Генри Хаггард - Belshazzar

"Back!" cried Nabel, and I staggered past him up the stair to the roof. Nabel fought with the third man and it seemed, slew him. Then he joined me on the roof where Myra and Metep were wiping the blood from my face with their garments.

The other two soldiers appeared. We sprang at them and that fight was desperate, but God gave us strength and we slew them. Then, sorely wounded both of us, we reeled back to the parapet and stood there in front of the women. Belshazzar came and mocked at us, but attack he dared not, being a coward in his heart; also we still had swords in our hands and were upright on our feet though we could scarcely stir. Nay, he stayed by the mouth of the stair, waiting for help or thinking that we should bleed to death or faint.

"I have sent for more men," he cried, "and presently they will be here to make an end of you, cursed Egyptian. You thought you had escaped me and so you might have done, had not that strumpet of yours dropped her trinket as she ran from the palace, telling my watchers which way she went," and he drew from his robe the lily talisman set in its case of crystal and waved it in front of us.

Now he seemed to go mad; indeed I think he was smitten with a sudden madness like Nebuchadnezzar before him. He raved at us in vile words. He cursed the God of Judah Who, he said, had sent a lying spirit to write spells on his palace wall, and the prophet who had interpreted those spells and changed the company at the feast into ravening wolves. With a working face and rolling eyes he blasphemed, he reviled, he uttered horrible threats against Myra, saying that he would throw her to the soldiers while I died in torment before her eyes. He defied Cyrus and the Persians, vowing that he would burn them living, hundred by hundred he would burn them all; he beat the air, gnashing his teeth, till at last, able to bear no more, I strove to spring at him, but being wounded in the thigh as well as on the head, could not, and fell down.

Belshazzar drew a knife, purposing to finish me, yet in the end dared not because Nabel still stood over me, sword in hand, though he might not move. So he began to mock again and talk of the manner in which we should perish.

"Hark!" he said, "my servants come. I hear footsteps on the stair. Now look your last upon the sun, accursed Egyptian!"

I too heard a footstep on the stair and whispered to Myra to be ready to die in such fashion as she chose.

"I am ready, Husband," she answered in a steady voice.

At the mouth of the stair appeared a man. Lo! it was no soldier of the king, but Belus carrying a sword. Yes, /Belus/, come from I knew not whence, haggard and travel–stained, but with the fire of vengeance burning in his eyes.

Belshazzar turned and saw him. His fat face paled, his cheeks fell in, his whole frame seemed to shrink. He staggered back.

"Do you know me again, Belshazzar the King?" cried Belus. "Aye, you know me well. I am he whose young daughter you wronged and murdered long ago. I swore vengeance on you then and through the years far away I have worked and woven, till now at last the destined hour is at hand and you are in my net. Look yonder," and he pointed to a wide street of the city beneath us. "What do you see? Soldiers marching, is it not? Behold their banners. They are not yours, O King of Chaldea. Nay, they are those of Cyrus. I, Belus, have corrupted your captains; I have opened the gates of unconquered Babylon; you and your House are fallen; God's curse is fulfilled and my vengeance is accomplished!"

Belshazzar looked. He saw, he began to whine for mercy. Then suddenly he stabbed at Belus with the knife he held. But Belus was watching and before it could fall he drove at him with his sword, piercing him through and through.

Belus stooped; lifting the lily talisman that had fallen from Belshazzar's hand, he gave it back to Myra. Yes, there, amongst the dead, he gave it back to her without a word.

Thus died Belshazzar, King of the Chaldeans, Lord of the Empire of Babylon, by the hand of one whom he had wronged, he to whom it was appointed that he should be slain on the night of the writing on the wall.

Here ends the history of Ramose the Egyptian, son of Apries, and of Myra his wife, a daughter of the royal race of Judah, written at the Happy House in Memphis, by this Ramose when he and his wife were old, that their children's children might be instructed and pass on the tale to those who come after them, of how God saved them out of the hand of Belshazzar, King of Babylon.