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A King of Tyre: A Tale of the Times of Ezra and Nehemiah

by James M. Ludlow · English · Gutenberg #44290 · 407,311 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: A King of Tyre: A Tale of the Times of Ezra and Nehemiah

Author: James M. Ludlow


        
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Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A KING OF TYRE: A TALE OF THE TIMES OF EZRA AND NEHEMIAH ***

A KING OF TYRE

_A Tale of the Times of_

EZRA AND NEHEMIAH


BY
JAMES M. LUDLOW

AUTHOR OF "THE CAPTAIN OF THE JANIZARIES" ETC.


[Illustration: Logo]


NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE
1891


Copyright, 1891, by HARPER & BROTHERS.

_All rights reserved._




A KING OF TYRE.




CHAPTER I.


The island city of Tyre lay close to the Syrian coast. It seemed to
float among the waves that fretted themselves into foam as they rolled
in between the jagged rocks, and spread over the flats, retiring again
to rest in the deep bosom of the Mediterranean. The wall that encircled
the island rose in places a hundred cubits, and seemed from a distance
to be an enormous monolith. It was therefore called Tsur, or Tyre, which
means The Rock. At the time of our narrative, about the middle of the
fifth century B.C., the sea-girt city contained a dense mass of
inhabitants, who lived in tall wooden houses of many stories; for the
ground space within the walls could not lodge the multitude who pursued
the various arts and commerce for which the Tyrians were, of all the
world, the most noted. The streets were narrow, often entirely closed to
the sky by projecting balconies and arcades--mere veins and arteries for
the circulation of the city's throbbing life.

For recreation from their dyeing-vats, looms, and foundries, the
artisan people climbed to the broad spaces on the top of the walls,
where they could breathe the sweet sea air, except when the easterly
wind was hot and gritty with dust from the mainland, a few bow-shots
distant. The men of commerce thronged the quay of the Sidonian harbor at
the north end of the island, or that of the Egyptian harbor on the south
side--two artificial basins which were at all times crowded with ships;
for the Tyrian merchantmen scoured all the coast of the Great Sea, even
venturing through the straits of Gades, and northward to the coasts of
Britain, and southward along the African shore; giving in barter for the
crude commodities they found, not only the products of their own
workshops, but the freight of their caravans that climbed the Lebanons
and wearily tracked across the deserts to Arabia and Babylon. The people
of fashion paraded their pride on the Great Square, in the heart of the
city--called by the Greeks the Eurychorus--where they displayed their
rich garments in competition with the flowers that grew, almost as
artificially, in gay parterres amid the marble blocks of the pavement.

But one day a single topic absorbed the conversation of all classes
alike, in the Great Square, on the walls, and along the quays.
Councillors of state and moneyed merchants debated it with bowed heads
and wrinkled brows. Moulders talked of it as they cooled themselves at
the doorways of their foundries. Weavers, in the excitement of their
wrangling over it, forgot to throw the shuttle. Seamen, lounging on the
heaps of cordage, gave the subject all the light they could strike from
oaths in the names of all the gods of all the lands they had ever sailed
to. Even the women, as they stood in the open doorways, piloting their
words between the cries of the children who bestrode their shoulders or
clung to their feet, pronounced their judgment upon the all-absorbing
topic.

A bulletin had appeared on the Great Square proclaiming, in the name of
the High Council of Tyre, a stupendous religious celebration. Vast sums
of money had been appropriated from the city treasury, and more was
demanded from the people. A multitude of animals was to be sacrificed,
and even the blood of human victims should enrich the altar, that thus
might be purchased the favor of Almighty Baal.

To understand this proclamation, we must know the circumstances that led
to it.

The Phoenician prestige among the nations had for many years been
steadily waning. The political dominance of Persia, with her capital far
over the deserts at Susa, was less humiliating to this proud people than
was the growing commercial importance of the Greeks across the sea. For
not only had the Greeks whipped the Phoenicians in naval battles, as at
Salamis and Eurymedon, but they were displacing Phoenician wares in
foreign markets, and teaching the Greek language, customs, and religion
to all the world. Yet the Greeks were thought by the Tyrians to be but
an upstart people. They had not so many generations, as the
Phoenicians had ages, of glorious history.

How could Phoenicia regain the supremacy? This was the all-absorbing
question which appealed to the patriotism, and still more to the purses,
of the Tyrians, and of their neighbors along the coast.

Many were the wiseacres who readily solved this problem to their own
satisfaction. Thus, for example, the priests of Melkarth--the name they
gave to Baal in his special office as guardian of the city--had a theory
of their own. It was to the effect that the gods were offended at the
growing laxity of worship, and especially at the falling-off of the
temple revenues, which were in great measure the sumptuous perquisites
of the priests themselves. They were especially disaffected towards
their young king, Hiram, whom they regarded as an obstacle to any
reforms on this line. Hiram had spent his early training years with the
fleet, and was conversant with the faiths and customs of many countries.
Thus he was educated to a cosmopolitan, not to say sceptical, habit of
mind, and was led to doubt whether any movement that originated in the
ambition of a horde of unscrupulous and superstitious priests could win
the favor of the gods, even admitting that such supernal beings existed,
of which the king was reported to have expressed a doubt.

King Hiram had been but a few months on the throne, to which he had
succeeded on the death of his father, when he opened the meeting of the
Great Council which issued the proclamation regarding the sacrifice.

His Majesty sat upon the bronze throne. Above him shone a canopy of
beaten gold. At his back hung a curtain of richest Tyrian purple, in the
centre of which gleamed a silver dove with outspread wings, the symbol
of Tyre from those ancient days when its commerce and renown began to
fly abroad over the world.

Hiram's face was typically Phoenician, and betokened the clear tide of
his racial blood. His forehead was broad, and prominent at the brows.
His eyes were gleaming black. His nose started as if with the purpose of
being Jewish, but terminated in the expanded nostril that suggested the
Egyptian. His hair was black, with the slightest touch of red, which,
however, only strong light would reveal. He wore the conical cap of the
sailor, for his pride of naval command had never become secondary to
even his sense of royal dignity; and many a time had he declared that a
true Phoenician king was chiefly king of the sea. The royal cap was
distinguished from that of common sailors by the uræus, or winged
serpent's crest, which was wrought in golden needlework upon the front.
The king's throat and chest were bare, except for a purple mantle which
hung from his left shoulder, and crossed his body diagonally; and for a
broad collar of silk embroidered with silver threads, which shone in
contrast with his weather-bronzed skin. His arms were clasped above the
elbows with heavy spirals of gold. He wore a loose white chiton, or
undergarment, which terminated above the knees, and revealed as knotty a
pair of legs as ever balanced so graceful a figure. But one thing marred
his appearance--a deep scar on his chin, the memorial of a hand-to-hand
fight with Egyptian pirates off the mouth of the Nile.

The king leaned upon one of the lion-heads that made the arms of his
throne. One foot rested upon a footstool of bronze; the other in the
spotted fur of a leopard, spread upon the dais.

Sitting thus, he spoke of the subject before the council. At first he
scarcely changed his easy attitude. He traced the rise of the Greek
power with voluble accuracy, for he had studied the problems it
presented in another school than that of Phoenician prejudices. As he
proceeded he warmed with the kindling of his own thoughts, and,
straightening himself on the throne, gesticulated forcibly, making the
huge arm of the chair tremble under the stroke of his fist, as if the
moulded bronze were the obdurate heads of his listeners. At length,
fully heated with the excitement of his speech, and by the antagonism
too plainly revealed in the faces of some of his courtiers, he rose from
his throne, and stood upon the leopard skin as he concluded with these
words:

"Let me speak plainly, O leaders of Phoenicia, as a king of men should
speak to kingly men! Why does the Greek outstrip us? Because he is
stronger. Why is he stronger? Because he is wiser. Why is he wiser?
Because he learns from all the world; and we, though we trade with all
the tribes of men, learn from none. Our guide-marks are our own
footprints, which we follow in endless circles. We boast, O Phoenicians,
that we have taught the world its alphabet, but we ourselves have no
books beyond the tablets on which we keep the accounts of our ships, our
caravans, and our shambles. It is our shame, O men of Tyre! We have
instructed the sailors of the Great Sea to guide their ships by the
stars, but in all our customs of government and religion we dare not
leave the coast-line of our ancient notions. We go up and down the
channels of our prejudice; ay, we ground ourselves in our ignorance.

"And hear, O ye priests! Our religion as practised is our disgrace. If
Baal be the intelligence that shines in the sun, he despises us for our
stupidity. Nay, scowl if ye will! But look at the statues of our gods! A
Greek boy could carve as finely with the dough he eats. Look at our
temples! The Great Hiram built a finer one than we possess five
centuries ago, there in Jerusalem, for the miserable Jews to worship
their Jehovah in. Ye say that Baal is angry with us. And well he may be!
For we open not our minds to the brightness of his beams: we hide in the
shadows of things that are old and decayed, even as the lizards crawl in
the shadow of the ruins that everywhere mark our plains.

"Ye say, O priests, that we must sacrifice more to Baal. Truly! But it
is not the sacrifice of death, rather the real offering of life, of our
wiser thoughts, our braver enterprise, that Baal would have.

"This, this is the end of all my speaking, O men of Tyre! Heap up your
treasures, and burn them if ye will! Slaughter your beasts! Toss your
babes into the fire of Moloch! But know ye that your king gives you no
such commandment; nor will he have more of such counsel."

So saying, King Hiram strode down from the dais, and left the council
chamber. As he passed out, the members rose and made deep obeisance; but
their bowed forms did not conceal from him their scowling faces.

The councillors, left alone, gathered close together, evidently not for
debate, but to confirm one another in some predetermined purpose. Their
words were bitter. Old Egbalus, the high priest of Baal-Melkarth for the
year, thanked his god that the throne of Tyre had lost its power, since
one so utterly blasphemous, so traitorous, had come to occupy it.

"That travelling Greek, Herodotus, who is even now his guest, has
bewitched the king with his talk," sneered one.

"Or with his Greek gold," timidly ventured another.

The last speaker was a young man, in princely attire, with marked
resemblance to King Hiram; but such resemblance as is often noticed
between an ugly and a beautiful face; certain features attesting
kinship, while, at the same time, they proclaim the utmost difference of
character. This person was Prince Rubaal, cousin to Hiram, and, in the
event of the death of the latter without issue, the heir to the crown.
His naturally selfish disposition had brewed nothing but gall since
Hiram's accession. From polite disparagement he lapsed into the habit of
open contempt for the person, and bitter antagonism to the interests of
his royal relative. That the king was hostile to the pretensions of the
priestly guild was sufficient to make Rubaal their slavish adherent.

The sneer with which he attributed a mercenary motive to the king
brought him a look of blandest encouragement from the high priest,
Egbalus.

This latter dignitary, however, instantly cast a less complacent and
more inquisitive glance into the face of another councillor, Ahimelek.
How much was meant by that look can be understood only by recalling the
character and career of this man.

Ahimelek was small in stature, of low, broad brow, thin lips, restless
gray eyes, which seemed to focus upon nothing, as if afraid of revealing
the thought back of them; as a partridge, when disturbed, flits in all
directions except over its own nest. He was the richest merchant in
Tyre, the largest ship-owner in all Phoenicia. His fleets were passing,
like shuttles on the loom of his prosperity, between Tyre and Cyprus,
Carthage and Gades. His caravans, too, were well known on every route
from Damascus to Memphis. He inherited the wealth of several generations
of merchants, and also their ancestral shrewdness. His waking dream was
to surpass them all by allying his financial power with the political
prestige of the royal house of Tyre. To this end he had spared neither
money nor sycophancy in order to gain the favor of the late king.

It was therefore with genuine elation that the merchant had noted the
growing intimacy between Hiram and his daughter, the fair Zillah.

From childhood Prince Hiram and Zillah had been much together, the old
king having been, in the chronic depletion of his treasury, as little
averse to a family alliance with the money-bags of Ahimelek as that
aristocrat was to guarding his bags with the royal seal. Indeed, on more
than one occasion the king had discovered an authority in Ahimelek's
darics that was lacking in his own mandates. It was rumored that the
recognition of Hiram's sovereignty by the court at Susa had been
deferred until the appointment of Ahimelek as his chamberlain gave
promise of substantial benefit to the politicians who surrounded the
Great King, Artaxerxes.

It is true, however, that the personal attractions of Zillah, without
such reasons of state, had captivated young Prince Hiram. She was the
goddess who inspired his dreams during his voyages, and into her ear, on
his return, he narrated his adventures, and confessed his most secret
projects and ambitious hopes. On the very day of his coronation, a year
before our story begins, he left the great hall of ceremony, not to
return to his palace, but to visit the mansion of Ahimelek, and then and
there placed his crown upon the head of Zillah, claiming her
oft-repeated promise to be his queen. That very night, too, the
delighted merchant had given the hand of his daughter into that of her
royal suitor, accepting from him a splendid gift as the marriage
purchase, and presenting to him in return the dowry contract, which in
this case was the bonding of his estate to pay in cash a thousand minas
of gold, and half the revenues of his trade in perpetuity.

But later events had disturbed the equanimity of Ahimelek. The growing
disaffection of the priestly guild towards King Hiram was too ominous to
be disregarded. Their power over the people had never been challenged
with impunity. Could the king maintain himself against them?

One act of Zillah herself had seemed to endanger her royal prospects. It
was a sacred custom for the wife of a Phoenician king to become also a
priestess of the goddess Astarte, thus consolidating the sacerdotal and
royal authorities. Into this sacred office Zillah had refused to enter;
in which determination she was doubtless influenced by the prejudices of
her royal lover.

To Ahimelek's fears, therefore, the crown of Tyre seemed suspended by a
slender thread over an abyss from which he could not rescue it if it
should fall. He therefore had, on various pretexts, postponed the
marriage. But his scheming mind discerned a refuge for his ambition in
the fact that Rubaal was a jealous rival for the heart of Zillah.
Indeed, much of that young man's hostility to his cousin was due to his
wounded affections. It therefore seemed clear to Ahimelek that, in the
event of the overthrow of King Hiram, there would be an equal
opportunity for his own aggrandizement in transferring his daughter's
hand to that of the new king. Such were the thoughts that disturbed
Ahimelek as he sat at the council table.

The high priest, Egbalus, had already fathomed the perplexity of the
merchant's mind when he gave him that questioning glance.

Ahimelek's eyes fluttered more than ever as they met the inquisitorial
gaze of the priest. What would he not give to know the future? On which
side should he cast his vote?

Egbalus was too subtle a politician to press the query to a definite
answer in the council hall. He knew his man, and knew that if Ahimelek
did not dare go with the priests, neither would he dare to oppose them.

Other members of the council were more readily subservient. Indeed, the
predominating influence of Egbalus in public affairs had already made
itself felt in the selection of the persons who were nominally the
king's advisers. He knew, indeed he owned, them all.

The decree ordaining the splendid sacrifice was therefore issued. The
proclamation was quickly posted on the temple gate, the door of the
council chamber, and in the Great Square.

Would the king oppose it? If so, it would bring on the conflict the
priests desired, and had long been preparing for.




CHAPTER II.


When King Hiram left the council hall, pages swung aside the heavy
curtains which screened the doorways; lackeys bore before him, so far as
the exit, the ancient sceptre of Tyre, laid upon a gemmed cushion;
palanquin-bearers took their places around the royal vehicle; while the
outrunners, with trim legs and short fluted white skirts, balanced in
their hands the long rods of their office, and ran to clear the way. The
chief attendant was distinguished from the others by his crimson skirt,
which hung from a silver belt tightening his loins, and by the long
ribbons of purple that, encircling his brow, hung as streamers almost to
the ground. With that superb grace which only accomplished athletes
acquire, he bowed to the earth as the king descended the marble steps
leading from the hall.

"Whither, O king?"

"The hour?" inquired Hiram.

"It begins the seventh, by the grace of Baal!" replied the attendant.

"To the Sidonian Harbor, then."

The runners flew. The crowds in the narrow streets backed close against
the houses on either side.

"Long live King Hiram!" murmured from hundreds of lips, but the king
noted that it was shouted by none. If there were loyalty, it was without
enthusiasm. The priests scowled, or, pretending to be preoccupied with
pious meditation, allowed the royal palanquin to pass without salute.

Reaching the quay, the king stepped quickly from his carriage, and
returning with equal courtesy the low salâm of an elderly man, embraced
him cordially. Even if this person's garb had not revealed his
nationality, his straight nose on a line with his forehead would have
proclaimed him a Greek. His face was weather-beaten and bronzed by
exposure to many climes. His firm lips and strong chin would have
suggested to an observer that he was a man of resoluteness, perhaps one
engaged in daring adventures; were it not that a certain quiet depth in
his eyes, a passive introspective sort of look, such as they acquire who
are accustomed to think more than they see, betrayed the philosopher.

"I feared, noble Herodotus, that my detention at the council had
prevented my wishing you farewell," said the king.

"My thanks, your majesty! But, without this final and unlooked-for
courtesy, my voyage across the seas would have been gladdened by the
memory of your many kindnesses. I shall bear to my nation the knowledge
I have acquired of the past greatness of your people, and the
prediction that, under the liberal rule of King Hiram, a new era of
progress is to follow."

"The new era will come, sire, when the Phoenicians learn from the Greeks
what I have learned from you. The benefactors of nations are not their
kings, but their wise men."

"Blessed is the nation whose wisest man is their king," replied
Herodotus, with almost reverential courtesy.

To which Hiram responded: "The throne of Tyre would not lack a wise
king, if he could detain the sage of Halicarnassus as the man of his
right hand. Do me the pleasure to accept the vessel you sail in as a
reminder of your visit. Her deck planks are larch from the isles that
lie to the north; her masts are of cedar from Lebanon, whose snow-peaks
whiten the sky yonder; her oars are oak cut in Bashan beyond the Jews'
river, her side-planks are from the slope of Hermon; her sails of linen
were woven on the looms of Egypt; her purple awning is tinted with the
dye of insects found on your own coast. If my orders have been obeyed,
you will find on board wines that our caravans have brought from
Damascus."

"No. Not a word of thanks," added the king, interrupting the exclamation
of grateful surprise from his guest.

"Farewell, then," replied the Greek, kissing the hand of the young man,
and stepping upon the deck of the craft. "But tell me, O king, to which
of the gods shall a Greek traveller in a Phoenician bireme commend his
journey? to Neptune, or to your Cabeiri?"

"To the One who is the None or the All, of whom we have so often
spoken," replied Hiram.

The helmsman waved his hand to the rowers. A double score of blades
dipped at the instant. A pearly sheaf of spray rose beneath the high
prow of the _Dido_. The graceful craft glided out of the Sidonian
Harbor, and, rounding the quay-head to the north, caught the swell of
the Great Sea.

As the king watched the well-timed stroke of the oars, unvaried by the
irregular heaving of the billows through which they propelled the
bireme, a hand touched his arm.

"Ah, Captain Hanno! The man of all the world I want just at this moment.
Is the _Dolphin_ manned? Ten darics to one, you cannot catch the _Dido_
within sight of land! Besides, I want to skim over the water, and get
some cobwebs washed out of my brain. Cobwebs hold spiders, and spiders
bite. So do some of my thoughts. Come, Hanno, give me a spurt."

Hanno put an acorn-shaped whistle of bronze to his lips. The shrill
notes were answered in exact pitch, like an echo, from a splendid bireme
anchored near the mouth of the harbor. In a moment more the _Dolphin_
touched the end of the quay; but not before the king and his friend had
leaped upon the deck.

Captain Hanno's favorite bireme was not one of the largest of her class
in length of keel, but seemed to be the very behemoth of the Tyrian
pleasure-fleet by reason of her high prow and stern, both of which
projected far beyond the water-line. Her unusual breadth of beam gave
play for the long oar-handles, and immense leverage for each of the
sixty oarsmen, who were arranged in four rows, two rows on either side,
one placed above another. They worked their tough oaken propellers
through upper and lower oar-holes in the side of the galley.

At the word of Hanno, "Away!" the chief of the rowers clapped his hands,
timing the strokes which raised the vessel half out of the water, and
sent it plunging and bounding like a veritable dolphin through the sea.

As the bireme struck the high waves King Hiram advanced to the prow.
Throwing off his cap and toga, he indulged in a bath of wind and spray,
that dashed against his bare head and breast.

"Oh, to be a sea-king indeed, with no councillors but you, Hanno! What a
life!"

"I would counsel you to follow your own free mind," replied the captain.

"That is the reason I like you," said Hiram.

"Why have any adviser, then?"

"For the pleasure of being confirmed in my obstinacy."

"But I might thwart you some day."

"That would be impossible, for I should turn and follow your counsel.
Will you be my prime-minister, Hanno?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I want to remain your friend."

"Why not be both?"

"It might not be possible. The interest of the state of Tyre may be one
thing; the interest of Hiram another."

"That's treason, Hanno."

"Hang me to the masthead, then," replied Hanno; "for I am going to stick
to Hiram, whatever becomes of the king."

"You think of me as a crab that may shed the shell of royalty some day,"
replied Hiram, laughing. "Well, I confess that if it were not for the
claws of power, which I rather like the pleasure of using, I would let
my shell go to-morrow. But I must pinch off the heads of some of the
priests first. Thus--"

As he spoke the king took from a shelf just beneath the prow a
half-dozen little clay images, uncouth figures representing the Cabeiri,
the gods which were supposed to preside over the arts and navigation. He
broke off their heads, and threw them into the sea.

"One day, Hanno, we shall throw overboard all such trumpery from the
state of Tyre. That's what I told the council to-day."

"Told the council? That was a bold speech," replied the captain, his
face flushing and paling with sudden emotion.

"And an unwise one, I know from your look," said Hiram.

"Ay, and dangerous! May I take the liberty of cautioning you, my king?"

"Liberty? It's your duty, Hanno. Haven't I appointed you for life to be
my other self? I have never had a secret from you since we were boys,
and sent to sea under old Dagon."

The king took the arm of Hanno.

"Do you remember, old comrade, how once I even lied for you, and you
lied for me; but the old water-dog believed neither of us, and flogged
us both, though your father owned the craft, and mine was king of Tyre?
I expect to see Dagon's ugly head rise from the waves some day, for the
Cabeiri cannot keep such a restless ghost long down there with them."

"I remember, too, that it was just such a day as this," replied Captain
Hanno, "that we ran away, and, in an open boat, went to Sidon to see the
Sidonians fight with the Persians. I came near going after old Dagon
when the boat capsized. I felt the gates of Sheol snapping at me like a
shark's jaws, but you held me on the keel until we drifted into the
shallows. Since then my life has been yours. I am only watching my time
to save you. I had a notion of telling Mago, there at the helm, to drive
the _Dolphin_ on the reef as we came out of port, just to get a chance
of pulling you out of the wreck. But if you go on wasping the priests
you will give me my chance before long. Every one of those hypocritical
butchers, from Egbalus to the dirtiest offal-carrier, thinks of you when
he feels the point of his sacrificial knife. You need a thicker shell
about your ribs than that of your kingship."

"Oh, the priests to Beelzebub, the god of all such venomous flies!"
cried the king, in petulant rage.

"Have you, then, as the priests say, lost all faith in the gods?" asked
Hanno.

"Yes, in such as ours."

"But the Greeks, whom you praise so much, believe in them."

"Not in such as ours, Hanno. They make theirs beautiful. They deify the
nobler sentiments. They have no hideous Moloch, no beastly Astarte. They
leave their philosophy about unseen things unexpressed, until they can
express it artistically. You remember the temple to the god Theseus
which we saw in Athens. Herodotus explained its meaning to me. The
religious idea enshrined there surpasses ours as much as the graceful
proportions of the building are finer than anything we have built.
Theseus was a hero-god; that is, a man to whom they gave divine honors
because of his heroism. His great exploit was slaying the Minotaur of
Crete, which the people believed was a monster, half bull and half man,
that fed upon the bodies of human beings. The people of Athens sent
yearly a number of young men and maidens to appease the appetite of the
monster and the greed of King Minos, its owner. According to the story,
Theseus sailed to Crete, and slew the Minotaur in his labyrinth. Now,
this Minotaur was nothing but our Moloch, whom we represent by a
bull-headed image, and whom we pretend to appease by human sacrifice.
We Phoenicians carried this monstrous worship to Crete, and thence it
drifted across to Greece. But Theseus, who was a wise king, forbade such
cruel offerings, demolished the images of Moloch, and saved his people
from the horrors which our priests would perpetuate in our land. So they
say he slew the Minotaur. And, by all the gods of Greece! I will slay
our Minotaur. If I were El, or Bel, or Baal, I would wring the necks of
Egbalus and his swarm of priests when they annoy me with their cries, 'O
Baal, hear us!' just as I crush these flies that buzz in my face."

"Your words are safe with me, my king," replied Hanno, "but I beg you to
have a care; for the priests are all-powerful in Tyre. Their hold on the
people is tightening. They are plotting deeper than you and I know
to-day; but we may know to-morrow. The old image of Baal-Moloch on the
mainland is to be repaired, and I am told that the market at Aphaca has
more maidens enrolled this year to disgrace themselves to Astarte than
for a generation past. Your cousin Rubaal's sister, the Princess Elisa,
has been announced as a candidate for the shambles."

"It is monstrous!" cried Hiram. "I would risk my crown to wipe out our
shame; for the crown will not be worth keeping if I am to be king of a
horde of devils and strumpets."

"And I pledge my wealth and life to help you," replied Hanno. "Except
your own wealth, and that of Ahimelek--which the gods grant may come
safely to your house!--my resources are, perhaps, the greatest in Tyre.
But we must be cautious."

"No, no, Hanno! King Hiram will never take a shekel of his friend's
riches to gild his own glory."

"But I am prime-minister, you know, and may do what I please," replied
his friend, laughing. "But this is not resting you. Shall we give these
steersmen a lesson?"

Two long oars rigged one on either side of the keel-line at the stern
served as rudders. They were joined by a brace at the handles, by which
they could be connected or disconnected, and thus be worked by one
person in quiet water, but needed the strength of two in heavy seas, or
in putting the bireme through rapid manoeuvres. Two brawny fellows were
manning them, as the wind was rising. The brace of helmsmen, doffing
their caps, gave place to the king and his companion.

"Quicker!" shouted Hiram to the master of the oarsmen, whose hands beat
out the gradually accelerating time, until the sixty blades cut the
water as the wings of a kingfisher cut the air. The wind still
freshening, they set the great square sail. Soon they tacked far to the
north, and, rounding to the west, crossed the bows of the bireme of
Herodotus.

"The king! the king!" shouted the sailors on the _Dido_, as they
recognized the well-known forms at the helm.

And "Hanno! Hanno! Hanno!" was given with equal enthusiasm.

All the oar-blades of the _Dido_ were lifted from the water as the
_Dolphin_ dashed past. On the high stern stood the venerable Herodotus,
his head uncovered, and his noble brow white and shining like an
aureole, in contrast with his bronzed lower face and dark beard. He held
aloft a goblet of wine, and shouted, as the _Dolphin_ flew by:

"To Hiram! To Tyre!"

The _Dolphin_ careened far over as she turned, her great square sail
throwing a shadow on the deck of the _Dido_ as it intercepted the
western sun. It was a dangerous manoeuvre for any but helmsmen of utmost
skill to have attempted.

"It was never done better since your father, Captain Hanno, ran the
gantlet of a score of Greek ships at Salamis," said one of the helmsmen,
as they took again the steering oars.

"There's no praise we like so well as that of our sailors," replied
Hanno.

Turning to Hiram, as they moved out of hearing of the men, Captain Hanno
said: "So I would work with you, my king. The two oars, though
disconnected, worked as one in our hands. I followed with my whole might
every movement you made."

"No," said Hiram, "I waited until I caught your purpose, for you are the
better helmsman. Had I not done so, we surely had gone over."

"It is strange! I thought I followed you, and you thought you followed
me. I suspect that we both followed our common sailor's instinct. We
will take it, then, as an omen. So we will work together for the throne
of Tyre. Events may occur in which it will be wise for me to appear to
take no part in the affairs of the court. But, believe me, I shall pull
with you, as on the steering oar. I think I know your heart, O king! And
I put my heart within yours. I believe as little in the gods as you do.
I have but one object of devotion on earth, but one vow, and that I give
to my king."

Hiram gazed into his friend's face. The tears started to his eyes. But,
though the heartiness of this avowal was grateful to him, he could not
repress his surprise at it. He knew Hanno's loyalty; but why should the
noble fellow make so much of telling it? It was very unlike him. He was
generally either reticent, or extremely laconic, in speaking of his
purposes. He acted quickly--like lightning, that lets the report come
afterwards. Hiram again searched his friend's face for some explanation,
but saw nothing unusual, except a closer knitting of the brows as if
from perplexity and pain; a silent prophecy of evil that the noble
fellow would avert, though with the sacrifice of his own life.




CHAPTER III.


The two friends parted at the quay. The king entered the palanquin which
had awaited his return.

"To Trypho, the dyer's!"

An unusual commotion was made in the streets, or rather the alleys,
through which the king's litter passed; for seldom until Hiram's
accession had royalty cast its aristocratic lustre among the shadows of
the common artisan's life. But Hiram was well known in these places. As
a lad he had spent many hours in the factories, amusing himself with
tools, and questioning the workmen about the details of their various
arts.

The palanquin stopped at a low door, from which a cloud of steam was
emitted. In the midst of this, like the statue of some god in a halo of
incense, stood a man, naked to the waist, his arms and parts of his bare
breast red, as if with blood.

As the king alighted, the man made an awkward salâm, knocking his head
against the low lintel in resuming the perpendicular. Without losing any
of his courtliness of manner, Hiram put the fellow at case by his genial
familiarity.

"Ah, Trypho! You are like the god Tammuz, killed by the wild boar, but
coming to life with the blood-marks on him."

"Like a king, rather," said Trypho, "for the red will be purple when it
dries."

"No, like a queen," retorted Hiram, pleased with the man's banter, "for
I swear by Astarte that the dye on your arms is the same that is going
into the robe of the future queen of Tyre."

"Such is the honor your patronage has brought me," replied Trypho,
making another salâm, that ended by nearly tripping the king into a
dyeing vat.

"But how goes the cloth?" asked Hiram, laughing.

"It is nearly completed," said the workman, leading the way to an inner
room. "Come in, and judge for yourself. I need not keep the secret of my
art from one who knows it already."

At a leaden sink a half-grown boy was drawing the snail-like murex from
its shell. Cutting off its head, he dexterously detached from its body
the long sac of yellow liquid, which, on exposure, changed first to
green, and, passing through the intermediate shades, to a bright purple.
At a bench near by a workman crushed with a wooden hammer the smaller
shell of the insect since called buccinum, which, together with the body
of the animal, was thrown into a vat, mixed with salt, the whole mass
heated, and reduced to a liquid state by an injection of steam. The
gritty substance from the shell was then carefully skimmed from the
surface, leaving a lighter purplish liquid than that obtained from the
murex.

"They tell me, Trypho, that you can mix these two dyes at sight, so as
to produce the rare tint for which your cloths are so famous. Have you
no written formula, and do you never measure out the proportions?"

"No, sire," replied the man, "I never learned the proportions by weight
or by measure. If I knew them myself I might tell somebody; then my
secret would be gone. So I never told myself how I do it. I think of a
tint, and pour the dyes together, and they always come out the tint I
think of. How do I do it? Just as my old legs carry me where I think of
going, without counting my steps, or watching which way my toes turn."

The fellow was garrulous, and, seeing that he had the king's attention,
went on:--

"I got this secret where I got my blood--from my father; and he from
his, and he from his. For, you see, we have been in this trade for
thousands of years. You know that story the priests tell about the
discovery of the art of dyeing? Well, it is true, because it was to one
of my grandfathers that the great god Melkarth came when his dog ate off
the head of a shell-fish, and colored his jaws with such beautiful tints
that the nymph Tyrus refused to marry the god until he gave her a gown
of the same color. It was my ancestor, the first Trypho, who helped the
great Melkarth get his bride; and to no one else than to Trypho, the
last, should the noble King Hiram come for a gown for his beautiful
queen: whom may Tyrus bless! Come now, and see if the cloth I have
prepared for your lady be not as lovely as was that of Tyrus herself. No
woman could refuse a lover who wooed with such a garment in his hands as
I have made."

Trypho led the way to another room, where cloths were hung before a
window, by manipulating the screens of which the artisan adjusted the
light that gave the required tone to the color.

"Truly a divine art!" cried Trypho, in his enthusiastic appreciation of
his own work. "For see, I must use the beams of Baal, the sun-god, to
bring it to perfection. It must be a divine art that uses Divinity."

"Does Baal let you use his beams at your will?" asked the king. "Then
you must be the god, and Baal your servant. Baal could not make that
splendid tint without you."

The man stared at the king as if stricken dumb by the blasphemy he had
heard. His look of perplexity tempted Hiram to banter him further.

"And indeed, Trypho, I think you are more divine in your naked muscle,
daubed with this insect's blood, which you can transform into beauty,
than the brass image of Moloch is when dyed with children's blood. No
beautiful thing was ever taken out of the blood vat at his feet. How say
you, Trypho?" tapping the man's bare shoulders.

The workman made no reply, but moved a pace or two away from the king,
looking at him in a sort of stupid terror. Recovering his senses, he
pointed to a hanging of finest texture, whose exquisite tint brought an
exclamation of delight from his visitor. It only needed to be washed in
a decoction made from a certain sea-weed, found on the coast of Crete,
to fix its color.

"This is for the robe of the queen of Tyre," said Trypho, bowing low, in
as much obeisance to his own pride in his work as to the royal dignity
of his visitor.

"You, Trypho, shall have a skin of finest wine from the marriage feast,"
said the king, grasping the hand of the workman, and leaving in it a
gold daric.

Hiram and his attendants threaded their way through a low arcaded
street, which was lined on either side with bazaars or cells of
tradesmen, and debouched into a small court surrounded by the foundries
of the bronze-workers. The open space was covered with scraps of metal,
heaps of charred wood, broken moulding-boxes, piles of clay and sand.
Leaving the palanquin at the entrance to the court, Hiram walked across
it, followed by the eyes of scores who gazed after him from their
various doorways. He entered the foundry of one of the most noted
artisans. The owner greeted him with dignified cordiality.

"The Cabeiri have sent you at the right moment, your majesty. Finer work
than I have just completed was never done by the Greek Vulcan. You
admire the Greeks, as all artists must. But I shall prove to your own
eyes that Tyre is keeping her ancient renown. See this bronze dish! But
first listen to its musical ring," striking it with his centre finger.
"It sounds longer than a diver can hold his breath. The gods have taught
us the secret, which I whisper to you, sire: One part tin; nine parts
copper. And never did embosser do better work with hammer and graving
tool. Look at the muscles in the forearm of that figure on the rim."

"Finely wrought, indeed!" said the king. "But will they all be done in
time? It wants but three moons to the wedding. And the number of
pieces?"

"Yes, your majesty; five great dishes of gold, two-score of silver, a
half-score of vases in bronze, and--But here is the order, which I shall
have ready--"

"That is enough. I am pleased with your skill and promptness, and shall
reward them," said the king, presenting his hand, which the artisan
reverently touched with his lips.

King Hiram emerged from the network of streets and by-ways upon the
Eurychorus Square, crossing which the royal palanquin disappeared
beneath the portal of his palace. This was the residence of the ancient
kings of Tyre. It was a large building, constructed of great blocks of
stone, which were joined without mortar on smooth-fitting surfaces.
About each stone was a depressed border, or bevel, which clearly marked
the size of the blocks, making the whole more impressive to the eye,
and at the same time revealing the antiquity of its construction. The
edifice was windowless on the exterior. The only entrance was guarded by
an enormous gate of oaken planks, which were banded together with thick
and broad bars of burnished bronze. Pegs and sockets of the same metal
made the hinges. It required the full strength of two burly porters to
open these doors, for their great weight and the generations during
which they had done service had worn the sockets into irregular shapes.
As old Goliab, the porter, closed his half of the folding pair, and
watched his comrade struggle with the other, he remarked:

"The hinges squeak like a howling priest. If they had not been used
since the days of the Great Hiram, our king would order them to be taken
off, and the new-fashioned ones put on."

"Hist, now!" replied his comrade. "They say that the king is going to
stop the priests' howling first. The priests stick in the old ways they
have worn for themselves, which, Baal save me! are not the ways the gods
made when they lived in Tyre; and may be they lived in this same palace,
for they do say that the first king was a god."

"Have a care!" rejoined Goliab. "I have seen many a priest watching this
gate of late. Who knows but they will take it for a temple, and move in
themselves?"

"Then I move out. I serve none less than the king. But have you read the
proclamation, Goliab? I thank Astarte for never sending me any children
to be burned to Moloch."

"That is not for such as we to talk about," replied Goliab.

"Why not?"

"Because," lowering his voice to a whisper, "there's a priest outside
this moment. I can see his shadow through the crack under the gate."

The palanquin-bearers set down their royal burden in the court around
which the palace was built. Hiram alighted by the fountain that rose in
the centre and flung its spray over the beds of flowers which tastefully
decorated the borders of its marble basin. He lingered a moment under an
orange tree, whose silver blossoms and golden fruit, in simultaneous
fulness, made him think of a proverb that was common everywhere in those
lands famous for their orange groves: "A timely word is like golden
fruit in a basket of silver." And then he thought of Hanno's words on
the bireme. "Were they timely? Does Hanno know of dangers that I am
ignorant of?"

He sought his private chamber, a room whose high walls were lined with
alabaster, great pieces of which were cut into noble panels, and carved
with delicate tracery. The room was lighted chiefly through windows set
near the ceiling, covered with curiously shaped bits of glass, which
flung variegated colors, as in a floral shower, upon the white walls and
floors. Servants loosed his sandals, washed his feet, brought perfumed
water for his hands and face. His hair-dresser was ready with his
ointment; his wardrobe-keeper with the special chiton and tunic which he
knew his master liked. Others came bearing a repast.

When he had eaten and taken a double cup of wine--for the mental
excitement of the council, together with the physical exhilaration of
the run upon the sea, prompted that unusual indulgence--the king threw
himself upon the divan to think. He first scanned with knit brows and
curling lip a copy of the proclamation of the council, which he found
upon his table. The parchment, however, soon fell from his hand, for he
was tired even of his own wrath. The lines of writing changed into thick
webs which, it seemed to him, gigantic spiders had spun about the room.
He looked closely at one of these monsters. Its head was surely that of
Egbalus. There was a smaller spider with the leering look of Rubaal.
Ahimelek, too, with sleek, smooth face of hypocritical amiability, and a
score of legs with anchors on them for sandals, was timidly crawling out
of a corner. Then Hanno appeared, and walked straight through the
tangled webs; and the spiders darted into holes from which, with little
red eyes, they watched the intruder. Then, with unrustling robes, Zillah
came. In the light which her presence dispensed the webs disappeared, as
those on the dewy grass vanish under the sun's beams in the morning. The
king dreamed--dreamed of such things as will never happen until Astarte
abdicates her direction of woman's life, and love-sick Adonis takes her
place.




CHAPTER IV.


The Temple of Melkarth, the impersonation of Baal as that god was
supposed to preside over the interests of Tyre, stood near the centre of
the city. It was imposing, not so much because of its architectural
lines, as for the enormous stones which made its foundation, each one of
which was believed to have been laid in human blood some time in remote
ages past. The space in front of the temple was a miniature paradise.
Tiny rills, supplied artificially from the great aqueduct on the
mainland, trickled over bright pebbles, and through the green grass.
Fountains splashed in their basins of porphyry, marble, and bronze.
Gay-plumed birds from distant countries, wing-clipped, that they might
not fly far away, perched in delusive freedom upon the trees, and, with
their various songs, replied to the challenge of lyre and flute that
floated from the recesses of the temple court.

But on the afternoon of the day whose events we have been narrating, a
vast multitude of people filled the little park, and drowned these
sweeter sounds in the clatter of their voices. The streets leading to
the temple were crowded with those who had leisure from labor to
indulge their curiosity. An unusual number of people thronged through
the great gates of the temple to make offerings upon the altars. The
simple heralding of religious revival is often the surest provocative of
its coming. Thus it happened that the order of the council, respecting
some stupendous rite that should be performed, awakened a popular
impulse for pietistic devotion.

The full coterie of temple officials was in attendance. There were
barbers who shaved the beards and clipped the long forelocks of the
worshippers, by offering which to the god they signalled their entrance
upon the virile state of manhood. There were venders of victims for
sacrifice, and votive objects of every variety; custodians of veils and
sacred furniture; priests to slay the animals, and others to supply the
sacred coals to any who would burn incense.

The devotees jostled one another in their eagerness to read and take
down upon their little tablets the exact tariff fixed by the temple code
for the services of priests, and prices of objects acceptable to the
god, as these were placarded upon the walls. Some were busy admiring the
memorial slabs or statuettes which had been presented by wealthy
Tyrians, and were often likenesses of the donors, erected in reverent
attempt to keep the divinity and their fellow-citizens perpetually
reminded of their pious munificence. A gaping group gazed at the two
columns, one of gold, the other of emerald, which gave a mysterious
light at night, and which stood, one at the end of each of the two
aisles of the temple flanking the central nave. These had been procured
at vast expense at some time of great deliverance, and were inscribed:
"To the Lord Melkarth, Master of Tyre: The offering of thy servants,
because he has listened to their voice. May he still bless us!"

Beyond these a crowd surveyed the altar of bronze, beaten by skilful
hands into delicate flower-work, from the centre of which rose the
perpetual flame in commemoration of the adventure of the goddess
Astarte, who once caught a shooting-star, and enshrined it among her
favorite Tyrians; or, as some of the priests said, to express the faith
of the people in the divinity of fire, which was the materialized
brightness of the face of Baal, the sun-god. A group stood near the
great gateway, watching an opportunity to steal a glance between the
swaying curtains, which screened the inner court from common eyes.

The most sacred precinct of the temple was an artificial lake. From the
midst of the water rose a single stone, perhaps ten cubits high, on the
top of which was the Maabed, or ark, enclosing a statue of the god,
together with some objects sacred in the history of Tyre, and believed,
therefore, to be the special delight of its divine protector.

The platform around the little lake was paved with variegated marbles,
white, yellow, red, brown, and rose-colored, which were wrought into
graceful patterns of mosaic work. A roof, blazing with tiles of gold,
sheltered the platform from rain and sun, and made it the rendezvous of
the priests.

Just as the sun was going down a group of priests gathered about Egbalus
in close consultation. They were dressed in white chitons, which clung
close to their forms, except for the fine fluting of the skirts. Scarfs
of violet ran over their shoulders and across their bodies diagonally.
Their feet were bare; their heads shaved, and protected by close-fitting
skull-caps, in some cases of gorgeous color, in others of knitted
hair-work, which mingled confusedly with the black beards of the
younger, and contrasted finely with the white beards of the more
venerable.

Egbalus was speaking. "The council has but begun the reform which is to
restore Tyre to its pre-eminence. It has decreed the sacrifice. It has
prescribed that the offerings shall be worthy and notable. But what
sacrifices shall be offered is not for the council to determine. This,
only we who are admitted to the secret council of the gods
themselves--we, the sacred order of priests--can declare. And woe to him
who, in this day of honor to Baal, shall thwart the will of his
priests!"

"Woe! Woe unto him!" echoed around the circle.

The high priest continued his harangue: "In the ancient days of Tyrian
glory, when there was no power on land or sea to dispute our sway or
rival our commerce; when ships returning from their voyages hung anchors
of solid silver from their prows, having room only for more precious
merchandise within--then Tyre gave great abundance to Baal-Melkarth, and
offered its most distinguished citizens upon the altar. But how long, O
Baal of Tyre! since thou hast had a princely offering? What are gems and
beasts to the god who is offended with men? What are the babes which
poverty gives because it cannot feed them, when kings have insulted the
majesty of Heaven? And what--"

The old priest had either wrought himself up to a divine frenzy, or
superbly acted the part of one who was supposed to be "filled with the
god." His countenance became livid and white by turns. The great blue
veins were swollen at his temples. His face seemed to expand. His neck
thickened. His eyes fixedly glared towards a patch of sunlight that
gleamed on the top of the wall. His form was rigid, except for a
convulsive twitching of the fingers.

The attendant priests crowded close to their leader, and stared into his
eyes, as if to catch the gleam of some coming revelation. The old
priest's lips moved, but at first without articulation. He raised his
hand, and, with unbent arm, pointed to the glint of sunlight, which
seemed to hold him by some fatal fascination. At length his words became
audible, very slowly uttered, and with oracular hoarseness:

"Baal permits me to know his will. Yonder light is no more surely from
the sun-god than is a light that burns within me."

A slight zephyr at this moment ruffled the surface of the sacred water.

"It is the breath of Baal!" said one.

"See! See! The Maabed itself shook! It is the sign of the god! A
miracle! A miracle!"

"A miracle!" they murmured, and prostrated themselves, crying, "O Baal,
hear us! O Baal, guide us!"

Egbalus had remained standing, in unchanged attitude, watching the
sunlight. He now whispered, impressing into his tones the simulation of
awe:

"I see a mighty altar. On it lies one enrobed as a king. By it stands,
august and venerable, a kingly priest, and--slays the victim. But hark!
a voice! It is that of Melkarth himself, who bids me remember how, in
our sacred traditions, it is recorded that the mighty god El, when a
dire calamity had come upon his favorite city of Gebal, took his own
son, adorned him in the robes of royalty, carried him to the altar, slew
him, and so brought blessings for ages upon his people. Hear, O ye
priests of Baal!"

He lowered his voice, either through sense of the awful solemnity of
what he was about to utter, or fear of being overheard by others than
those whom he owned, body and soul, as he did his infatuated band of
priests. His followers arose from their prostrate positions, and drew
close to him. This they heard: "Tyre must offer to Baal its king!"

A deep hush followed. Egbalus glanced nervously from one to another.
Had he mistaken his men?

"The king?" said one, in a tone that might have been regarded as either
assent or surprised interrogation.

"We have another king," was Egbalus's quick and altogether unghostly
response.

"Baal save us!" cried one.

"The will of Baal be done!" was the sharp rejoinder of another--Mattan,
a man of ferocious severity of countenance, whose body showed more scars
from self-inflicted wounds than could be counted in half the circle
besides.

Egbalus suddenly dropped all his mysteriousness of manner, with keen
eyes searched their faces, by his very look challenging each one to dare
resistance. He was now less high priest than he was politician and
leader; seemingly forgetting his spiritual, he asserted his secular,
power. Satisfied with what he saw in the half-cowed superstition or the
crafty ambition of his followers, he boldly declared:

"It must be. Woe to the priest who, at this crisis of our order, dares
to betray it!"

He drew his long knife, such as was used in sacrificing--"This for the
heart of the first faithless priest!"

"And this!"

"And this!"

Half a score of gleaming blades were raised.

Egbalus continued: "King Hiram believes not in the gods; would destroy
them, and us with them. Rubaal must be king. It is the will of Baal, and
it is the wisdom of men."

He allowed a silence to follow, that his suggestion might work. He did
not for an instant, however, cease his search for any dissenting look
upon a single face. He was correct in his judgment of them, and now knew
that when the critical moment came there was not a man but would assault
the king in any way that he commanded. Indeed, he had, during the few
months he had held the high priest's office, gathered about himself, in
the inner circle of priests who shared his counsels, only those who were
desperate in their religious bigotry, or who were known to have some
secret hatred towards the king.

"Let the god answer through our breasts!" at length he said, resuming
his pietistic tone.

The priests bowed their heads until they touched the pavement. They then
resumed a sitting posture, each with his eyes fixed upon his breast, as
if listening to his own heart-beats for the articulation of the will of
the god who possessed him.

"Baal speaks!" muttered one.

"He speaks!"

"He speaks!" was echoed from the circle.

"Baal has spoken through the lips of his high priest," said Mattan,
rising.

One by one the others rose, and repeated, "Baal has spoken through the
lips of his high priest. So let it be! and dies the man who says not
so!"

The sun-glint had left the temple wall. Dark shadows dropped upon the
corridors about the sacred lake, and in the gathering night the cabal of
priests broke up.




CHAPTER V.


Was it the night darkness that, by its contrast with his bright dream of
Zillah, awoke Hiram? However that may have been, he aroused himself with
the purpose of making his vision as near as possible a waking reality.
He would go to her. Her hand upon his brow always exorcised his evil
spirits, and he knew a pillow for a restless head softer than that of
his divan. He struck with his finger a disk of bronze that hung by the
couch. A deep, but exceedingly soft and sweet, note floated through the
apartment, and was instantly answered by the keeper of the royal
wardrobe. This honest fellow's loyalty was limited by the conviction
that the king should be the handsomest man in his realm, and he spared
no pains to make him such. Though he was not officially barber to his
majesty, he yet wrought upon the short curls on his master's head with
the exquisite care that a jeweller's etcher might have bestowed upon the
locks of a goddess he was transferring from his imagination to a golden
plate or goblet. The king was, ordinarily, far from fastidious regarding
his raiment, and had often flung off the royal gewgaws in which his
attendants arrayed him for state display. The same indifference to
appearance at times led him to the opposite extreme; as, on the day we
are narrating, he had worn the dress with which he had presided at the
council, also on the ship and amid the dirt of the foundries and
workshops. But upon certain occasions he was not averse to the
consideration of a goodly appearance, especially when he made his visits
to Zillah. The male bird will display his plumage to the utmost, and
pipe his sweetest notes, in the presence of the female. We may leave the
explanation of this to the naturalist and the novelist; we here only
record the fact that Hiram made no objection when his attendant brought
from the wardrobe a close-fitting tunic of Sindonese silk, the raw
material of which, brought from far-away India, had been woven without a
flaw on the Tyrian looms, and embroidered by skilful and patient fingers
with scarabs, lotus-blossoms, winged globes, and royal uræi, in a
combination of lines and colors that fascinated the eye with its general
effect as much as it bewildered by its details. About his neck he
suffered three collars to be placed; the upper one closely fitting his
throat, while the lower one hung far down upon his breast; all sparkling
with tiny gems. He girded his loins with a scarf of radiant colors, in
the knot of which shone a huge diamond, like a star in the belt of
Orion. His sandals were fastened with ribbons made of threads of gold,
and wound in cross-lines above his ankles, thus setting off as fine a
calf as ever kept time to the music of the dance. Could Hiram have seen
himself in the glass with his own eyes, instead of through the imagined
eyes of his mistress, he would have blushed for his effeminate bravery,
and preferred to don the tight leathern uniform of a common soldier.
But, to make his victorious entrance into a maiden's heart, he really
thought himself arrayed in heroic style.

The house of Ahimelek was near the eastern wall, in the highest part of
the city. From the east side it looked directly down upon the two
harbors, and across the narrow strait that divided the island from the
mainland. From its western balconies the view lay over the city, and far
out over the Great Sea. The proud old merchant delighted especially in
this prospect, which on every hand reminded him of the sources of his
wealth. Far away towards Cyprus he could sight the incoming vessels, and
towards Lebanon detect the slow-moving specks that were his caravans.

The house was of cedar. Its beam-heads and cornices were carved with
objects beautiful or grotesque, as pleased the fancy of the architect;
for Ahimelek had no standard by which to estimate its excellence beyond
its expense. Its projecting windows were closely screened, one with a
latticework of bronze, another of porphyry, another of alabaster, and
one with strips of agate closely cemented. The interior apartments were
panelled in richest woods, and floored with elaborate mosaics, upon
which were skins of lions, wolves, and leopards. Objects of curiosity
which his captains had brought from all the known countries of the
world--enormous tusks of elephants, nuggets of precious minerals,
diamonds with their incrustation of stone, plumage of strange birds,
vases of malachite and lapis-lazuli, the weapons of savages, and
bejewelled swords once worn by kings: these filled tables and niches,
and stood in the corners.

Ahimelek met the king as the latter alighted from his litter in the
central court. It needed no previous suspicion on the part of Hiram to
detect something inhospitable in the merchant's welcome. As they passed
the entrance together Ahimelek stopped. He seemed to be on the point of
speaking, yet no words came. Awkwardly he made way for the young man to
precede him; and, as the lover sought the apartment of Zillah, her
father stood looking after him with troubled countenance.

His formal and acknowledged betrothal to Zillah, according to
Phoenician custom, gave to Hiram every privilege a husband has in his
wife, except that of living with her. From the moment he had put the
ring upon her finger, and had given to her father the legal document
conveying certain property pledges, he became her virtual possessor and
guardian.

At the entrance to the apartment of his betrothed, Hiram was met by
Layah, Zillah's maid, a woman whose matronly manner contradicted the
story of her youthful face. Layah had once been the handmaiden of
Hiram's mother, and, but a little beyond him in years, had grown up as a
sort of official playmate in the nursery. Upon his mother's death he had
sent her as a gift to Zillah, who needed such a companion, since she had
scarcely known a mother's protection, and, without brothers or sisters,
was alone in the care of her father's house.

Layah's pride, when she ushered Hiram into the presence of her mistress,
was warranted, for she truly thought there was no more beautiful woman
in Tyre than the daughter of Ahimelek. And, indeed, Zillah's radiance
this night was refracted in additional lustre through the toilet her
maid had given her. A simple band of ribbon, with a single pearl
studding it, bound her jet-black hair, but did not confine it. Her locks
overflowed in clustering ringlets upon her forehead and temples, and
fell in waves upon her white neck. Her features were small, but so
clear-cut as to seem larger than in reality, and so animated were they
with health and joy that the long, pendent ear-rings of crystal, which
rested upon her shoulders, seemed to borrow from her face the light that
flashed in them. Her upper garment came close to the throat, and was
gathered into a sinus beneath the breast, by a girdle which was knotted
in front. Her exposed arms were of such graceful shape that one scarcely
noticed the wristlets and armlets with which her maid had insisted on
decorating them. Her full-flowing skirt of silk was so artfully looped
at the bottom as to reveal a foot and ankle, about which a serpent of
silver coiled in loving embrace.

Zillah's first welcome of Hiram was followed by a playful frown. She
held him at arm's-length, and curiously inspected his raiment.

"For shame, my Lord Hiram! I believe you have borrowed your cousin
Rubaal's clothes--the same he came to woo me in the day before you and I
were betrothed. You are more goodly-appearing with your sailor's cap and
coarse chiton than in these fashions of Tyre. See! I have discarded my
cap of pearls, and would not put on half the jewels Layah wanted me to,
because I thought you would like me better as I am."

She dexterously loosed his triple collar, and flung it upon a divan;
then plucked the great diamond from his scarf.

"Hold!" cried Hiram. "Do not throw that away. It may buy back our
throne, if Egbalus steals it. Let me put it here, where Artaxerxes
himself would not dare to pluck it."

He inserted the glowing jewel in the folds of the sinus of her dress.

"But why do you talk so much of Egbalus, dear Hiram?" she asked, as she
drew him to her side upon the divan. "Egbalus is only a priest, not even
a prince. And you have often said you did not believe in the priests.
Why care for what you do not believe in?"

"I do believe in the priests," said he, "just as I believe in scorpions
and other pests, because they are disagreeable facts. I suppose I ought
to be above letting them annoy me, as the people in the country build
booths on the roofs of their houses, and go to sleep there, knowing that
the scorpions cannot crawl so high. But I cannot sleep if I so much as
hear these priestly vermin scratch.

Do you remember, Zillah, the stories we used to invent as children with
Layah's help? They were generally about a king who was driven from his
throne, and went wandering over the world, and lost his queen somewhere,
and could not find her. You used to call yourself the queen, and imagine
all sorts of things you did without--without me; for I was always the
king, was I not?"

"And I always found you, too; and now I am going to keep you, and not
let you go wandering even in my dreams," replied the fair girl, throwing
her arm fondly about the shoulder of Hiram, with her cheek against his.
"Even Astarte does not have so good a hold on Tammuz, or, as the Greeks
call him, Adonis, when she has found him come to life again, as I have
on my Adonai--my lord."

Her lustrous eyes, as she gazed into his, seemed to drink love from his
heart.

"Ah, but Astarte has to lose her Adonis first, and her maidens go
mourning for him. So you might lose me. The Persian king has but to say
a word, and I must leave my throne. The satrap of Syria--only a
satrap--has more power than I, a king, and could depose me. These
priests could poison the mind of Artaxerxes; or they could poison me.
Do you not regret having promised to be my queen?"

The girl rose from the divan. She straightened her form to its full
height. Her pose was majesty itself. Her black eyes flashed with
indignant pride:

"Not even a king shall question either my love or my courage!"

Hiram, though startled, was not offended at this sudden transformation.
He had been frequently treated to novel exhibitions of her character;
but each one increased his admiration for her. She was to him a garden
of graces. At every turn in their intimacy some new beauty was revealed,
or some new sweetness exhaled from her life to gladden his. He did not,
however, expect to find in his garden a stately palm-tree--a character
so lofty and ruggedly strong. He now felt that she was more royal than
he, and he could have thrown himself at her feet as a slave. But through
all Zillah's severity of countenance there played a softer sentiment,
that overtempted him to a different expression of loyalty, and he caught
her to his arms, with the rapt exclamation: "A queen, indeed! My queen!"

She pushed him gently from her, and looked deeply into his eyes as if
she would dry up the very fountain of his soul, as the sun-god dries the
springs in summer, should he dare to question again the supremacy of her
love. She then took his face between her hands, as she said:

"I shall be Hiram's queen if he reigns only in a round boat, a pauper
pirate of the sea, or carries his crown on a camel flying across the
deserts. But"--her voice trembled, steadied only when his hot kiss had
acted as a tonic--"I would rather be simply Hiram's wife. Wife means
more than queen, does it not?"

The superb woman again became a girl; the palm-tree became a spray of
delicate vine that twined itself through and through Hiram's heart.

The long and silent embrace that followed was disturbed by loud talking
in the apartment of Ahimelek, which was across the recess entering from
the court, a sort of hallway that divided the business offices of the
merchant from the portion of the house that was devoted to domestic use.

"Ah! I know that screech," said Hiram. "It belongs to the night-hawk
Egbalus. He is always flitting about in the dark. Listen! What nest is
he putting his beak into now?"

The priest was evidently threatening and entreating by turns. Ahimelek
was as clearly on guard, like some fencer who knows the superior prowess
of his antagonist. His tones of voice showed that he was now objecting,
and now yielding point after point, only protecting his retreat. Whole
sentences were at length caught by the listeners, as the excitement of
the priest betrayed his caution:

"But, sire, you cannot prevent it. I have obtained the consent of every
other member of the council but yourself. No man can withstand the will
of Baal."

"Ah!" whispered Hiram to Zillah. "Your father, then, did not vote for
the sacrifice. I half thought as much. He has always assented to my view
that we are making too much of religion. If they would only leave me to
select the victims, I would order the sacrifice myself, and roast a
score or two of priests' spawn. I would make such a feast that Moloch
would be sick from surfeit for a hundred years. But listen!"

Egbalus was now fairly hissing his words: "You dare not refuse. It is
ruin to you and to your house. Hark you, Ahimelek! Your dealing with the
Egyptian is known. You accepted a bribe of ten thousand darics to
abandon the commerce of Cyprus and Memphis to the sailors of the Nile.
This is death by the laws of Tyre. And think not that having a son for
king will save a traitor. The evidence of it is written out. It is on
this parchment. A horseman stands ready to carry the news to the Great
King at Susa. It was treason against Persia. You know the end. Sign this
order of the priests of Baal, and I will tear up this damning document.
If not--"

The two listeners looked at each other with consternation. They knew
that the priests had spun some web about the merchant. True or false,
their accusation would ruin him. Hiram's first impulse was to enter the
room, and slay the priest as he stood. A second thought showed the
unwisdom of such a course. The plot must have other meshes, though
Egbalus held the chief string. A rash deed on the king's part would
precipitate an issue between the throne and the temple, with the
advantage in favor of the latter, since their plotting had been of long
continuance, and their purposes were well ripened.

"I shall advise your father to yield the point," said Hiram, rising. "A
few miserable babies more or less for a sacrifice, what does it
signify?"

He strode across the open space, and, unannounced, stood before the men.
His sudden appearance transformed the debate into a tableau. Egbalus was
standing rigidly erect, his hand clenched, and raised above his head;
his whole soul seemingly condensed into one act of will, dominating the
soul of Ahimelek; and that will was blazing from the priest's
half-demoniacal eyes. Had he uttered no words, the very pantomime would
have been enough to crush a weaker man's resolution. Ahimelek sat limp
and pale with terror before the priest.

Without awaiting an explanation, Hiram determined to rescue the merchant
from the straits into which his loyalty had apparently put him, and
said:

"Enough of this quarrel! Ahimelek, you have your king's permission to
assent. Let the priests have what sacrifice they will."

"Your majesty! Your majesty is mad!" jerked out Ahimelek, holding up his
hands in agonizing remonstrance.

"It is enough! I have said it," responded the king.

Egbalus was surprised, and stared as one confounded. But only for a
moment did he lose his self-possession. He was a consummate actor. He
could direct his most fiery passion by cold discretion, as the moulder
leads the molten metal into his patterns of sand. A look of holy
serenity suddenly diffused his countenance:

"Baal, I thank thee! Thou hast owned thy servant! Said I not so--that
the heart of the king would be so led by Baal that he himself would
consent? Most noble king! Servant of the gods! Let me kiss the feet of
him whom Baal receives as his son!"

He threw himself upon the floor before the king, who could scarcely
restrain an impulse to trample the hypocritical wretch with his heels.
It cost Hiram a mighty effort to obey his quick, intuitive discretion.
He did not even glance at the prostrate priest, but, with a look of
scorn and pity upon Ahimelek, he withdrew.

"Oh, for the power of a king!" he exclaimed, as he re-entered Zillah's
apartment. "I swear by all the gods that for the last time have I
yielded to the cruelty of these priests. To Sheol with the whole brood
of them!"

Hiram sank upon the divan by the side of Zillah, exhausted by the sharp
conflict of emotions through which he had passed. He rebuked himself for
the display of passion.

"But for your sake, my fair one, and the sake of your father, I would
have died rather than have done it. But my time will come, if there be
any power of justice back of these villainous gods who demand such
things."

"I see," said Zillah, putting her hand upon his brow, as if to exorcise
some demon there--"I see that you, too, could be cruel, dear Hiram."

"Yes, cruel as any other human beast, until I can abolish cruelty. And I
will abolish it--abolish it by the sword."

He sat a long time in silent thought, then rose suddenly, exclaiming:

"But these are no scenes for you, my darling."

"Why not for me, if for you?" rejoined Zillah. "I am not a butterfly,
that must needs flit only in the sunshine. I would rather be like our
heroic Queen Dido, for all her troubles, than be a mere statue come to
life, like that which her brother, our King Pygmalion, made. Your cares
shall be mine, or I am not worthy to sit under the purple canopy of your
throne."

"Right royally spoken!" cried Hiram, in an outburst of admiration. "But,
for all that, I shall save you from such scenes and such priests, for I
shall decree that there shall be no gods--except that every man shall
have his own Astarte, and she shall be worshipped thus--" He laid his
ardent offering upon her lips.




CHAPTER VI.


An unusual throng filled the streets and the Great Square when the king
returned from the house of Ahimelek to his own palace. Priests were
everywhere. It seemed as if the ecclesiastical hives of half the cities
of Phoenicia had swarmed along the coast, and lit again on the rock of
Tyre. Some of these priests, with unkempt hair and mad eyes, were
haranguing the crowd; others were engaged in excited debate among
themselves. The palanquin of the king moved among the people as if it
were the ark of some strange religion; for, while a few glanced at it
with respect, many regarded it with rage, and scarcely restrained the
impulse to lay violent hands upon it. Egbalus and his devotees had
evidently done effective work, not only in disseminating their own
venomous spirit, but in organizing their various guilds for action in
emergency. The royal attendants noticed that a band of priests moved
just ahead of them, and that another band came behind, as if the king's
person were either honorably escorted or dangerously menaced. Still
another company of priests moved hastily, yet in order, away from the
palace gate as the king approached it.

Hiram was himself too much engrossed with his own thoughts fully to
take in what was transpiring beyond the closely drawn curtains of his
carriage. But, having passed within his own gate, he suddenly awoke to a
sense of some unusual environment that was being spun about him.
Entering his private apartment, he was possessed by that mysterious
power of clairvoyance through which one is made conscious of a presence
that is neither seen nor heard. He was impressed with the fact that the
room already contained an occupant. The instinct of danger, reinforced
by an acquired habit of vigilance, led him to place his back against the
wall, and his hand upon his dagger hilt. Uncertain of the loyalty of
even the private servants of his chamber, he determined to face the
unknown menace alone. He dismissed all his attendants, and closed the
door behind them as they made their exit. Prepared to strike at any
living thing that had dared to invade his privacy, he stood a moment
listening, and searching with his eyes every object which the thick
screen of the hanging lamp left in the shadows.

"Who goes here?" was his challenge.

A whisper came from beyond the curtains that shielded one end of the
divan:

"It is I, King Hiram."

"Why, Hanno! what means this? Are you mad? Is everybody mad?"

The low tones of his friend's voice bespoke continued caution. Hanno
laid his hand upon the king's arm as he said, "Let us first make sure
that we are alone. If I could steal admission here, others might."

He raised the shade from the flaming wick that floated in the oil. With
drawn weapons the two men searched every nook where there was
possibility of concealment. They were alone.

"You are in danger, my king. I anticipated no harm to you in the open
streets, for the priests are interested in protecting you there; but I
feared lest some of the devils might give you foul play here: so I crept
in, no matter how. You know the plot? No? It was further along than I
suspected when we parted this afternoon. You, Hiram! Oh, the treachery
of it! the cowardice of it! You, my king!"

Hanno's voice was choked with uncontrollable rage. "You--you are to be
the sacrifice to Baal!"

Hiram stood gazing stupidly into his friend's face. He heard his words.
He understood them, and yet he could not take them in. The power of
thought seemed paralyzed. Then, gradually, he came to realize the
meaning of what he had heard. At first he thought only of the indignity
offered his throne. Then, brave as he was, there came a tremor of dread,
as the horrid rites of the sacrifice filled his imagination. That
cruelty which he had refused to sanction, where the victim was the
humblest babe among his people, was to come upon himself! He saw himself
a bound and helpless victim. He felt the flames, but they chilled him
to the heart's core. For the first time in his life he was afraid.

The two men sat down together upon the edge of the divan. For a long
time neither spoke. Nor was it necessary. Rapidly the king put together
in his memory many recent occurrences. His keen judgment saw their
significance, and that they focused in the terrible fact which Hanno had
announced.

"Blind! blind! blind I have been; but I see it now," groaned the
stricken man. Then, starting from his horrible reverie, he strode across
the apartment. Pausing under the full glare of the lamp, he held aloft
his dagger:

"I swear before Baal that if he demands the sacrifice of the King of
Tyre, the King of Tyre shall be both priest and victim! My own hand
shall strike the blow; not theirs. And the altar shall be the dead body
of Egbalus. He first shall fall. I shall seek him."

He moved towards the door. His friend stayed him.

"You cannot go out. The house is closely guarded," said Hanno. "Egbalus
has filled the city with bands of Galli. They have been coming into Tyre
from the country around for days."

"I will cut my way through a thousand of them to the dock, and take to
the sea," cried the king, in the valor of his despair.

"It is too late," replied Hanno. "When I heard the decision of the
priests this afternoon I tried to arrange for that; but your biremes
have all been scuttled, and mine is stolen away. The very captains in
the harbor have been bedevilled by the priests. Brave fellows though
they are, like all sailors, they are superstitious, and believe that
Baal has put a curse on every wave for any one who would attempt your
rescue."

"Then, my dear Hanno, you too must go, and leave me to my fate. I will
not have my life if it endangers yours. Go! Appear as my enemy! Save
yourself! I will know that your heart is true, even if your hand should
tie the cords and cast me into the flames. Go!"

"Never!" cried Hanno. "Did not you and I see the flames when forty
thousand Sidonians burned their houses over their heads and perished
together, rather than fall into the hands of the Persians?"

"Then let it be so, Hanno! And right here will we emulate them. See,
this flame to this curtain, and this couch shall be our altar!"

As the king spoke, he reached the lamp from its hanging, and brought it
close to the heavy draperies.

"Hold!" cried Hanno. "This is no time for madness, but for cool heads.
The sacrifice cannot be for some days yet. Time breeds opportunities.
Let us watch!"

"For what?" cried the king, burying his head in his hands.

Nearly an hour passed in silence, broken at length by Hanno:

"Egbalus has made a prediction that, so powerful is the will of Baal,
the god will send the spirit of holy zeal into every heart in Tyre; that
the very rays of the sun-god to-morrow will inspire all they fall upon
with such acquiescence that every one would gladly take the place of the
sacrifice. As I came in here, only a moment before you, a herald was
running across the square, crying, 'The king consents! The king
consents! Praised be Baal!' The lying devil of a priest has already
perjured his soul with that counterfeit of the royal word."

"Ay, I did consent."

Hiram then related to Hanno the scene at the house of Ahimelek, where,
under misapprehension of its full import, he had approved the
sacrificial celebration.

"It is well, then," said Hanno. "Why not seem to verify the high
priest's interpretation of your assent? Apparently yield. It will divert
suspicion from any plan we might adopt."

The young men talked through the entire night, and in the early dawn
Captain Hanno, disguised as a market vender, was let out the great gate
with a good volley of curses from old Goliab, the porter.




CHAPTER VII.


The ensuing day was one of intense excitement in Tyre. At every open
space, on the walls, in the Great Square, at street corners, and
especially in the court of the temple, were priests haranguing the
people. Bands of Galli, the priests of Astarte, having set an image of
the goddess upon an ass, swarmed about it as it was drawn through the
streets, beating drums, blowing horns, cutting themselves with knives,
tearing out handfuls of their hair, and chanting--or rather howling--the
sentences of their wildest liturgy. Caught by the strange infection,
many private citizens openly renounced their secular vocations, and
joined the priesthood of Astarte.

Initiation into this order, according to an ancient custom, was
signalled by the candidate's breaking into a neighbor's house, where he
penetrated to the women's apartment, demanded a suit of female apparel,
and arrayed his nether members in this, leaving the shoulders bare. In
this mongrel attire the neophyte joined some roving band of Galli. The
dress was presumed to symbol a cruel rite by which the enthusiast had
made his priesthood more acceptable to the goddess.

Among the young men who appeared to have been especially filled with
the spirit of Astarte was Captain Hanno. He had stopped to listen to an
excited exhorter. Some invisible spell drew him closer and closer to the
speaker. His eyes became riveted upon the countenance of the priest, the
contortions of whose facial muscles he imitated. The orator changed from
speaking naturally to a singing rhythm, timing the variation of his
tones by a swinging motion of his body. In this he was closely followed
by the circle of priests about him. Captain Hanno wedged himself among
them. Shoulder to shoulder they stood, swaying now sideways, now
forward, now backward. With every motion the spell deepened. Louder and
louder they shouted, until shouts became shrieks. One after another fell
swooning to the ground. A priest grasped wildly at the blade of a sword
his comrade was waving, half severing his hand; but he did not heed the
pain. At a moment when physical exhaustion had produced a temporary lull
in the confusion, the priests recognized Hanno as a new-comer among
them. Instantly they cried:

"The stigma! Make the sacred stigma!"

They held towards him their knives. Hanno seized one of them, and dashed
the point through the fleshy part of his shoulder. The screeching grew
wilder as the priests saw this evidence of the power of their goddess.
Surely Egbalus's prediction was being verified, since the man who, of
all Tyre, next to the king, was noted for coolness and indifference to
religion, had become a convert! Suddenly breaking through the throng,
Hanno ran from street to street, followed by the priestly rabble. He
shook the gates of several houses which would not open to him. Up the
steep lanes he went, as if impelled by some fury. He dashed through the
gate of the house of Ahimelek, which flew open at his touch. In a few
moments he emerged. A woman's skirt, of richest texture, hung from his
waist and covered the upper portion of his legs, which protruded bare
and bleeding beneath. The blood still trickled from his shoulder and
smeared the garment. The Galli gathered about him. He broke out into
impassioned praise of Astarte, of Melkarth, of Moloch. In his ecstasy he
shouted every phrase that described divinity in the street speech of
Tyre. His celestial rage seemed inspired by the beams of Baal, which
were changed to molten fire, and poured through his veins. His eloquence
was prodigious. He clamored for more haste with the sacrifice. He
declared himself willing to be the victim. Then, abandoning the wildness
of gesticulation, he suddenly became rigid as a statue of porphyry, and
his face as red with the blood-flush of excitement. He swayed an
instant, then fell. The Galli caught him in their arms. They bore his
stiffened form on their shoulders to the temple.

Even Egbalus was astounded at such a tribute to his priestly astuteness
and power, and fairly croaked with delight as Hanno, returning to
consciousness, prostrated himself at the high priest's feet. The
addition to the priesthood of one who stood foremost among the Tyrians
for social rank and for naval prowess was an event to be appreciated
within the Temple of Baal.




CHAPTER VIII.


While these scenes were being witnessed in the streets of the city, King
Hiram, left alone by the departure of his friend Hanno, enacted within
his own soul a tragedy scarcely less terrible than that he feared. From
his impending fate he saw no way of escape. Die he must. He queried with
himself, what would it signify if he resented, even fought against, this
monstrous cruelty? What if he died by his own hand, or by the blows of
his captors? This would only throw over his memory a damning disgrace in
the estimate of the superstitious people. His name would be hissed with
imprecations, and become a by-word for impiety towards the gods, and for
selfish, cowardly indifference to the welfare of his country. Though he
were right in his views of religion, he would not be understood.
Posterity, except in remote ages, perhaps, would attribute to him, and
to his shrinking from the altar, all the misfortunes that might come
upon Tyre. Should he risk this? Did consistency require it of him?
Should he not submit to the inevitable with outward grace, if not with
the grace of a submissive spirit?

Then he thought of Egbalus. He seemed to see the sharp, triumphing eyes
of the high priest, gloating over this fulfilment of his prediction that
the god would draw the king to voluntary obedience. He saw the hands of
this plotter binding the people more slavishly to his will through his
victory over the only man who had ever yet dared to dispute the priestly
rule in Tyre.

"No! Let me die by my own hand first! Thou, hated priest, shalt never
conquer through me!"

He felt the point of his dagger.

Then a gentler emotion swayed him; perhaps it was the natural reaction
from the strain of excitement. He thought, "And may there not be gods in
spite of my doubts? I am but one man against a multitude. God cannot be
Moloch, for such a god is less noble than man. But surely there is some
One who is the mystery of existence; and does He not demand sacrifices?
The Jews have no idols, but have altars. The Greeks, even Herodotus, who
has taught me to doubt, worshipped his gods with sacrifice. If the god
is good, then surely we have offended him. If the god is not good, then
he is capricious, passionate, vindictive, and we had best humor him. O
Baal! or Jove! or Jehovah! accept my life, which I offer to thee! I
fling it forth into the great darkness. If there be light anywhere, may
I enter it! If there be no light, let the darkness blot me out of
existence. I give myself to god, or to oblivion."

He buried his head in the cushions of the divan. The sleepless night and
the unintermitting intensity of his mental struggle overcame even his
marvellous powers of physical endurance. He fainted or fell into a
dreamless sleep; he knew not which.

When he came to himself, he recognized by the nearly emptied globe of
the water-clock that it was late in the afternoon. He was surprised that
no one had called him. His servants had prepared no meals. How did they
know that he did not need them? He glanced into the mirror of polished
brass. How changed his features! He was pale and haggard as one of the
Galli.

Startled by his own apparition, he passed from his sleeping-apartment
into its anteroom. It seemed to be filled with the statues of men. Was
he demented? They moved towards him. One by one they fell to the floor.
Then the statue nearest to him raised its head and pronounced, in tones
of deepest awe,

"O holy sacrifice! Seven times blessed! Chosen of men! Accepted of our
Lord Baal!"

Then this one's head dropped to the floor. Each head was raised in turn,
and repeated the same words.

All the statues then rose. One of them was clothed in a long black
robe-- Could he mistake that figure? It was Egbalus. Bowing low, the
high priest spoke:

"The holy spell has been upon thee, O royal son of Tyre, son of Baal! As
thou wast lying on thy couch I saw a wondrous thing. All the souls of
the ancient kings of Tyre came again from their abodes in the world of
the dead. Each was like a shooting-star. They came from the dark bosom
of the night. They flashed across my vision and entered thy body. One by
one these starry kings came, until the last, thine own father. In thee,
O blessed Hiram! is all the royalty of Tyre. I saw, too, the great
spirit of Baal, like a globe of light, brighter than the sun himself.
Baal came and enclosed thee. The divine light penetrated thee, purified
thee, until thy body was light itself; bright even as the brightness of
Baal. This was thy consecration for the sacrifice. The flames cannot
harm thee, since thou art become light itself. But one duty awaits thee.
Come thou, O divine king, and consecrate with thy presence the temple,
the holy place of Melkarth. Then shalt thou enter the life of which Baal
is the fulness. Come!"

Hiram knew not whether this were a dream or a mocking reality. But it
mattered little which, since he had determined to outwardly obey and,
with Hanno, to watch.

"As thou wilt, O servant of our Lord Baal!" he replied: and, preceded by
Egbalus and followed by the attendant priests, he passed from his
palace.

The royal palanquin awaited him in the court. It had been covered with a
white cloth canopy and curtains which completely enveloped it, and
concealed his person from all eyes. The priests became his bearers. A
line of them marched ahead, playing lugubrious notes on pipes of reed,
above which rose the words of a chant. As the procession wound its way
across the Great Square the multitudes prostrated themselves on either
hand, murmuring prayers and benedictions upon the royal deliverer of
Tyre. At the temple gate the popular reverence and awe were evinced by
intense silence. Not a form swayed, not a foot was lifted, not a word
was spoken. Only the slow-timed tramp of the bearers of the royal victim
broke the stillness as the cortège passed between the massive gates,
which slowly swung upon their hinges and closed again.

For three days King Hiram remained alone in the chief chamber, that
which opened upon the corridor of the sacred lake. Priests incessantly
patrolled back and forth, saying nothing except their prayers. They
brought him food in golden dishes, and left it, removing the remnants in
the same reverential manner in which they would have served at the
altar.

As the silence of the day turned into the deeper silence of the night,
and back again to silent day, the solitude became unendurable. Only
royal pride prevented Hiram asking some question of his obsequious
custodians. When would the sacrifice be accomplished? Was there no
communication for him from Zillah? Could he bribe any of these bigots to
confer with Captain Hanno? Now he was tempted to rush upon one of the
priests, seize his sacrificial knife, plunge it into the man's heart,
and then into his own. He was once in this latter mood, and on the very
point of executing his purpose, when the priest who would have been his
victim began to mumble his prayers.

"I will wait until the wretch has got through that. He will need all his
prayers for his last breath," muttered the king.

The man beat upon his breast and tore his hair, as if in some sacred
frenzy. He came nearer to Hiram's chamber entrance, and paused in his
walking, with his back to the king.

"The gods favor me for once," thought Hiram. "Now to throttle him and to
strike!"

The priest raised his voice in praying, so that Hiram caught the words
"Take heart! Be watchful!" A sudden glance at the half-turned face
revealed the familiar features of Hanno. All Hiram's self-possession was
needed to restrain a cry of recognition. The next day the eccentric
priest appeared again, and paused to pray at the same spot. He stretched
out his hands towards the Maabed, and, as if addressing the deity
enshrined in the midst of the water, prayed thus:

"O Baal Hiram, King of Tyre! keep thine eyes open for the mark of a
circle, and follow it. O Baal Melkarth! O Astarte, Queen of Heaven! send
prosperity!"




CHAPTER IX.


Upon the mainland, adjacent to the island, had stood for many centuries
another city, which the people distinguished by the name of Old Tyre. A
hundred and fifty years before, its glory had departed, when it fell
conquered by the Babylonian Nebuchadnezzar. The dangers of its exposed
position on the mainland, as compared with the safety of the island
which the Great Sea guarded as a mighty moat, led the Phoenicians to
neglect the rebuilding of the old city. Its broken walls, fifteen miles
in circuit, were filled with the débris of once proud temples and
stately palaces. A few buildings of straggling architecture had been
hastily reconstructed with the blocks of stone that made the graceful
lines of an ancient mart or fortress. Shanties stood upon the dismantled
foundations, and scattered among the ruins were the black tents of
traders. A new market-place had been opened close to the shore, where
the many caravans that crossed the Lebanons from Damascus exchanged
their rich loads for those brought over the sea.

One of the most prominent ruins in Old Tyre was that of an ancient
temple of Baal. Superstitious reverence for the place had prevented its
use as a quarry, the fate of so many other ruins. Huge blocks of stone,
such as the Phoenician builders were famous for using in their gigantic
temples, loaded the ground; and concealed beneath them were subterranean
passage-ways, which the priests of old had used in going from one part
of the sacred edifice to another, unseen by the worshippers. These were
now the abode of jackals, whose domiciles were uninvaded except by the
flitting of the bats and the gliding of serpents through the narrower
crevices. On the plaza, which had been the court of the old temple, and
which was largely unencumbered with débris, rose a dilapidated image of
Baal-Moloch.

To Captain Hanno, in recognition of his accession to the priesthood, and
as a stimulus to the flagging zeal of others in the class of citizens to
which he belonged, was assigned the honorable duty of superintending the
preparation for the sacrifice; and he well exemplified the adage, "There
is no zealot so zealous as a new one." Under his orders masons relaid
the walls of the fire-pit beneath the statue. A gang of sailors rigged
chains for the moving of the brazen arms of the gigantic figure.
Brass-workers burnished the breast of the god until it dazzled the
beholder like a miniature sunset. Sidonian glass-makers furnished great
globes, covered with vitreous glazing, for the eyes which glared from
the bull's head that surmounted the human shoulders of the monster.
Pipes from the fire-pit were to convey the smoke through the nostrils.
Piles of wood were brought from the Lebanons, and casks of inflammable
oil were placed in readiness near by. Various enclosures were set up for
singers, drum-beaters, and trumpeters. Elevated platforms awaited the
guilds of civil dignitaries. Lines were drawn within which the priests
could congregate according to the different gods they served, and
display in pious rivalry, but without confusion, the insignia of their
varied worship. This spot was reserved for the devotees of Dagon, the
fish-god; that for Adonis, the god of the seasons. Sadyk, the god of
justice, was assigned here; and next to him his children, the Cabeiri,
had their places. Prominent provision was made for the priests of
Astarte, the moon-god, queen of heaven, and for those of Melkarth, god
of the city; while the open space directly around the image was reserved
for the officiants at the sacrifice.

The day for the solemnity opened with auspicious omen. The sun-god
poured down his lustre unbroken by a cloud. Though yet early summer, the
rays were intense and burning; suggestive of the wrath of Moloch, who
drank up the springs of water, withered vegetation, and threatened the
land with the horrors of a famine by drought, a calamity to be averted
only by appeasing his thirst with the blood of nobler victims.

The entire shipping of the port was arrayed in festive colors. There
were vessels not only of Tyre, but from the neighboring cities on the
Phoenician coast--Sarepta and Sidon, Byblus and Berytus, Aratus and
Joppa--vying with one another in the splendor of the devices by which
they exalted their various local divinities, while they attested their
common faith in the dread majesty of Baal-Moloch. Trading vessels from
Egypt and Greece, and from the far western coasts of the Great Sea also,
willingly hastened their coming or delayed their departure that, with
reverent curiosity, they might witness the stupendous rites.

The plan for the solemn cortège of vessels that was to convey the
victims for the sacrifice from Tyre to the place prepared on the
mainland, included a procession around the entire island, starting from
the Egyptian harbor, on the south, curving westward and northward
through the open sea, thence eastward, passing the Sidonian harbor, and
across the narrow space of water to the shore.

This line of movement symbolized the purpose of the whole ceremonial to
secure a blessing upon everything that related to Tyre's prosperity--her
homes, her arts, her commerce, as well as upon her temples and priests.
Along this prescribed course the Phoenician ships were anchored side by
side in double rows, between whose bows the sacred barges that conveyed
the gifts for Baal should pass. Of these barges there were three.

The first was laden with miscellaneous offerings. There were piles of
elegant garments, made of silk wrought on the looms of distant Persia,
and the finest linen of Egypt, which had adorned the persons of princely
men, or added fascination to the most beautiful women. With such
offerings the aristocratic expressed their humiliation before the god,
denuding themselves of their pride, even as they divested themselves of
their expensive apparel. Put as each valuable piece was marked
ostentatiously with the name of the donor, a sceptic might have thought
that the sinful trait of vanity lay deeper than the soft raiment had
touched. Jars of precious dyes were so placed that their dripping
contents stained the sea in the wake of the barges, attesting the piety
of the makers of such stuffs. Great sacks of ground spices were the
offering of a ship-owner whose vessel had gone around Africa and entered
the Gulf of Araby, where these precious treasures were procured. These
were flung in handfuls to the gentle wind, and loaded the atmosphere
with their aroma. There were also great mounds of fruit; birds of rarest
plumage; blooded dogs from the kennels of sportsmen; a goat with dyed
horns; a sheep with prodigious covering of wool; a splendid horse, the
gift of Prince Rubaal; and a bull with white feet, the special offering
of the High Priest Egbalus.

The second barge had a more precious freight--seven times seven mothers,
each fondling for the last time her first-born son, a little babe that
lay naked in her lap. Some of these women belonged to the lowest class,
the abandoned sort, whose maternal impulses were hardly above the
brutal instinct, and who were not averse to making a religious merit of
the infanticide to which they had been sometimes tempted in order to
escape the care of their offspring. Others among them were honest, but
abjectly poor, and had been persuaded by the priests thus to give their
children back to the All-giving Baal. A few made the sacrifice with
bleeding hearts. These sat in utter misery, staring as if for relief
towards the burning heavens, that gave no token of mercy. Around the
group of innocents was ranged a cordon of enthusiasts, who sang in
prayer to Baal, and again in wild refrain declared the god's reward to
those who willingly gave up their children--riches untold, and new
offspring according to desire in number, sex, and beauty; all painless
gifts, in compensation for the pang of their gift to Heaven.

The third barge surpassed all in the splendor and costliness of its
decoration. About its sides were ranged the statues and banners
representing all the gods of Phoenicia. In the centre rose an
altar-shaped throne. The royal chair was overlaid with beaten gold.
Above it hung a canopy of purple silk, the same that Trypho had dyed for
Hiram's gift to Zillah. The king sat on his throne as if he commanded
the pageant. His face was white, his lips compressed, his eye steady: a
king still, though seemingly done in marble. On his head he wore the
ancient crown of Tyre. In his hand was a sword of bronze, its bluish
blade exquisitely chased with the symbols of authority, and its golden
hilt thickly studded with gems. At the prow of the barge stood Egbalus,
arrayed in the most gorgeous vestments of his office, his hands
outstretched in continual prayer.

The imposing cortège made its way slowly; the barges being propelled
only by priests, whose sacred character was supposed to make amends for
their lack of skill in handling the long oars that were affixed to the
sides. The tall prows of the vessels that lined the course, as a guard
of honor, were surmounted with figure-heads representing the gods; and,
moved by the gentle undulation of the waves, these divinities seemed to
bow in acknowledgment of the superior honor of Moloch.




CHAPTER X.


Thus the sacred regatta moved over the prescribed course to the
mainland. Leaving the barges, the priests were marshalled into a vast
procession. At the head moved the trumpeters, their instruments pitched
to a wailing key, and giving forth long and monotonous notes. They were
followed by others, carrying the various articles that were to be
offered. Then came the living sacrifices. About the parents who were
bringing their children to the god, the singing priests formed a circle,
and drowned the weeping in the louder praise they shouted to Baal. The
throne of the king was placed upon an open platform, and, with its royal
occupant, was borne upon the shoulders of the most noted of the
hierarchy; the neophyte Hanno being honored with a place by its side,
and with a wand of authority as one of the directors of the ceremony.

During the passage from the landing-place to the presence of the idol,
the people were allowed to look upon their vicarious sacrifice. All
hatred and wrath had given way to the better emotions of reverence,
gratitude, and affection. The crowd pressed as close to the line as the
priestly attendants would permit, and there threw themselves upon the
ground, kissing the spot their king's form had shadowed, and gathering
up handfuls of the dust for sacred memorial. He was now their possession
as they had never thought when they called him their king; for he was
their substitute, upon whom were laid all their woes and fears; and soon
he was to be their god, when, through the mystery of the fire-offering,
he would pass into the sublimer mysteries of the glory of Baal.

A little way to the front of the idol had been erected a silken
pavilion, covered with devices and mottoes of religious import, which
were elaborately wrought with needle-work upon its floating walls of
crimson. This was the Holy Place, into which the great atoner, leaving
his throne, retired from the gaze of all, that in secrecy he might
prepare himself for the final offering; that, as Egbalus had said, his
soul might first pass into, and be absorbed by, the very being of deity,
before his body should be given to the outward image of the Unknown. The
high priest had declared that so thorough was the acquiescence of the
king in his own immolation that, when he should come forth from the
sacred pavilion and proceed to the flames, he would not be a mortal, but
only the semblance of his former self; his glory shielded as a cloud
shields the sun, lest the sight should blind the beholders.

As the curtains fell, secluding Hiram in the sacred pavilion, Egbalus
kissed the spot where the victim's foot last touched the outer earth.
Together with the attendant priests, he then retired from the proximity
of the tent, leaving a broad space about it unoccupied by a human being,
but penetrated by the gaze of thousands.

A long silence fell upon the multitude. A strange, oppressive awe of
what might be transpiring within stifled the very breathing of the
waiting throngs.

Then, suddenly, the blare of a hundred trumpets gave the signal for the
presentation of the offerings. The inanimate gifts were first placed in
huge piles upon the arms of the god, which, being lowered, dropped them
into the flames beneath. Next, the living animals of small size were
laid bound in his hands. The horse and bull were first slain, their
blood poured over the arms of the idol, their hearts thrust into his
open jaw, until, shrunken by the heat, they fell into the pit, and were
consumed with the remaining flesh.

Then followed a stillness as of Sheol itself, broken only by the sobbing
of the women who approached the image, each bearing her child in her
arms. One, overcome by her contending emotions, fell fainting, but a
priest instantly seized the child, and laid it upon the hot hands that
shook it into the flames. Some staggered on with closed eyes, guided and
goaded by the attendants. Some sang, in half-crazy ecstasy, the wild
refrain of temple hymns, swaying their babes in time with the rhythm,
and, without assistance, ascended the steps and presented their
sacrifice. As babe after babe disappeared through the smoke, new waves
of excitement poured over the crowd; hot waves of delirium, burning out
humane instincts, and firing that rage of beasts which is latent in all
men. The crowd yelled in frenzy. The priests, with their long knives,
gashed their bodies, and, filling their mouths with their own flowing
blood, spit it forth again in the direction of the god.

Then, as the last babe was offered, the grand expectation brought the
multitude to silence. Egbalus approached the holy pavilion. He raised
his hand. The note of a single trumpet, finer, sweeter, yet sadder than
any other, floated over the throng. It was repeated, with louder sound
and more prolonged. Again it rang forth with full blast, and was
answered by one borne over the water from the Temple of Melkarth in the
island city. Then the high priest stood with uplifted hands. It seemed
many minutes to the people, whose excitement was scarcely endurable.
Turning to where the folding curtain indicated the entrance to the
pavilion, Egbalus cried with loud voice,

"Come forth, O thou accepted of Baal!"

He instantly prostrated himself on the ground. The priests in the front
row of spectators fell prone upon their faces. In the crowd every neck
was stretched and all eyes strained to catch the first glimpse of the
sacrificial hero.

But the curtain of the pavilion did not move. Was not the victim's
prayer yet completed? Was he so absorbed in communion with his god that
he had become oblivious to what was outward? Or did he flinch now at
the fatal instant? Perhaps the god had become his own priest and
stricken him, or sweetly drawn his consecrated spirit from his body! Was
he already dead?

Egbalus rose slowly from the ground, keeping his eyes upon the curtain
to note its first flutter. Again he struck his most august attitude, and
repeated the invocation:

"Come forth, thou accepted of Baal!"

He prostrated himself as before. But still there was no response.

The high priest rose again. He advanced, and touched the curtain, but,
evidently overcome by a feeling that it were sacrilege, or perhaps by
the dread of some mystery beyond his solution, or some ghostly power
raised by his word, but not amenable to it, and that would not down at
his bidding, he withdrew. He beckoned the dignitaries next in rank to
himself, among them Hanno, and with them held a consultation. They were
evidently as puzzled as he.

A third time the solemn invocation was pronounced, but with the same
futile result. Egbalus then, with pretence of bold exercise of his
office, but with manifest trepidation, laid his hand upon the curtain.
Hesitatingly he drew it aside. For a moment he stared into the shadows.
He advanced a step, then suddenly retreated. He looked about him as one
bewildered and uncertain how to act. He motioned to the nearest priests.
They came reverently, answering the perplexed face of the high priest
with looks of equal curiosity and alarm. One by one they looked into the
pavilion. Then they raised their hands as if Heaven alone could account
for what they saw.

_The Holy Place was empty!_

"The god! the god has taken him!" said Egbalus, in half-dubious,
half-credulous voice.

"The god has taken him!" shouted Hanno, and ran towards the crowd,
wildly throwing his arms. "Let us die with him!"

He grasped for his priest's knife. It had fallen from his belt. He beat
his breast, and fell in convulsions to the earth. Some of the people
fainted with fright. Others covered their heads with their mantles, as
if to shut out some stupendous apparition.

At this terrible moment a new portent occurred. The colossal image of
Baal shook. Its metal folds creaked one upon another. The ground
trembled as if from the convulsion of some subterranean spirit. The idol
tottered, and fell half-way to the earth. The priests, wild with terror,
ran shrieking into the crowd. Panic seized the multitude, who trod upon
one another in their haste to get away from the dread proximity. Many
were maimed as they fell among the great stones of the old ruin that
covered the ground, and some were crushed beneath the trampling feet, or
smothered under the accumulated mass of helpless humanity piled above
them. Only when they had reached a distance did the fleeing men pause to
look back. Egbalus alone remained near the pavilion. He seemed to have
been transformed into a statue. At length he moved, not to follow the
awe-stricken fugitives, but to enter the pavilion! Such halting steps
did he take that one might have imagined him drawn by some invisible
power which he was trying to resist.

"The god has taken the high priest also!" cried Hanno, who had recovered
sufficient self-possession to raise his head and look; but,
horror-stricken by the sight, he buried his face in the dust.

A venerable priest advanced from the cowering throng midway the open
space, and raised his knife with a loud cry:

"I, too, would come to thee, O Baal!"

He plunged the gleaming blade into his own heart. Scores of knives
flashed in the hands of the demented priests about him, as if they,
also, were waiting the audible summons to follow.

Suddenly Egbalus reappeared. He beckoned those nearest. He called for
Hanno, but the new enthusiasm had proved too much for the neophyte,
untrained to such deep emotions, and he lay a heaving heap of
unconscious devotion. Egbalus selected two attendants, and with them
re-entered the Holy Place. Would the god have more? No; Baal was
satisfied; for, see! the three priests emerge, not one of them blasted
to a walking cinder, nor ascending in a flame of fire. They talked
excitedly. Egbalus lifted his hand.

Suddenly the long blare of a trumpet announced the termination of the
sacrifice. The crowds were not allowed to re-enter the enclosure, but
betook themselves, some to Tyre or to their ships, some over the hills
to the inland villages, others along the coast--on foot, in litters, on
mules and camels and stately steeds--all scattering, to astound the
world with their reports of the miracle.

The setting sun flashed its red rays upon the leaning figure of Baal,
that seemed to bow in obeisance to the god of day. Only the priests
remained to watch until Astarte, smiling in the crescent moon, wrote her
benediction with the silvery beams she threw over the scene.




CHAPTER XI.


Had King Hiram vanished into the mystery of Baal? No. He had vanished
under a mystery of Hanno.

When Hiram entered the sacred pavilion the place was exceedingly dark by
reason of the heavy curtains that enclosed it, and the glare of the
outer light that he had just left, for the instant, prevented his eyes
from adapting themselves to their new environment. By degrees his power
of vision was regained. He observed that the tapestried walls were
wrought with the various symbols of worship; the sun of Baal, the moon
of Astarte, the fish of Dagon, the star of Adonis, and the like. Beneath
his feet lay a rug of silken shreds, pure white. He threw himself down
upon this to collect his thoughts; to gather up his strength for the
final act in this terrible tragedy. Surely Hanno's hopeful words had
been merely to cheer him; they meant nothing, or his friend's plans for
his rescue had miscarried. There was now no escape.

He prayed; to whom? He knew not; but still he prayed. For what? Not for
himself; it was too late for that. He prayed for Hanno; that, in the
desperation of his love, he might not attempt to make good his pledge of
dying with his king; that he might be restrained from making a useless
assault upon the priests, or from throwing himself into the flames. Then
he prayed for her who was more to him than life--for Zillah. He gathered
up his whole soul in a loving thought of her, and laid it--where? Upon
the highest altar in the highest heavens, if there were any such place
where pity for mortals existed. Then, as the sweet face of his beloved
one filled his imagination, a tear fell--the first during all these days
of agony; for the bodily humors seemed to have been dried by the hot
fury of his grief. The tear fell upon his hand. He bowed to kiss it,
because it fell for her. As he did so, his eye caught a spot of gleaming
red in the white rug. Mechanically, without definite purpose in doing
so, he traced the red line as it ran through the silken nap. It took
shape. A wing!--and a circle! It was only a half-conscious thought--"The
Winged Circle," such as was used as a religious device by the Persians,
and was also carved on the stone architraves of some temples of Astarte.
Then the full thought flashed upon him, "The mark of the circle!"
Hanno's sign! Was it designed?

He raised the rug. A similar mark was rudely scratched upon a broad
stone that lay just beneath it. He felt the edge of the stone. It moved.
A tilting stone! He lifted it a little. A cool and dank air rushed out.
This, surely, was a door into some passage! By a little exertion he was
able to swing the stone upon its edge. Adjusting the rug over it in
such a way that it would again cover the stone when restored to its
horizontal position, he let himself carefully down through the opening.
So strong was the draught of air that he scarcely needed to feel his way
by touching the wall on either side, but guided himself very much as he
had sometimes done when, on a dark night at sea, he helmed his ship by
feeling the wind against his cheek.

He thought of this just for an instant, but it was long enough to think
of Hanno too, as, in their last sail, they had steered the craft
together. He could not restrain a subdued cry of gratitude.

"Noble fellow! Thy hand is on the other oar, as thou didst pledge. Thou
art the only god that is left to me!"

For a little way he crawled over and around the débris that obstructed
the labyrinth. Then he felt the space enlarging. A smooth pavement was
beneath him. With extended hands he hurried forward. He heard the roar
of fire, and knew that he was passing near to the pit beneath the image
of Baal. A hot gleam shot through a crevice. It revealed a door of
bronze covering an old entrance into the pit, through which anciently
the priests had been accustomed to feed the flames. The door moved as he
touched its hot surface. He opened it a little, that the light might
illumine the passage. In the glare he saw several stout pieces of timber
standing upright. These had been recently put in to brace the great
idol, the foundation of which had given way on that side. Hiram took
this in at a glance--he had time only for a glance, for the flames burst
forth upon him and drove him away before he could close the door. The
fire caught the timbers, and, a little later, consuming them, toppled
the image above. But of this he knew nothing, as, taking advantage of
the light, he plunged on through several hundred cubits of open way.

The passage he had followed ended in a small chamber into which
struggled a ray of daylight. Here lay a coarse skull-cap of leather and
a ragged chiton--a mere bag with holes at the bottom for the head and
arms, the only garment worn by the poorest herdsmen. By the side of it
was a club of heavy wood, knobbed with great spikes at one end--the
ordinary weapon with which the herdsman defended himself and his flocks
from prowling beasts. A little wallet contained dried dates and thin
cakes of black bread; another was filled with small coins.

To divest himself of his princely clothing, don the chiton, and tie the
bags about his waist beneath it, was the task of a moment. Then on he
went, working his way like a mole between the great stones that, in
confused ruin, would have blocked his progress, had he not been guided
by his faith in the prevision of his friend Hanno.

Gradually the air became purer. It revived his strength and courage.
Light came in through an opening which was screened heavily by a clump
of bushes beyond it. These guarded the northern end of the passage from
the inspection of any one without. Crawling through a crevice in the
rock, he emerged cautiously, concealing himself amid the dense foliage.
The bushes grew in a little cleared space about which were piles of
stone, which had anciently walled a portion of the temple. He crawled
like a lizard to the top of the stones and raised his head. He was far
beyond the crowd, whose faces were all turned in the opposite direction,
watching with absorbed attention for his reappearance from the sacred
pavilion. Over the stillness he heard distinctly the shrill voice of
Egbalus, as it cried, "Come forth, thou accepted of Baal!" His impulse
for flight was checked by tragic curiosity. The contagion of the general
excitement caught him and held him almost spellbound. Danger always had
for him a fascination; at this moment he felt it reinforced by a sudden
passion for revenge. Why not join the crowd, work his way through it,
dash into the cleared space, smite the high priest to the earth, and
hurl his hated carcass into the flames? What if the priests then cut him
into ten thousand pieces? It would be worth dying for. Why not be a
Theseus to his people, and slay the Minotaur in the person of its most
devilish representative? His brain reeled with the thought.

A wild cry of the multitude recalled him to his more cautious judgment.
The people surged back. The great image toppled. Ah! how grimly he
guessed the reason!

The crowd turned in his direction. Was it in flight? or had he been
pointed out, and were they cutting off his escape? He gripped his club
to brain the first who should climb the stone heap behind which he had
taken refuge. As some came near he noted their terror-stricken faces,
and knew that they were not seeking him in this direction, but fleeing
from him yonder where he was a superstitious embodiment of their fears.
Then a fiendish humor came upon him. He took the dirty cap from his
head, and, bowing towards the distant figure of Egbalus, said:

"I obey, O priest of Baal! Lo, I have come forth!"

He climbed down the farther side of the pile of ruins; paused a moment
to rub handfuls of dirt over his hair and face, his clean-skinned legs
and feet; then, swinging his herdsman's club, he ran away, outstripping
the most cowardly fugitive from the dread scene.

He looked for no new mark of the circle, for the country was well known
to him. Often had he dashed over these fields on his horse after the
fox. Here, as a boy, he had practised the sling at the running jackals.
Yonder lay the road to Sidon, over which, in princely company, he had
gone to discharge some duty of state, or more frequently to join in
aristocratic revelry with the young nabobs who lived in the favor of
Prince Esmanazar. This road he dared not take.

To the east rose the mountains that walled so narrowly the plain to the
sea. In them were hiding-places, but they would be speedily searched.

Beyond the first range, between the Lebanons, a broad valley was open to
the north, but that was a highway of traffic. The caravans were passing
up and down it. He could not trust himself there, for in every company
would be some one whose eyes were sharpened by the hope of reward for
his capture.

Galilee was not far away, populated by a mongrel people, composed of the
relic of ancient Jewish stock and the colonists who had come from
Babylon. To the south was Samaria, and beyond, the land of Judea, her
tribes long ago carried away by Nebuchadnezzar, but now returning to
fortify again the heights of Jerusalem.

Westward shone the Great Sea, glowing with prismatic colors under the
brush of the setting sun. Once upon the sea, he might be safe. But the
road that lined the coast would be crowded with those returning on foot
or in chariots from Tyre to Sidon. If he could pass them, how could he
procure a ship? His present garb would awaken suspicion, if he even
talked with any of such a purpose.

Oh, for another mark of the circle! But there was none in the sand that
burned his naked feet, and none in the sky, now fiery as with the wrath
of the outwitted sun-god.

On he went, scarcely thinking whither, except that the sort of instinct
which leads wild animals, when pursued, to double on their tracks,
prompted him to turn, making a detour to the east to avoid the
scattering crowds; then working his way south, for the first pursuit of
him was sure to be north, in the direction of his escape.

South of Old Tyre ran for miles a ruined aqueduct terminating in a
reservoir. All the conduits of the latter he knew well, having but
recently spent a day in company with an engineer exploring it, with a
view of utilizing it in increasing the water supply of Tyre. Here he
could be safe until the night darkness threw about him its all-covering
shield.

His determination to hide was confirmed by observing two Galli at a
distance. They evidently had him in their eyes, for, though their road
was different, they kept coming near, as if by subtle purpose. He raised
his club, and, balancing it carefully, flung it far in the opposite
direction, accompanying its flight with the cry of the shepherds when
frightening a jackal. He ran at topmost speed after the missile. As he
stooped to pick it up he noted that the Galli had turned back. He was
safe from them, but would be safer if he learned the lesson, and made
himself invisible. The old aqueduct might become his fortress. Peering
out between its disjointed stones, he could inspect the field, and at
any moment drop into a conduit and make his exit far beyond.

Night fell about him. Its shadows winged his feet, and its cool, crisp
air freshened his vigor as he ran.

In the thickening darkness, a huge object loomed suddenly before him.
Startled for an instant, he paused, but a second careful look enabled
him to recognize it. It was the tomb of Hiram, his great ancestor, the
most famous of all the kings of Tyre. Five centuries had drifted over
it, wearing away the very stone as by the friction of the years, but
only brightening the fame of him who lay within it.

If the living cherish the memory of the dead, do the dead have no
interest in the living? It seemed to the young king as if the very dust
within that great stone box must move with pity for him. Would the great
king curse him for refusing to become a sacrifice to Baal for the
welfare of Tyre? The mighty dead had been a worshipper of the gods of
his people, but surely not with such cruel and bigoted frenzy as that of
the priests now. The great Hiram had been the friend of the Judean
kings, David and Solomon. He had built for them the temple of their God,
Jehovah, though the Jews believed in no blood-loving Moloch; nay, they
cursed the abominations of the Phoenician worship, as they cursed the
other idols of the nations, and swept them from their land. Surely Hiram
the Great would be a liberal monarch, were he living. A blessing seemed
to drop into the young Hiram's soul from the white form of the marble,
that clear-cut its shape out of the black night.

He climbed the lofty pedestal, and stood beside the upper shaft. It was
but a moment he lingered, yet time seemed to halt, while the olden ages
came back and passed in review before him, all grand with Phoenicia's
prowess, since first his people taught the nations the alphabet, and
pioneered the commerce of the world. Dark clouds came up on the horizon,
and blotted out the bright early stars; and so, he thought, death's
oblivion had buried one by one his ancestors, the kings of Tyre; yet
their glory was untarnished, even as these stars will shine out again,
and shine forever. But himself! Would not his flight from death blot his
honorable memory in subsequent generations?

Suddenly the clouds parted, and the bright evening-star glowed in the
east--the star of Astarte, Queen of Heaven, Goddess of Love. As he
watched, it was again obscured. Then Hiram thought of Zillah, whose
soul, purer than light, had set in his dark destiny. He clenched his
hands as if to crush the edge of the stone beneath them, and swore a
horrid oath, in which writhed all the black passions of his being; an
oath at the star, at Astarte, at Baal, at all the powers that controlled
the world, or at that blind chance that drifted its affairs. Then the
star emerged again. It floated into a large lake of blue. Was it an
omen? He worshipped it, and called it Zillah. He noted that it floated
westward from over the Jews' land. Then he prayed:

"O spirit of Hiram, guide thy son! O spirits of David and Solomon,
befriend the son of Hiram! O Jehovah, God of Israel, give me welcome to
thy land!"

A wind stirred the dry grass that grew about the tomb. He leaped from
the pedestal and ran. Turning from the highway, he threaded a path up a
deep ravine. Moloch's fierce beams had drained its brook nearly dry; but
in pools he found enough of tepid water to slake his burning thirst, and
to wash away some of the heat of his throbbing temples.

Then on! He climbed the bank, that he might straighten his course. He
passed a cave. Although he could see nothing within its dark opening, he
knew that its walls were carved with symbols of the Egyptian religion,
made during the passage of the army of a Pharaoh many centuries before.
He prayed to all the gods of Egypt, if any might perchance be sojourning
or travelling near. He knew that he believed in none, but, in his
extremity, did not dare to admit his incredulity, lest peradventure they
might be real; and he needed even the shadows to help him now.

Then on! A moment he stopped to placate with gentle tones a dog startled
from sleep beside a shepherd guarding his flock. Again he turned far
aside from the path, that he might avoid a tent whose lamp, burning all
night, told that all its inmates were living. Inadvertently he came
close to a hut shrouded in darkness, from which he was warned by the
voices of wailing. He had no sympathy for such bereavement, since
Nature, more kindly than men, had only exacted her due, and no horrid
idol of Baal stood before the door.

The night seemed interminable, so many terrors massed before him,
through which he must cut his way with naked soul. For men and beasts he
had begun to lose fear, when suddenly a new menace appeared. The earth
seemed to open before him. He descended a step or two cautiously. The
ground was hot, and burned his bare feet. Strange! for the night air had
chilled all else. The earth was hard and sharp, like the refuse heap
near some factory of bronze. Chinks opened. Fire gleamed. Strangling
gases were emitted. Had Moloch stirred up the gates of hell to join in
pursuit of him? There came a roar not unlike that he had heard when
passing the fire-vault of the idol, but deeper and more vengeful. The
earth trembled. Great stones rolled down the sides of a precipitous
bank, and with them he was hurled headlong. Whither?

"Moloch! Mercy!" was his cry.

Then all was dark.




CHAPTER XII.


A pleasing light shone through the darkness of that nether world into
which Hiram had been so suddenly precipitated. The light was broken by
soft shadows, as of gently fluttering leaves. The brightness made his
eyeballs ache; the shadows soothed them, so that he could endure to
look. Great protecting arms were stretched above him. These assumed the
shapes of limbs of a terebinth-tree. Had he passed through the gloom of
Sheol into some brighter realm of life? Perhaps the Greeks were right in
their hope of the Isles of the Blessed, carpeted with perpetual verdure,
gemmed with flowers, and canopied with softest skies. To one of these
isles had his spirit floated? This could not be, for over him he clearly
saw a dead branch of the terebinth, and there could be no decay in that
happy world.

His illusions chased one another away, and were all gone when,
attempting to move, sharp pains tortured him, and inflicted him with
full consciousness that he was indeed in the body. He was lying upon a
couch, soft with feathery balsam tips, and covered with a wolf's skin.
This he could feel beneath his hands. He glanced about him. A low, but
long and rambling, black tent of goat's-hair cloth stood by, its nearest
end just at the edge of the shadow of the terebinth. The tent poles and
cross ropes were so arranged as to form a roof of three gables,
answering to the interior division into three compartments. Several rude
but substantially built huts were evidently used for storing provisions.
A stone enclosure served as a fold for sheep. Without these evidences of
more permanent occupation, the tent would have indicated a settlement of
those nomads who, with hereditary roving habits, have always lodged in
the lands east of the Great Sea; or of those inhabitants of towns who
adopt this mode of life during a portion of the year, that they may live
among their flocks and herds on the mountain slopes, or cultivate a
tract of rich meadow-land far away from their ordinary abodes.

Hiram had scarcely taken in so much of his surroundings, when he was
aware that a light form moved suddenly and silently away from his side.
He caught a glimpse of a white garment--the common dress of both sexes
alike among the simple peasants. Had his observation been more alert, he
would have detected a pair of most gracefully modelled feet, and limbs
bare almost to the knees; a head uncovered, except for the rich mass of
jet-black hair that was gathered loosely into a node at the back; a face
of exquisite contour, swarthy from exposure, but radiant with health and
kindliness.

"Father, he has waked!" rang out a sweet child-voice. And Hiram heard
it add, subdued by distance and anxious emotion:

"Father! He will live again, will he not?"

A voice, strong and deep, but kindly even to tenderness, responded:

"Jehovah be praised! I will come."

A heavily built man approached the couch under the terebinth. He was
slightly bowed with the years that had chronicled themselves by the gray
lines in the long beard which fell far down upon his bare breast. His
legs and arms were uncovered, and showed that strength had not deserted
the slightly shrunken muscles. His face, though weather-beaten and
wrinkled with cares as with years, was a beautiful one, beaming with
intelligence and soulfulness; one of those rare faces that fascinate
children, but can command men--such is the combination of affection and
dignity they reflect from the abiding disposition behind them. His eyes
were deep-set beneath heavy brows, and seemed the home of lofty and
generous sentiments, suggesting those crystal springs in shady dells
which good spirits have always been traditioned to inhabit.

"The Lord be with you, my son!" was the old man's hearty salutation, as
he came and looked down upon the stranger.

"Are you not able to talk?" he kindly inquired, noticing that Hiram made
no response, and unwilling to think his silence discourtesy, as it
would have been regarded had the one addressed been fully himself.

Hiram stared at the face of the old man, in painful effort at
recollection both of the questioner and of himself.

"Where am I?" he inquired, endeavoring to raise himself upon his elbow.

"Nay, be quiet, my son!" replied the other, laying him gently back upon
the couch. "It is enough for this day that you know you are safe, and
under the roof-tree of Ben Yusef."

"Ben Yusef? I do not know you." Hiram gazed intently at him, as if to
replenish from the intelligent face his own vanished power of thought.

"Ay, Ben Yusef, of the tribe of Judah. You are, indeed, a stranger, not
to know the tent of Ben Yusef, of Giscala."

"Giscala? In the Jews' land?"

"Ay, and in Galilee. You must have been badly hurt for so shapely a head
as yours to have been knocked out of its whereabouts. I had thought Ben
Yusef's tent as well known as yonder rocky pinnacle of Safed, which
guides travellers from afar. But who are you, my son?"

Hiram glanced at his own herdsman's clothes. He felt the coarse texture.
A tremor shook him, as if from the passing of some horrid dream. He
replied:

"I am what you see me."

"Nay, my son, thou shalt not bear false witness, even of thyself,"
replied Ben Yusef. "A shepherd's feet are not so easily torn as yours
have been. Your hair has the odor of ointments that are not of the
cattle-pens, and your hands are not hard in the spots where the
sling-strings cut. Besides, no sheep would have been so silly as to
venture into the crater of Giscala for you to seek them there. The dumb
beasts have fled from it for weeks past. The volcano is getting ready to
break out again, and the lightest-headed bird will not even fly over it.
Only a man driven by some demon to seek death would have plunged into it
as you did. Besides, your speech is not that of the herdsmen; nor, for
that matter, of any dwellers in the country about. It is that of the men
of the coast. Though we use the same tongue, there is as much difference
between our accents as there is difference between the grass that grows
on these spring-fed meadows and that of the salt marshes by the sea."

Hiram showed evident alarm at these suspicions, and made an effort to
rise, that he might venture another flight. The old man gently, yet
strongly, restrained him, and placed his head again upon the bolster as
he added, kindly:

"Nay, then, do not speak if the truth is not for my ears. Ben Yusef's
tree is broad enough to shadow both you and your secret."

"But I must not burden your hospitality," said Hiram.

Ben Yusef knit his brows in evident displeasure, but quickly rejoined,
with a smile:

"You shall not burden, but bless me, my son. Our patriarch Job said,
'The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me.' And never
saw I man that was nearer perishing than you."

The old man raised his eyes reverently to heaven as he added:

"The Lord deal with me and mine as I deal with this stranger!"

It was the merriest of voices that interrupted this conversation:

"Abba!"

The syllables flowed with all the sweetness of bird notes, charged with
the tenderness and fulness of human love.

"Abba! Abba!"

"Yes, my child."

"Shall I bring the drink?"

"Bring it."

The girl balanced a large jar upon her left hand, supporting it by the
graceful shaft of her forearm, which in turn rested upon her right hand.
The weight of the jar brought the muscles of her arms into graceful
prominence, and her easy motion betokened that agile strength which is
seldom displayed except by those whose freedom of life, as among
peasants of mountain regions, makes work easy and exhilarating.

"The _leben_ is all of the big goat's milk, and, with the leaven in it
since yesternight, should be strong and quickening. Shall I give the
drink?"

"No, my child. Haste with the supper. Elnathan will soon be in from the
fields, and as hungry as Esau. Haste, and the memory of thy mother
bless thee!"

As Ben Yusef watched his daughter retiring to the tent, a lusty halloo
rang through the air, and a form appeared upon the hill-top. It seemed
gigantic, so large a portion did it cut from the glowing western sky
beyond; and, though it diminished as it approached, it still showed a
strong, thick-set, over-tall fellow, in the first flush of manhood, the
down on his chin hardly consistent with the gnarled muscles upon his
legs and arms. He came at once to where Hiram lay, and accosted him with
a good-natured familiarity which, though rough, did not conceal the
essence of gentility that lay beneath it. He took Hiram's hand into his
own, and pressed it as if feeling for the fitful pulse.

"I knew you would come to life rapidly when once you started. Judging
from your running last night, you have wind enough to outstrip the death
angel. I was yonder, watching the crater, when you dashed by me. You
made a streak of light through the darkness as a flitting ghost does. I
thought you must be Elijah, showing the other prophets how he ran when
Jezebel and the priests of Baal were after him; and I believe you would
not have stopped short of Beersheba if you had not tumbled into the
crater. Couldn't you see it, or smell it, or feel it? Perhaps you had
drunk too much leben among the sheep-boys in the mountains. They make it
there strong enough to whirl a man's head off; but I never knew it to
make one's legs fly as yours did."

"Hush, Elnathan!" interrupted the old man. "Your tongue runs faster
than our guest's legs ever did, and makes as great blunders. What news
from the mouth of Sheol, for the brimstone on your garments tells you
have been there?"

"The volcano has been less active to-day, father; but neighbors Isaac
and Hosea both think it will break out anew. They remember how it was
years ago. The big mound is like the whale with Jonah in his belly. It
only wants a little more tickling with the fire to vomit forth."

"Have you watched it all day?"

"No. As this poor fellow could not tell us what he was running from, I
have been searching back on the path he came; but I can find nothing to
harm one." He lowered his voice. "The fellow must have been crazed. No
sane man would put that dirty shirt over so trim a body, or wear his
hair, which is curled like that of a gallant from Tyre, under the filthy
cap I found by him. I think he is from Tyre. They were to have had a
great sacrifice--some say of the king himself. This man looks like some
courtier who has gone daft with excitement. He surely thought the
volcano fire was under some sacrifice to Moloch, for I heard him cry, as
he fell, 'Moloch! Mercy!'"

"Do not breathe that thought, Elnathan," said Ben Yusef. "He is to us
only what he seems. The Lord has been merciful to him. In Israel's land
his secret belongs only to himself and our God. I charge you, Elnathan,
by the Lord God of Abraham, who spared Isaac on Moriah, that you speak
not your thought."

The night grew chill. Ben Yusef and his son carried the couch and the
sick man under the shelter of the tent. Hiram was exhausted by his
excited wakefulness, and soon fell into a slumber, during which the
little household partook of their evening meal.

When he awoke he was conscious of the presence of the young girl alone,
who sat under the lamp that hung at the doorway of the tent, and who
answered his every movement with a look towards him. Ben Yusef and
Elnathan sat without. A neighbor joined them. As he was approaching the
tent, Hiram heard the father enjoin his son to make no mention of their
stranger guest.

"He does not come to us as the angels came to Father Abraham at his tent
door," said Elnathan.

"Who knows what form angels take?" replied the elder. "The angels came
to Abraham's tent hungry and thirsty; why should not one come to us as a
sick and wounded man?"

"From the way the volcano is acting," said Elnathan, pausing to listen
to the rumbling earth, "I think he has come as the angels came to Lot in
Sodom before the Lord destroyed that place with fire and brimstone.
Maybe our guest will startle us before morning with the cry, 'Flee to
the mountain!'"

They rose and welcomed their neighbor, with whom they conversed until
late in the night, for the imminence of danger from the volcano
suggested watchfulness.




CHAPTER XIII.


From the conversation that Hiram overheard, supplemented by
after-information, he learned much of the family history of his
benefactor.

Ben Yusef's father had belonged to one of the captive families in
Babylon, who, taking advantage of the decree of Cyrus, had returned with
Zerubbabel to their ancestral land. Ben Yusef himself was born in
Jerusalem; and, though he deemed himself a faithful Jew, had not chosen
to resist the charms of a Samaritan maiden, a descendant of the
colonists whom Nebuchadnezzar had sent from Hamath to repopulate the
land made desolate by the deportation of the people of Israel. When
Ezra, the Great Scribe, arrived at Jerusalem with his new bands of
devotees, and endeavored to enforce his mandate against marriage with
any not of pure Jewish stock, Yusef had opposed him, feeling at first
that this was but a device by which the newly arrived would override the
descendants of those who had originally returned with Zerubbabel. Though
afterwards he became convinced of the honesty of Ezra's purpose, and of
the sincerity of his patriotism in wishing to purge Judaism of all
elements foreign to it, he could not believe, as many did, in the Great
Scribe's inspired wisdom in this regard. So pure and strong was Ben
Yusef's love for Lyda, his wife, so beautiful was she in character, so
true even in her devotion to Israel's god, and so many blessings had she
brought to him, that he could not expel the belief that Jehovah had
indeed favored their union. To accede to Ezra's demand that he should
divorce Lyda, or by any compact separate from her, seemed like striking
the hands which God had extended in benediction upon them both. Lyda was
not a concubine, as Hagar had been to Abraham. He therefore would not
send her away, but chose rather to go with her when she was expelled
from the gates of the city.

But still Ben Yusef was a Jew. He loved the traditions and shared the
hopes of his people. He therefore would not leave the Sacred Land, but
took up his abode in the far northern portion of it, among the Scythian
colonists whom Nebuchadnezzar had settled there. He built no house for
permanent abode, because he believed that the time would come when he
should return to Jerusalem.

Lyda had died. His first mourning over, he proposed to return to the
capital, but was confronted by the fact that her children would be
counted as of impure blood by the aristocratic and stricter caste of
Jews. He would not subject them to such disparagement, and therefore
unpacked his already laden beasts of burden, drove again his stakes,
and stretched his cords. The very names of his children were intended
to be a protest against what he thought to be the narrowness of the
Jewish rulers. "Elnathan" signified "Given of God," and when the little
maiden came he called her "Ruth," after the famous Moabitish woman, whom
the faithful Jewish Boaz wedded and made the ancestress of King David.

But no quarrel with the rulers at Jerusalem could alienate his
patriotism or dim his larger hope in the coming glory of his people. His
soul thrilled with all the good news of prosperity in the sacred city.
He sent his contributions regularly for the temple service, and, when
able, made his pilgrimage "thrice in the year" to the festivals. When,
some twelve years before the date of our story, Nehemiah had come from
Susa to assist in rebuilding the temple and the walls, Ben Yusef had met
him on the way; indeed, had entertained the new governor as loyally as
his purse and peasant habits made possible. This act had cost him much
of the goodwill of his half-heathen neighbors, and forced him to a more
isolated life than before; for he was now looked upon as neither Jew nor
Gentile.

As Hiram caught partial information of what the reader now knows more
fully, he felt that Ben Yusef was a man who might understand and
sympathize with him in his expatriation, and consequently rested more
complacently. Yet he was persuaded that it would be wise voluntarily to
divulge his terrible secret to no one. If it were discovered, it would
be time enough to acknowledge it, and claim the kinship which common
persecution had made between him and his host.

The night passed in safety. The volcanic activity vented itself beneath
the ground, which trembled as if ten thousand chariots were driven over
it.

Strength came rapidly to the wounded man. He had prayed to Jehovah, and
an answer came either directly from the "God of the land" or indirectly
through the invigorating atmosphere of this hill-country; and was not
Jehovah the "God of the Hills?" Surely Hiram had heard Ben Yusef singing
a psalm of worship as the morning dawned: "I will lift up mine eyes unto
the hills, whence cometh my help!"

Ben Yusef again and again indulged his curiosity in such questions of
his guest as his sense of hospitality allowed. These Hiram cautiously
answered. He admitted that he was from the coast; that he was in
disguise and flight because of dissent from the doctrines of the
Baalitish religion; that he had voluntarily reduced himself to the
humble condition of a herdsman, rather than endure the degradation of
his conscience.

To all this Ben Yusef responded with lofty and generous emotion. He
eloquently told the story of ancient Israel; of the grand historic
triumphs of Jehovah among his chosen people; of the great patriarchs; of
the birth of his nation when, under Moses, the people had fled from
Egypt; of the valor of the Judges; of the glory of the Kings; of the
sins of the people in admitting Baalitish customs; of the Lord's heavy
curse in selling the nation into captivity to Babylon; and of the return
under permission of the Persians, the new masters of the world. He
spoke, too, with prophetic rapture of the day that was sure to come,
when a new King, greater than Solomon, the Lord's own gift to his
people, would spread the nation from the Euphrates to the Great Sea; or,
as their psalm had it, "from the river to the ends of the earth." The
venerable man's face shone as he enlarged even that vision, and spoke of
peace and righteousness filling all lands--even the fields breaking
forth into singing.

The substance of this story of the Jews' land and people Hiram had heard
before; but the old man's ardor impressed it with such vividness that
the listener seemed to see the unrolling scroll of history merging into
prophecy, and could not repress a feeling of the enthusiasm which the
speaker conveyed with his words, his gestures, and his looks.

Two days passed. Hiram had recovered from the weakness, which came more
from the shock of his emotions than from actual bruises. Ben Yusef read
the thoughts of his guest as he would now and then suddenly start at
some unusual sound, or hide within the inner room of the tent at the
approach of any neighbor. His observant host guessed that the patient
would be freer of heart if the day could be spent away from the
possibility of meeting with men.

Hiram, therefore, as strength returned, eagerly accepted the proposal
to accompany Ben Yusef in searching for some stray sheep upon the
mountains. The bracing air and the exhilarating views tempted them on.
They climbed the grand pinnacle of Safed. Here, nearly two thousand
cubits towards the heavens, no one could follow without being observed.
On the summit the old Jew gave wings to his memory and faith, as free
and strong as the wings of the eagle that started from its eyrie on the
crag. There, to the north, were the waters of Merom, by the shore of
which Joshua smote Jabin, King of Hazor. There, to the south, stood
Tabor, from behind which Deborah, the prophetess, with Barak for her
captain, had deployed against Sisera, when the very stars swung from
their courses, and beat the enemy with their baleful omens. Yonder, to
the east, rose Carmel, a mighty altar of the Hebrew's faith, where
Elijah had drawn fire from heaven to shame the priests of Baal. And
there, far beyond, gleamed the waters of the Great Sea, making
indentations upon the coast, but beaten back by the great docks of Tyre
and Sidon, as Baalism washed away at times the true religion of Israel,
but was beaten back by the valor and enterprise of God's true people.
Down there, almost beneath their feet, shone the pearly surface of the
inland Sea of Galilee, over which hung splendid prophecies yet to be
fulfilled; for the great Isaiah had declared, "The land of Zabulon, and
the land of Nephthalim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, in
Galilee of the nations. The people that walked in darkness have seen a
great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon
them hath the light shined."

The old man's purpose had been, at first, only the diversion of the
thoughts of his companion, for he feared that his recent experience,
whatever it had been, had really affected his mind. But as he spoke he
became himself carried away with his theme. Hiram easily encouraged him
to continue, and by his appreciative questions led him to speak of the
higher spiritual truths of the Jews' religion. What he said of the human
sacrifices especially interested his hearer.

"Our father Abraham, living among those who offered their children to
the deity, was once allowed by the Lord to think that he, too, must
offer his son. To the rocky dome of Mount Moriah he led his beloved
Isaac; bound him upon an altar; raised the knife to slay him; when the
Lord's voice cried to him out of heaven, 'Lay not thine hand upon the
lad;' and, turning quickly, the trembling father saw a ram caught by the
horns in a thicket, and offered it instead of his son. That rock is now
the base of the great altar in the temple court at Jerusalem. All our
worship means this--the Lord God is a Father. He wants no suffering
sacrifice among men. If sin needs atonement, God's own gracious heart
will make it. He wants only man's contrition and love. The Lord is my
helper; not my hater. The Jews' sacrifice really means that there is no
need of sacrifice, except what Heaven itself shall provide. It is an
offering in gratitude, not in penalty; an offering to praise, not to
appease, the Judge of all the earth."

Ben Yusef's face beamed with an almost unearthly beauty as he spoke. His
voice trembled, but was sweetened, too, by the great depth of his
emotion. He uttered no formality of faith. His words were no echo of
men's thoughts. They had, as it seemed to Hiram, a double source of
suggestion--from heaven above, and from the profound experience of the
man's own soul.

Hiram could not help contrasting this peasant with the great Herodotus.
The Jew's philosophy seemed deeper than the Greek's. And it was not only
philosophy, but an inner life, a feeling, a knowledge. The Greek had
pushed away some shadows; the Jew stood out in the light. The Greek's
thoughts were formed with beauty, as his statues were carved from the
stone; the Jew's thoughts were immense, and untrimmed by human art, like
the rocky pinnacle of Safed upon which they stood.




CHAPTER XIV.


Towards nightfall they descended the mountain, and were nearing the home
tent.

"Listen!" said the old man, putting his hand upon the shoulder of his
comrade. "That is the very soul of our religion--a song in the heart
that sends a song to the lips, as the fountain comes bubbling from the
full veins in the earth."

A sweet, strong voice rang up through the ravine, to the top of which
they had come. Ben Yusef's eyes filled with tears. "So like her mother's
voice," he said.

It was Ruth who was singing:


     "Jehovah's my Shepherd; I'll not want.
     In pastures green he makes me lie,
       By restful waters leadeth."


Before the girl stalked a great dog, large enough to tear a wolf. He
pricked up his ears, stopped, threw back his head, then with a bound
broke through the bushes and climbed the shaly bank to where his master
and Hiram were standing. Ruth followed as nimbly as a goat.

"You will be so glad," said she to Hiram, "for somebody who knows you
has found you. He described you exactly in face, and said you spoke the
tongue of Tyre. He would not have me come to meet you, and when I
started followed close behind, until Anax got between us. The dog sat
right down before him, and showed his great teeth if the man moved a
step."

Ben Yusef glanced quickly at Hiram, asking with his eyes a score of
questions without the need of a word.

"Yes," replied Hiram, "I must fly at once. Only shield me by your
discretion, as you have by your hospitality."

"You shall not fly from the tent of Ben Yusef," said the old man, with
protesting vehemence. "My life will shield you, and, if the danger be
great, in an hour Elnathan can summon a score of our neighbors. We have
learned, in these troublous times, to combine for mutual protection. One
bugle-call over these hills, and, as the stars come out one by one, but
before you can count them all are there, so man after man, with ready
weapon, will move out from the darkness and surround my tent. And woe to
the intruder who cannot give our shibboleth."

"I cannot accept the protection of such brave men, nor yours, since it
would surely be revenged by fiends who work in the dark, and who are
relentless in their hatred. Let me fly while I may endanger only
myself!" said Hiram, gratefully grasping Ben Yusef's hand.

"Wait at least until the night blackens. Secrete yourself anywhere.
Elnathan will find you. You will know of his approach by the hoot of
the owl he has learned to imitate. You may need his knowledge of
by-paths. But, above all, in the land of Israel trust in Israel's God.
He has said, 'Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night, nor for
the arrow that flieth by noonday.' 'He that keepeth Israel neither
slumbers nor sleeps.' Farewell until brighter days!"

Night fell too rapidly for Hiram to get far away. Nor was there need,
for the base of the mountain had been torn by earthquake and freshet
into a hundred hiding-places. The chief danger was from wild beasts
rather than from men. He chose a deep cleft which he observed to have a
double opening, from either of which he could depart if the other were
menaced. He had not waited long before the hoot of an owl sounded.

"Amazingly natural!" thought Hiram. He had once prided himself upon his
powers of mimicry, and now he would essay a trial of skill with
Elnathan.

"Too-whoo! too-whoo!" he echoed back.

"Too-whoo!" rang out from a crag quite distant. A moment later it came
again, but this time from another direction. Then from another.

"The peasant is more deeply learned in bird-speech than I," mused the
listener. "He throws his voice from cliff to crag, from ravine to
tree-top."

Hiram ventured another call. Scarcely had the sound escaped his lips
when the air hummed; a pair of dusky wings whirred close to his head,
and a black object settled on the edge of the rock above him.

"I did it well," he congratulated himself, "to have brought the bird to
me as a mate. Welcome to my nest, Sir Owl, for I think you are a
restless soul like myself."

The bird flew away. But other companionship came. A rattling of stones
down the ravine told of some one's approach. Hiram's success with the
former hoot emboldened him to challenge Elnathan again.

"Too-whoo!" rang and re-echoed.

"But what a shriek!" said a voice not far distant. "I have heard that
the owls in these mountains are the ghosts of dead Jews let out of Sheol
for a night airing."

"I can believe it, and that they are all damned ghosts, too, if that
owl's voice shows his feeling," rejoined another.

The stones rattled again.

"The curse of Baal-Hermon on the traitor's head for leading us on such a
road as this," said one who had evidently stumbled and fallen among the
rocks.

"Call on some other god, for the mountain god must have spent all his
curses in making such a land as this. Try Beelzebub, the god of flies,
for it would take a gnat to find the king in these narrow paths,
branching everywhere. But I don't believe he went this way. The girl
gave him warning. He has gone back, or taken the road to Hazor, and will
make for Kadesh and Baal-Gad, and across the spur of Hermon to the
highway for Damascus. We will do better to follow that. The addle-headed
lout at the tent said that was the way most open, and he must have told
the king the same, for he hadn't wit enough to invent two ideas."

"But we cannot find that path; at least not until the moon rises. Let us
wait here."

The two men sat down close to one of the openings of Hiram's retreat.

"The sacrifice should never have been at the image of Moloch. Melkarth
is Lord of Tyre, and, had it been at the temple, Melkarth would never
have allowed him to escape."

"If he did escape!" said the other.

"You doubt it, then?" replied his comrade.

"Yes, for it cannot be proved, and the people all believe that Baal took
him."

"The people be cursed! But the priests do not believe it. Baal does
wonders, but, so far as I have seen, he never does wonders that the
priests cannot understand. And Egbalus himself shook his head when we
asked him, and looked very wisely as he pointed to that tilting stone."

"True!" replied the other; "but Egbalus bade me explore that underground
passage. I did so until I came nearly under the god, when the way was
utterly blocked. No human being could have gone farther without being
changed into a ghost."

"If he changed to a ghost, he will change back again; and I think some
of our knives will find him to be as veritable flesh as ever butcher
cut in the shambles. But, hist! Somebody comes."

"Too-whoo!"

"By the horns of Astarte! The owls are as big as horses here, judging
from the way the sticks snap under their feet. An owl-headed man, I
think. Back into the crevice!"

One of the pursuers came close to Hiram. In an instant a knife sank from
the man's throat to his heart. A sharp cry was its only signal.

"What is it, comrade?" asked the other, feeling his way in to offer
assistance.

Hiram, having by daylight observed the turn of the crevice, slipped out
of the other opening, and, giving signal, joined Elnathan. A moment's
consultation was sufficient for their plan. Each entered an opposite
opening of the crevice. As the living priest confronted Hiram,
Elnathan's strong fingers were upon his throat. The man struggled
impotently, as a sheep might have done in the hug of a bear. They drew
him into the open.

"Harm him not," cried Hiram. "He has never harmed thee. His life is
mine. Know, thou villainous priest, if it will be any comfort to thee,
that thou diest by the hand of thy king. And take my challenge to Moloch
himself, if there be any such being in the world of the damned."

The sentence was not completed before the knife had done its double
work.

Hiram in a moment recognized his own unwisdom in his hasty speech, and,
turning to Elnathan, said:

"I cannot take back the words you have heard. They tell more than I
should have told. But, as you saved my life once at the volcano, you can
preserve it only by forgetting what you have heard. Pledge me this, as
you trust your God for grace."

"Nay," said Elnathan, "I think I shall best serve you by remembering it.
I could have guessed as much from what I overheard these two now dead
priests say, if I had not guessed it before. The ravine beyond the tent
is famous for its resounding walls. The crawl of a lizard can be heard a
hundred cubits. These wretches took their supper at one end of the
gorge. I was beyond the bend. They might as well have whispered into the
end of a shepherd's horn. Your appearance as you lay on the cot under
the terebinth, your mutterings in fevered sleep, and what these rascals
said to each other, I put together into a story of the miraculous escape
of King Hiram of Tyre from being burned alive to Moloch. Now, my good
friend, we have no king in Israel. I swear to you, King Hiram, all the
loyalty a Jew can offer to any Gentile--the loyalty of man to man. Your
secret is mine, and my service is yours. So help me, God of Israel!"

Hiram was unable to respond at once to this. When he did, it was to
grasp both the big hands in his own, and say: "But one other man like
this lives."

"Ay, my father," said Elnathan.

"And one more," added the king.

He would have kissed the hands of Elnathan, but the noble fellow
withdrew them.

The moon appeared at this instant, the leaves and limbs of the trees
marking themselves in sharp and moving outlines against her huge red
disk, as she shone through the mists that hung over the low-lying lands
by the Sea of Galilee.

In the excitement and previous darkness, Hiram had not noticed that
Elnathan was strangely transfigured. He was dressed as a Persian
soldier. He wore a stiff leather hat, whose round top projected forward;
a leather tunic, close-fitting, with long sleeves; leather trousers,
which disappeared at the ankles within high-topped shoes. At his belt
hung a short sword, or rather a huge dagger. He carried also a spear,
the light shaft of which served as a support in walking.

"I have brought you these," said the Jew. "Years ago, when Nehemiah came
from Susa to Jerusalem, one of the soldiers whom King Artaxerxes had
sent with him sickened on the way and died at my father's tent. These
were his trappings. He begged that he might be buried in the
winding-sheet, according to the custom of the Jews, whose faith he had
embraced. Your herdsman's shirt is not a prudent disguise, especially
since some of your pursuers have already tracked you in it. Besides,
your very figure belies it. Sword-play and sceptre-holding give a
different grace from that of clubbing swine; and it would take full
twelve moons to grow a head of hair shaggy enough to make even a sheep
look at you without suspicion. Our good King David might as well have
played the shepherd with his crown on."

As he talked Elnathan divested himself, one by one, of his martial
garments, and made Hiram put them on.

"And now, have I not performed a princely part myself?" said he,
laughing. "For it was our Prince Jonathan who, when he had found out
that David was really born to be a king, 'stripped himself of the robe
that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his
sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle.'"

Elnathan then described carefully the paths leading eastward; the deep,
winding wadies that debouched into the Sea of Galilee; the rock of
Akhbara, rising five hundred cubits, like an enormous castle, cut by
nature into a hundred hiding-places; the towns on the shore of the
little sea. He gave the names of men of kin to the house of Ben Yusef,
or known to be trusty, to whom Hiram might appeal in case of extremity.
To Hiram's repeated pledges to reward him as a king should, when better
days came, the Jew replied:

"The Lord is our reward in all things."

"Tell me," asked Hiram, "does your God teach you to do such things as
you and your father's house have done to me, a stranger? for it was not
to a king, but to a stricken wayfarer, you did it from the first."

"Yes, it is the command of our God, who taught it by the holy men he has
raised up to lead our people. Our patriarch Job said: 'The stranger did
not lie in the street: but I opened the door unto the traveller.'"

"But," interposed Hiram, "if the stranger were not merely a stranger;
rather one, like myself, of a hostile race, as you Jehovites must regard
the Baalites of the coast?"

"In heart you are not of Baal. Our God knows his own; and he has given
to some of his people a wondrous power of detecting all true souls. My
father, Ben Yusef, through much communing with the Lord, seems to be
possessed of such spiritual sight. As you lay under the terebinth,
before you came to your senses, my father cautioned us, saying: 'The
favor of the Lord is upon this stranger. What we do unto him will be as
if done unto our God.' Besides, did not the Lord give your life into my
keeping when he bade me look the moment you fell into the crater? Did he
not give me daring to go down into its very fires, and strength to carry
you out? I have looked into that pit of brimstone since, and surely man
alone could not have rescued you. And did not our God, at my prayer,
give back your breath, that the hot air had burned out of you? Your life
is mine, and must I not guard it as I would my own life? If harm should
come to you through my neglect, I would not dare to pray to our God
again as long as I live."

"Strange people!" said Hiram, half musing within himself. "In the tent
of a shepherd I have learned more than all the world could teach me. I
know nothing of gods, but I can pray one prayer to the God of Israel. It
is, that he will bless the house of Ben Yusef forever."

"Amen! And the throne of Tyre!" said Elnathan, as the two heartily
embraced, and stood gazing a moment into each other's moonlit faces.

Hiram started on his way. He had gone but a few paces, when the Jew
recalled him.

"I may serve you further. Let me go with you, or let me follow you, that
I may watch for you against dangers."

"It must not be."

"Then give me some sign by which, if evil comes upon you, I may know
that you have need of me."

Hiram paused a moment before he replied:

"Then let the sign be the mark of a circle. Farewell!"

He quickly disappeared through the shadows of the night.




CHAPTER XV.


The morning found the fugitive by the Sea of Galilee. Massive ruins
lined the road along its western and northern shores. These were the
memorials of the days before the Babylonian captivity. Blocks of stone,
pretentious in size and over-ornamentation, evidently dated from the age
of the great Solomon. Other blocks were inferior imitations of these,
and were made, doubtless, in the times of the later kings. Within the
foundations of an ancient palace were loose stone cabins, belonging to
the poor inhabitants, who gained a precarious living by adding to the
scanty yield of the ground the better gleaning of the sea. Here and
there clumsy fishing-boats, drawn upon the beach or floating idly on the
water, told of the decadence of the arts and enterprise that had marked
preceding times. Only nature was untouched by the degenerating
influences of the age; and, fair as upon the day of its creation, lay
the water, unrippled by the slightest breeze, mirroring the deep blue of
the sky, like an immense piece of lapis-lazuli, in the setting of the
encircling mountains.

The silence and motionlessness of the sea imparted themselves to Hiram.
The rush of events and the intense excitement of the past few days had
almost exhausted the active energies of his mind. As the strained
strings of an over-used lyre give no sound, so he seemed no longer able
to respond to even the rude alarms of danger. He was fleeing now, not
with any sense of fear, but solely with the momentum of past impulses,
as the heart sometimes continues to throb and the lungs to heave when
conscious life has ceased. He realized his own mental condition. He felt
the moral inertia. He said to himself: "I believe I would not move if
Egbalus pointed his sacrificial knife at my heart. I could walk into the
arms of Moloch." He could understand somewhat how the priests succeeded
in preparing their human victims for unhesitating obedience at the fatal
moment. He saw how the will becomes paralyzed by the strain of the
previous terror, and how the wretched devotees lose the susceptibility
to recoil even at the steps of the altar, as the leaves of the
sensitive-plant, frequently rubbed by the fingers, no longer shrink at
the touch.

In this condition of mind, the stillness of the sea was very congenial
to Hiram. It invited him as a kindred spirit. Out upon its placid bosom
he could rest, without the necessity of arousing himself every moment to
pass judgment on things that appealed to his suspicion. There, too,
after yielding himself for a while to the soothing influences that
lulled the air and water, he could plan for the future, instead of
taking his cue, as heretofore he had been compelled to do, from the
movements of his pursuers. Should he go across the desert to Damascus?
to the plains of Babylon? to the court at Susa, and throw himself
beneath the protecting shadow of the Great King? to the solitude of the
Sinaitic mountains? Or should he seek the coast of the Great Sea, and
cross to Greece? Whither, when, with a few more turns, like those of the
hunted fox, he shall have thrown the Baal-hounds off the scent?

And Zillah! How her fair face shone in every bright thing he looked
upon, and her frightened, agony-drawn features stared at him out of
every gloomy object! There was so much to think about. And on the sea he
could think. Perhaps Jehovah would help him think, or maybe speak to
him. Such a beautiful lake as this must be sacred to him who is god of
mountains and water and sky alike. Yonder where the sea blends with the
distant shore, and the shore rises until it blends with the sky--surely
that must be the meeting-place of earthly and heavenly influences, if
gods ever commune with men.

Musing thus, he observed a fisherman's hut near by. One wall had once
belonged to some palatial structure; the others were made of such broken
stones as a man might carry from the heap of ruins that lay about it.
The doorway of the hut was faced on the one side with a column of
marble; on the other, with a polished slab of granite. In front of the
hut was an oven; the half of a huge porphyry vase, inverted, served for
the fire-back, and gave direction to the draught. On some coals a woman
was broiling fish. On a flat stone, lying half in the fire, and covered
with ashes, a man was baking thin sheets of yellow dough, to be
subsequently rolled into loaves of bread. Several others were lounging
near, sleeping and bedraggled with the fishing of the past night. They
welcomed Hiram with a grunted salâm.

"Peace be to you!"

"Peace!" "Peace!" said one and another, scarcely raising their eyes, as
if the apparition of a Persian soldier were too common to awaken
interest. An elderly man, coming from the hut, eyed the new-comer more
attentively.

"Another man from the coast of the Great Sea, eh! Our Persian masters
are hiring Phoenicians to be soldiers as well as sailors. But it takes
more than change of skin to make a wolf of a fox; and a man from the
coast can never pass with me for one from beyond the desert. The west
wind blows you fellows inland as it does the salt-water gnats. But sit
by, and the Lord bless you! especially if your purse is lined with
darics."

Though this speech was not assuring, Hiram, with his recent memories,
could not distrust a Jew. He gave his entertainers some good-natured
repartee, though their words had cut far deeper than they knew.

"Stranger!" said one, "tell us your story of that miracle at Tyre."

"I have not heard from Tyre for many a day," replied Hiram. "I am in the
king's business, and have been going up and down in your land for a
time. What was the miracle?"

"Ha! ha! Think of old Benjamin telling the news to a Phoenician who
boasts that he knows everything! Why, they were going to offer up some
prince or other--or was it a priest, Ephraim? No matter which. Well! the
gods saved them the trouble. The sun grew bigger and bigger, and came
down nearer and nearer, until he opened his mouth and swallowed up
prince, priests, and five-score attendants. I would not believe it but
that Ephraim here, who had drunk plenty of leben that same day, says he
saw the sun come bobbing down at him while fishing on the lake."

Hiram surprised himself at the heartiness with which he laughed at the
story, and matched it with one he pretended to have heard some Jews
relate as belonging to their national traditions. "Your great general,
Joshua, one day was taken with a chill in the midst of a battle. He
could not even give the commands, but only chattered with the cold. Then
he bethought him to order the sun to come down and hang just over his
head. It floated there like a red-hot shield until he had killed every
man among the enemy. But who told you of the miracle at Tyre?"

"Why," said Benjamin, "the priests themselves. Two were along here
yesterday."

"They were not priests," said Ephraim.

"They were, though," rejoined Benjamin. "Mother Eve once mistook a snake
for an honest creature; but I know a snake's wriggle and a priest's
wriggle, in whatever disguise they may be. You could not be a priest of
Baal if you tried, stranger. Your face is too honest. But those fellows
yesterday--at least one of them--could not cast his priest's skin,
though he was dressed like a merchant. He looked as if he wanted to
glide down under the stones there, as they say the Baalite priests live
half the time in the vaults under their temples, pulling strings to make
their gods move, and talking up through holes to answer the prayers of
the silly people."

"What were they doing here in the Jews' land?" asked Hiram.

"They said they were searching for a young Tyrian who had fallen heir to
a fortune, who was travelling hereabouts, and did not know his good
luck. May be you are the happy man."

"I wish I were," replied Hiram, "if for no other reason than to get rid
of a very disagreeable journey. I must cross the lake at once, and go as
far away as Bozrah. The king's business keeps one as lively as a flea. I
must have a boat."

"You have only to pick it out; we have enough lazy fellows to sail it,"
replied Benjamin, rising and looking along a row of boats.

"I would go alone," said Hiram. "I can leave with you the price of the
boat against my getting wrecked, or being swallowed by this terrific sun
of yours, whose heat must make him thirsty enough to drink up your
little sea."

"Despise not its littleness," replied the Jew. "It is as strong as the
very dragon in the sky when it gets to rolling and writhing under the
Lord's frown."

"A Phoenician can tame any sea 'twixt Tyre and Tartesus. The heaviest
winds that roar over Galilee would be only as the song of a sea-bird to
a sailor on the main," said Hiram.

"Leave, then, your money, and sail it or sink with it, as you like,"
replied the rough fisherman.




CHAPTER XVI.


Hiram's experience enabled him to select the best among the boats,
though it was one of the smallest. A package of smoked fish, a pile of
thin bread cakes, and a bag of dates sufficiently provisioned his craft;
and within a few moments he had pushed from shore.

As he did so he observed two strangers approach the group he had left.
They conversed a little with the fishermen, then suddenly turned and
watched his receding boat. Though several hundred cubits away, he could
not mistake the bearing of one of them, who had not the stiff manner of
a man used to toil in the fields, nor the firm but elastic step of a
soldier, nor the swinging gate of a sailor, nor yet the dignified grace
such as is soon acquired by a merchant, whose attire this man wore.
Hiram appreciated the keen detective instinct of Benjamin, for he too
could not mistake the priest of Baal under that secular disguise. The
mental habit of doing everything by indirection comes to impart itself
to the physical motions, just as habitual secretiveness and hypocrisy
show themselves in the face. Besides, the temple service calls for
little use of the muscles, and an old priest's body is not
symmetrically developed. That would-be merchant could have come from
nowhere but some temple. His every motion seemed ajerk with the bigotry
of his business.

Hiram felt a tinge of pride in his powers of observation that was not,
perhaps, fully warranted; for, though he had no recollection of having
done so, he had often seen this same man among the priests at Tyre. It
was a case of unconscious memory.

The other man was not so unique a specimen; indeed, having seated
himself while the other was walking about and gesticulating, he was in
better concealment. "But crow flies only with crow, and priest with
priest," thought the king.

Hiram had gained two furlongs from the shore, when the men came to the
boats and prepared to follow him. Only heavier craft than his were left;
but there were two rowers against one. They rigged the long oars, one
swivelled on either side of the vessel, and each requiring the full
strength of a man to wield it. One oarsman was awkward, but the other,
by strength and skill, made up for the deficiency of his comrade, and by
an alternate strong pull and back-water dip of the blade kept the boat
steadily ploughing ahead, and slowly gaining upon the fugitive.

For Hiram to reach the eastern shore before being overtaken was
impossible. He laid his plan. It was this: at the moment of contact to
turn suddenly, and with the prow of his boat crash against the oar of
the inexpert priest, break it, and glide off, leaving the heavy craft at
the disadvantage of having but one propelling blade. The odds would then
be with him.

Suddenly a dark shadow fell upon the water near the western shore, just
beneath the gap in the hills. The shadow elongated itself like a serpent
emerging from its hole. Beneath it the water began to roll in billowy
convolutions. The turmoil spread until, within a few moments, the entire
lake was transformed into a vast caldron of boiling waters. The storm
waves on the Great Sea were higher, but they were also longer, and more
readily mounted than these. The Galilee boats, too, were utterly
untrimmed for such an emergency, as the fishermen were accustomed to
strike for land at the first sign of a storm, and danger made them alert
to anticipate it. But to Hiram the wind-blow was a godsend. He invoked
Jehovah's blessing, and raised to its place the log that was called a
mast, and swung from it the heavy square sail of goat's hair.

Let the storm drive him where it would! He would rather die a victim of
the elements than fall under the gloating hatred of Egbalus's crew of
demons. But he did not expect to die. The storm-shriek was like a bugle
blast, thrilling his courage. He shouted in triumph as he went bounding
over the waves. A Tyrian king! A sea king, indeed, was he!

In the exhilaration of the moment he almost forgot his pursuers. But
glancing back through the dense spray, he caught a glimpse of a heavy
prow not far in his wake. Above it hung a great sail that seemed like
some black-winged spirit driving it onward to fulfil its accursed
mission. The vessel disappeared an instant in the blinding mist, only to
reappear a full length nearer. A moment more, and fate would ring down
the curtain upon this tragedy.

But Hiram determined that the exit should be a climax, if there were any
ghostly spectators to applaud; and drawing his dagger, he caught it in
his teeth, and waited. Fast as they flew, the waves rolled faster, and
poured over the low stern of his vessel. Crossing a shoal, the huge
billows mounted higher, and one of immense size hovered an instant in
air, like the jaw of some great behemoth pursuing its tiny prey, then
fell upon the boat, swallowing her in its remorseless maw.

Hiram was prepared for this, and, being a tireless swimmer, kept afloat
while he was flung through the breakers. His pursuers came on. Being
higher in the stern, the great waves caught and hurled their boat across
the shoals. Hiram cursed all the gods when he saw that, and even taunted
Jehovah as the hated craft flew past him.

But a moment later he became as pious a Jew as he had been a blasphemer;
for the flying boat suddenly stopped; her mast bent forward; she
swirled, careened, and sank.

Hiram could not see the shore through the blinding spray, but the
billows were wings for him, and he was sure of holding out though the
entire lake were to be crossed.

The wind in an instant died away. The spray as quickly ceased to fly
from the broken crests of the waves. The billows rolled, but seemed to
have lost their force. They lifted him gently, and allowed him to glide
onward. The shore was there, not a hundred strokes distant.

But what was his consternation to see, scarcely three boat-lengths from
him, a swimmer as strong as he. It became a race for life. Hiram had
kept his dagger in his teeth. He dived, intending to come up beneath his
antagonist and plunge the blade into his body. But either he
miscalculated the distance, or the man, discerning his purpose, had swum
out of harm's way.

It was now a question which should first reach the shore and seize his
opponent with fatal advantage. Hiram's strokes were tremendous,
surpassing those that had won him the match so often in the harbor of
Tyre, before the dignities of the crown had forbidden his taking part in
such sports. But they were now of no avail. His competitor kept abreast
with him. They reached the shore almost at the same moment. Hiram,
striking a better footing, was first out of the water. Seizing an
enormous stone, he turned to crush the skull of his enemy before he
could gain a foothold on the shelving beach.

"My king! My king!" cried the man.

Hiram dropped the stone in bewilderment.

"Hanno! As sure as Baal--as Jehovah lives, it's Hanno!"




CHAPTER XVII.


An hour later a white chiton might have been seen hanging heavily in the
sultry air from the limbs of a juniper bush, that grew out of a sandy
mound between two great boulders on the eastern shore of the Sea of
Galilee. Under the shelter of the rocks were two men, the one having on
only a pair of leather trousers; the other, but for a close-fitting
shirt, entirely nude. This was not the most decorous position in which
to find the King of Tyre and his aristocratic nobleman; yet they both
seemed supremely, even hilariously, happy. King Hiram had completed the
story of his adventures; and Hanno, donning his chiton, entered upon the
account of the events that had occurred recently at Tyre.

The priests, he said, after consultation, and with some misgiving as to
their policy, agreed to encourage the popular belief that King Hiram had
been bodily translated to some heavenly world by the favor and power of
Baal. They boasted thus a greater miracle on the part of their god than
those reported in the olden times of the exploits of Jehovah in Israel,
who took Enoch, Moses, and Elijah away without their seeing death. For
several days the Tyrian populace held high festival in devout
celebration of this astounding event. The city was given over to orgies
that drained much wealth into the coffers of the priests. Half the
jewels of Tyre, and heaps of coins, were stored in the Temple of
Melkarth. A hundred skins of choicest wine were poured into the sacred
lake around the Maabed. So many men offered themselves for the priestly
occupation, expecting miraculous reward, that some of the shops of the
artisans were closed for lack of workmen, and many ships were delayed in
sailing because they were unmanned.

Perhaps Ahimelek was the most ostentatious donor, "unless," said Hanno,
"I myself surpassed him in extravagant zeal. Three ship-loads of
dye-stuffs I emptied into the Egyptian harbor, empurpling the water, and
staining the stones of the quay with royal tints against the time of our
king's return.

"The priests were not long in discovering the real method of your
disappearance, but to have confessed it would have brought the whole
affair into such disrepute that the people would have torn Egbalus and
the rest of us to pieces."

"But was your hand not suspected?" asked Hiram.

"I think not. I anticipated that I too should have to flee, and prepared
to do so; but the falling of the foundation of the image, through the
accidental burning of some wooden supports, completely blocked the
passage from those who investigated it; and I have since removed every
royal rag you left in the vault beyond.

"Egbalus summoned a few of the more cautious and desperate, among whom I
was surprised to find myself, and revealed his own view and policy. The
shrewd old fox was certain that you had escaped by some ruse. You must
be tracked and killed, even if you had gone to where the Nile begins in
the melting of the mountains, or had become a savage in the islands of
tin. Priests were despatched to Greece, to Susa, to Damascus, to
Memphis, and Thebes. A dozen are tracking this Jews' land. I volunteered
in such fine frenzy--this fresh gash on my breast is the mark of my
vow--that Egbalus hugged me to his villainous heart, and called me a
true son of Baal, and offered me the fairest girl born of his concubine
Tissa for wife when I returned.

"I thought to go out alone. But I knew little of these inland roads, so
yoked myself with old Abdemon, the shrewdest of all the priests. He was
poor in tramping, and weak of arm, but had the wiliest head for this
sort of business. He knew every path in the Jews' land. I felt sure that
he would get your foot-prints, unless you had taken to flight in the
air; so I joined with him. He struck your trail at once. He scented you
near the crater of Giscala, and put the two devils you spoke of on guard
there, while we watched here by the sea."

"He was drowned when the boat sank?" asked Hiram.

"Yes, he sank like a stone. If he had swum a stroke I would have choked
him in the water. Indeed, when I saw your boat go down I drew a dagger
on him, but before I could use it our boat was in the same straits."

"But what of Zillah?"

"There is nothing to report, except what was known to all before the day
of the sacrifice. Her father had made a close alliance with Egbalus.
Believing that you were doomed, he offered his daughter to your cousin
Rubaal, and pledged the same dowry as he had pledged to you."

"That shall never be!" cried Hiram with impatient fury. "I will return
to Tyre, steal my way into the city, cut the throats of these wretches,
and flee with my betrothed."

"You shall return, but not now."

"Why not now? I cannot, I will not, wander about like a cowardly
fugitive."

"Wait at least, my king, until you get the mail on your hand to strike
the great blow that will shatter all this horrid tyranny at once. No
harm can come to Zillah. It was because I knew your hot blood and quick
determination that I sought more eagerly to find you, and prevent your
sudden return. Trust me in Tyre. The marriage with Rubaal cannot take
place until the next festival of Astarte and Tammuz. A hundred things
may happen before that. Patience! and then not mere vengeance, King
Hiram, but your restoration, and the renewed splendor of your power! I
believe in it, and if the gods will not send it, we will make it.
Loving you as I do, I am not risking my life merely for yours, but for
your crown as well. Tyre must be saved, made rich, powerful, the
mistress of Sidon, the queen of the Great Sea, the conqueror of--"

"Peace! peace! good Hanno. Let's first think of how to save a whole
skin, instead of gilding a new crown. But see! your boat has floated,
and is drifting this way."

Hanno looked sharply at the distant object.

"And, by the mouth of Dagon! old Abdemon is on her, clinging to her
bottom."

"I will smash his skull with the very stone I had selected for yours,"
cried the almost frantic king. "If I cannot dispense justice in my own
kingdom, I can here."

"No, no," said Hanno; "leave him to me. Get you gone out of sight. If he
has seen you I will put him out of the way. If he has not seen you, he
will confirm the report that you were drowned. That will recall all the
priests from pursuit, and leave the field free for us to work. Hide
away!"

Hanno plunged into the sea, and swam to the floating wreck. Abdemon was
barely alive. He had ceased to cling, and was lying limp across the
bottom of the upturned boat. The sea had subsided, else he had been
washed off. It was nearly another hour before Hanno was able to work the
wreck to the beach and carry the nearly unconscious priest ashore.

As Abdemon recovered his senses, it was plain that he had seen nothing
of what had occurred.

"The Cabeiri have avenged Baal," cried he. "I could have died willingly
after I saw the sea swallow up the traitorous king, but I could not bear
the thought of being myself drowned in the same water. Baal be praised!
Baal be praised!"

"And now," suggested Hanno, "we must hasten back to Tyre with the news.
The sooner the search ceases, and the priests return, the less danger of
suspicion by the people. Baal has taken his offering, whether by fire or
water it matters not that the crowd should know."

"Baal be praised!" echoed Abdemon.

"Could you not return alone?" asked Hanno. "I, as a new priest, and one
assigned by our most worshipful chief to the superintendency of our
temple property, would learn of the practices of worship among these
tribes of Ammon and Moab. And then I would visit Jerusalem, where these
Jews are rebuilding their temple. I may learn much that will add to the
splendor and impressiveness of our worship."

After some further consultation Hanno's plans were approved by his
fellow-priest. They talked about the renovation of temples and the
coming glory of the priestly guild, when the wealth of Ahimelek should
augment the treasury of Melkarth.

Near nightfall a fisherman rowed Hanno and Abdemon across the upper end
of the Sea of Galilee to one of the little hamlets there, and under the
starlight he brought Hanno back to the eastern shore.




CHAPTER XVIII.


The veracious chronicler of the adventures of King Hiram is compelled to
pass over in silence a period of several months. As certain rivers
disappear, and flow for a distance beneath the ground, so the course of
events, as directed by the discreet and wary Hanno, was for a while
inscrutable. We will follow it, however, from the point where it came
again into the daylight of observation.

Since men began to travel on the earth, innkeepers have been noted for
the courtesy, tact, and assiduity with which they have reaped the
rewards of their business. On a certain day Solomon Ben Eli, innkeeper
at Jericho, in the valley of the Lower Jordan, found all the above-named
qualities of his disposition exercised to the utmost. This was the day
before the opening of the annual Feast of Tabernacles at Jerusalem,
during the seven days of which celebration the men from all parts of the
land came together at the Sacred City.

The hostelry at Jericho--called Beth Elisha, in honor of the prophet
whose miraculous cruse of salt once healed the spring hard by, which
now supplied the town with delightful water--was a long, low building,
rambling, and diverse as the various generations which had successively
built upon it. During the night all its rooms and ingles had been
crowded with pilgrims from up the Jordan and beyond it. Early in the
morning, long before the sun had looked over the beetling cliffs of
Moab, the multitude poured forth into the court-yard. They were clad in
gay garments of many colors, and were not unlike the variously plumed
doves which came out of their adjacent cotes, and filled the air with
their flapping wings and querulous cooing. The shed that enclosed the
opposite side of the yard discharged a more turbulent crowd of horses
and camels, asses and mules, which were kicking and rumping one another
in the attempt to get their noses into the great stone trough that stood
in the centre of the court. The crisp air resounded with the unedifying
matins of mingled grunts, neighs, and brays, which were far from being
reduced to harmony by the shouts of the drivers.

It was easier for the host to seem ubiquitous than it was for him to
command in himself such a variety of tempers as the occasion required.
He must placate those who grumbled at their reckoning; hasten his
laggard servants; adjudicate the quarrels of guests over the uncertain
ownership of bits of harness; must smile, yet frown; beam knowingly, yet
knit his brows in simulated perplexity; be patient, yet keep the
sharpest eye and quickest tongue; and shift all these aspects in such
rapid succession that they seemed to be simultaneous. We may forgive
this prince of innkeepers if for a moment he did not maintain to
perfection his manifold part. Such was the moment when a servant
announced to him that Rabbi Shimeal, the most noted man in the synagogue
at Jericho, would speak with him at the gate.

"A pretty time of day for him to come! I'll warrant he has been up all
night owling it over some verse of the law. Or he wants a gift for the
synagogue. Tell him his affairs must wait until I can get this holy
crowd off for the Temple," was Solomon Ben Eli's petulant response.

The servant soon returned with the statement that the Rabbi Shimeal must
have his assistance in providing a beast to convey to Jerusalem no less
a personage than Ezra, the Great Scribe, who was a guest at the rabbi's
house, and whose animal had given out under the terrible heat of the
previous day, as he had journeyed through the villages of the Jordan
plain, pursuing his holy work of inspecting the copies of the Law used
in the newly established synagogues.

Solomon Ben Eli was shocked at this news, as if an angel's wing had
brushed his face.

"Heaven forgive me!" said he, making low obeisance before his servant,
in obliviousness to the fact that that son of Gibeon was not the great
man of God himself.

"But this is unfortunate," he added, rubbing his hands nervously. "I
have not a horse left, nor a camel, and not even an ass."

The attention of the bystanders being drawn to the host's dilemma, a
marvellous spirit of sympathy with him and of devotion to Ezra was
instantly displayed. Every one urged upon his neighbor the duty of
self-sacrifice, as if each were ashamed of the others for allowing the
Great Scribe's detention or even inconvenience.

"If my horse was strong and handsome, like yours," said one, "I would
gallop at once to the rabbi's. Mine is but a spavined beast, and it
would be a disgrace for the holy man of God to bestride him."

"I would instantly offer my steed," responded the other, "but he is
poorly broken, and the Scribe--be it reverently spoken--is too old to
control him. I could never forgive myself if my beast were the cause of
Ezra's breaking his holy neck among the rocks of Cherith."

A young man stood by who was noticeable from the fact that his garments
were richer in texture than those of most of the pilgrims, though he was
not arrayed for the festival. His cloak, which he drew closely around
him as a protection from the chill morning air, was that of a traveller.
Beneath it he wore a belt, which supported both a sword and an inkhorn,
and thus indicated the trade of merchant. The short black beard about
his lower features was balanced by a head-dress of black silk, which was
bound about his brows with a purple cord, and fell down upon the back of
his neck and shoulders. He was plainly a Phoenician, but confessed that
many months had elapsed since he had been to the coast. For his
identification and safety from the imposition of petty officials in the
various lands he might have occasion to traverse in following his trade,
he carried a letter issued by King Hiram of Tyre, and bearing the royal
seal. Similar letters were borne as passports by all the captains of
vessels and masters of caravans who represented the genuine business
houses in the cities of Phoenicia; and by these credentials they were
distinguished from the irresponsible adventurers who, in the convenient
disguise of travelling merchants, infested all those countries.

The young merchant, observing the perplexity of Solomon, the host,
addressed him:

"If his Excellency the Great Scribe will accept the courtesy of a
stranger, let him take any of my beasts."

"Thanks, noble Marduk!" replied the innkeeper, in grateful relief. "But

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