravan of camels, and seated on each camel a comrade of his own.
+But one camel had no rider, and Metem led it by a rope.
+
+The servants of Ithobal took him from the cage and set him upon this
+camel, though they did not loosen the bonds about the wrists.
+
+“This is the command of the king,” said the captain to Metem “that the
+arms of the prince Aziel shall remain bound until you have travelled
+for six hours. Begone in safety, fearing nothing.”
+
+
+“What happens now, Metem,” asked Aziel, as the camels strode forward,
+“and why am I set free who was expecting death? Is this some new
+artifice of yours, or has the lady Elissa——” and he ceased.
+
+“Upon the word of an honest merchant I cannot tell you, Prince.
+Yesterday, as I was forced, I gave the message of king Ithobal to the
+lady Elissa yonder in the tomb. She would answer me only one thing,
+which she whispered in my ear through the bars of the holy tomb; that
+if we could escape we should do so, moreover that you must have no fear
+for her since she also had found a means of escape from Ithobal, and
+would certainly join us upon the road.”
+
+As Metem spoke, the camels passed round the little hill on to the path
+that ran beneath the tomb of Baaltis. There, standing upon the rock
+some fifty feet above them, was Elissa, and with her, but at a
+distance, Ithobal the king.
+
+“Halt, prince Aziel,” she called in a clear voice, “and hearken to my
+farewell. I have bought your life, and the lives of your companions,
+and you are free, for the road is clear and nothing can overtake the
+twelve swiftest camels in Zimboe. Go, therefore, and be happy,
+forgetting no word that has passed my lips. For all my words are true,
+even to a certain promise which I made you lately by the mouth of
+Metem, and which I now fulfil—that I would join you on your road lest
+you should deem me faithless to the troth which I have so often sworn
+to you.
+
+“King Ithobal, this shape is yours; come now and take your prize.
+Prince Aziel, my soul is yours, in life it shall companion you, and in
+death await you. Prince Aziel, I come to you.” Then, before he could
+answer a single word, with one swift and sudden spring she hurled
+herself from the cliff edge to fall crushed upon the road beneath.
+
+Aziel saw. In his agony he strained so fiercely at the bonds which held
+him that they burst like rushes. He leapt from the camel and knelt
+beside Elissa. She was not yet dead, for her eyes were open and her
+lips stirred.
+
+“I have kept faith, keep it also, Aziel! the story is not yet done,”
+she gasped. Then her life flickered out, and her spirit passed.
+
+Aziel rose from beside the corpse and looked upward. There upon the
+edge of the rock above him, leaning forward, his eyes blind with
+horror, stood Ithobal the king. Aziel saw him, and a fury entered into
+his heart because this man, whose jealous rage and evil doing had bred
+such woe and caused the death of his beloved still lived upon the
+earth. By the prince was Metem, who, for once, had no words, and from
+his hand he snatched a bow, set an arrow on the string and loosed.
+
+The shaft rushed upwards, it smote Ithobal between the joints of his
+harness so that the point of it sunk through his neck.
+
+“This gift, king Ithobal, from Aziel the Israelite,” he cried, as the
+arrow sped.
+
+For a moment the great man stood still, then he opened his arms wide
+and of a sudden plunged downward, falling with a crash on the roadway,
+where he lay dead at the side of dead Elissa.
+
+
+“The play is played, and the fate fulfilled,” cried Metem. “See, the
+servants of the king speed yonder with their evil tidings; let us away
+lest we bide here with these two for ever.”
+
+“That is my desire,” said Aziel.
+
+“A desire which may not be fulfilled,” answered Metem. “Come, Prince,
+since we cannot go without you. Surely you do not wish to sacrifice the
+lives of all of us as an offering to the great spirit of the lady who
+is dead. It is one that she would not seek.”
+
+Then Aziel knelt down and kissed the brow of the dead Elissa, and went
+his way, saying no word.
+
+
+That night, when the darkness fell, the sky behind these travellers
+grew red with fire.
+
+“Behold the end of the golden city!” said Metem. “Zimboe is food for
+flames and its children for the sword. Issachar was a prophet indeed,
+who foretold that it should be so.”
+
+Aziel bowed his head, remembering that Issachar had foretold also that
+for Elissa and for him there was hope beyond the grave. As he thought
+it, a wind beat upon his brow and through it a soft voice seemed to
+murmur to his heart:—
+
+“Be of good courage: Beloved, _there is hope_.”
+
+
+So, turning from the death behind him, this far away forgotten lover
+set his face to the sea of Life and passed it, and long ago, at his
+appointed hour, gained its further shore, to be welcomed there by her
+who watched for him.
+
+And thus, because of the fateful and predestined loves of Aziel the
+prince, and Elissa the priestess and daughter of Sakon, three thousand
+years and more ago, the ancient city of Zimboe fell at the hand of king
+Ithobal and his Tribes, so that to-day there remain of it nothing but a
+desolate grey tower of stone, and beneath, the crumbling bones of men.
+
+
+
+
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