Istar of Babylon Part 4

"You heard the vow. You have said it."

III

INTO THE EAST

Next morning Kabir opened his eyes earlier than might have been expected, considering his nocturnal exercise and the hour at which he had finally retired. Charmides was performing ablutions with water from an earthen jar, and talking amicably, if absent-mindedly, with his brother, who was ready dressed. The Phnician rose hastily, and began his usual toilet, while Phalaris, after giving him morning greeting, and bidding the shepherd have a care not to drown himself, left them for the more satisfying charms of breakfast.

On their way back from the acropolis, on the previous night, Kabir and Charmides had not spoken to each other. Therefore the one question and answer before they left the temple was the only conversation they had had on the subject of the inspiration and its result. This morning, then, the moment that Phalaris disappeared, Charmides set down the water-jar, turned sharply about, and, looking searchingly into his companion's face, asked:

"Kabir--have I dreamed?"

"Dreamed? Where? How?"

A sudden light sprang into the shepherd's face. "You were not with me, then, last night, in the temple of Apollo?"

"Certainly I was--and heard the hymn you sang to the Babylonian G.o.ddess.

That was an inspiration, Charmides. Can you recall the words and the rhythm this morning?"

But Charmides shrank from the question. He had become very pale. After a long silence, during which Kabir, much puzzled, strove to understand his mood, he asked again, faintly:

"And the vow? I vowed to Apollo--"

"To seek the Babylonian G.o.ddess; to proffer her homage before the year had fallen, or--" The Phnician stopped. Charmides held up his hand with such an imploring gesture that a sudden light broke in upon the trader.

He realized now that regret for his emotional folly was strong upon the youth, and he saw no reason for not helping him to be rid of its consequences.

"You have lost the desire, O Charmides, to fulfil that vow?" he asked.

Charmides bent his head in shamed acquiescence.

"Why, then, keep it? You may trust me. I shall say not a word of the matter to any one. None but I saw you. The guard at the gate was asleep.

You are safe. Forget the matter, and be--" again he paused. Charmides was regarding him with open displeasure.

"None _saw_! What of the G.o.d, Phnician? What of the G.o.d Apollo--my patron?"

Kabir perceived the shepherd's earnestness, and the corners of his mouth twitched. Phnician polytheism had crossed swords, long ago, with Phnician practicality; and the G.o.ds, it must be confessed, had been pretty well annihilated in the series of contests. Nevertheless, Kabir knew very well that he could not scoff at another's religion. He was puzzled. He tried argument, persuasion, entreaty, every form of rhetoric that occurred to him as holding out possibilities of usefulness; but all alike failed to move in the slightest degree Charmides' abject determination. The unprofitable conversation was finally ended by the shepherd's sensible proposal:

"I will lay the matter before my father this morning, Kabir, and by his decision I will abide."

The Phnician nodded approval. It was a simple solution of a puzzle which, after all, did not really concern him. As a matter of fact it would have been hard enough for him to tell why he was taking such an unaccountable interest in this impulsive and irresponsible shepherd-boy--he, a man who had cared for neither man nor woman all his life through, whose whole interest had hitherto been centred in material things. But he was, as many others had been and would be, under the influence of the peculiar charm of the young Greek, a charm that emanated not more from the incomparable beauty of his physique than from the frank and ingenuous sincerity of his manner.

At the conclusion of their peculiar conversation, the two men pa.s.sed into the living-room, to find their morning meal just ready and Theron and his son sitting down to table, while Heraia still bent over the hearth where bread was baking.

Charmides gave his usual morning salutation to his father and mother, and then seated himself in silence. During the meal he said not a word, though Phalaris was in a lively mood, and conversation flowed easily enough among the others. When the athlete had risen, however, and Kabir was detaining the others by making a pretence of eating in order to watch the shepherd, Charmides turned to his father and asked, boldly:

"Father, may one break a vow made within his temple to Apollo?"

Theron looked at his son carefully. "You know that he may not. Why have you asked?"

"Because I have made such a vow. Last night, after a great vision, it was wrung from me."

Phalaris came back and seated himself quietly at the table. Then Heraia leaned forward, looking at her son as if something long expected, long hoped for, had come to pa.s.s.

"A vision? Of what? Where?"

"At midnight, unable to sleep for the chaos of my thoughts, I went to the acropolis and entered into the temple of my G.o.d. There I heard the music of the G.o.ds, most marvellous, most incomprehensible; and there a great vision was before me--a silver cloud in which the G.o.ddess Istar of Babylon appeared to me and called to me. Thereupon I vowed to Apollo to set forth into the East, seeking her to whom, ere the year be fallen, I must proffer my homage."

Buoyed up by the pleasure and sympathy in his mother's eyes, Charmides had spoken quite cheerfully. Looking into her face after his last words, however, he found there something that caused his head to droop in new-found dejection, while he waited for his father's decision. It did not come. There was a heavy silence, finally broken by Phalaris, who said, a little contemptuously:

"You had a dream, Charmides. You did not leave the room in which I slept last night."

Heraia raised her head in sudden hope, but here Theron broke in:

"Nay--even if it were but a dream, the G.o.ds have more than once appeared to favored mortals in sleep."

"But this, Theron, was no dream. I followed Charmides to the temple. It is true that I saw no vision, and all the music that came to my ears was made by Charmides himself, who sang an inspired hymn to the G.o.ddess. But his vow to Apollo was most certainly made. The shepherd has spoken truth."

There was another pause. Then Theron sighed heavily and spoke. "He must abide by the vow. You, O Phnician, will you take him in the galley to your far city, on his way to the abode of the G.o.ddess?"

"That I promised him last night."

"But," interrupted Phalaris, still incredulous, "how did you both pa.s.s the guard at the gate by which you entered the acropolis?"

"He slept!" replied Charmides and Kabir, in the same breath.

Heraia let a faint sigh that was more than half sob escape her; and Charmides drew a hand across his brow. "You bid me go, father?" he said.

Theron hesitated. Finally, in a tone of grave reproval, he replied, "It is not I that can bid you go. You yourself owe obedience to your patron G.o.d and to the strange G.o.ddess that put this thing into your heart.

Though I shall lose you, though the heart of your mother is faint at the thought of your departure, yet I dare not command you to break the vow.

Yes, Charmides--you must go."

A momentary spasm of pain crossed Charmides' young face, and was gone as it had come. Only by his straightened mouth could one have guessed that he was not as usual. Heraia's eyes were bright with tears which she did not allow to fall; and even Phalaris, the true Spartan of the family, who was a little scornful of his brother for permitting his feelings to betray themselves even for a moment, himself felt an unlooked-for quiver at the heart when he thought of a life empty of his girlish brother's presence. Both he and his mother sat absently looking at the rhapsode, till Theron, seeing danger of weakness in the scene, abruptly rose:

"Come, Phalaris, we will go down together to the galley. I will speak with Eshmun on behalf of Charmides. Perhaps you, also, Kabir, will care to come?"

"And I. I will work now upon the s.h.i.+p till she sails again. Sardeis can take the flock."

"Eager to be gone, boy?" asked Theron, smiling rather sadly; but his question needed no other answer than his son's expression. So, presently, the four men left the house, and Heraia was left alone to face this all-unexpected grief that had come to her--the loss of the child that had made her life beautiful.

The next ten days flew by on wings--wings of grief and dread foreboding for those in Theron's house. Work on the galley proceeded vigorously.

Down from the hills, far to the east of the city, a long, tapering cedar-tree was brought. Its branches were hewn off, its bark stripped away, and the bare trunk set up in the place of the old, broken mast.

New sails were an easy matter of provision, for the Selinuntians were adepts at making them, and three days sufficed for the shaping and sewing of these. Oars took more time, for strong wood was hard to procure around Selinous, and only two or three men in the city had any idea of the manner of carving out these heavy and unshapely things. The mending of the torn bottom of the s.h.i.+p and the replacing of her crushed bulwarks and sides required many days of skilful carpentry; and when all this was done, the heavy-clinging barnacles were carefully sc.r.a.ped from their comfortable abiding-place, and the good s.h.i.+p set right side up once more. Finally, on the last day of April, Eshmun declared her ready for the new launching, and sent word to all his crew that in forty-eight hours more their journey would be recommenced, and that on the evening before their start prayers and a sacrifice for a safe journey would be made at an altar erected on the sands.

Charmides had worked well and steadily at the remantling of the s.h.i.+p; and in this way became acquainted with her captain and all the crew, who, when they learned that he was to sail with them for Tyre, took some pains to show him courtesy. During this fortnight of labor Charmides'

thoughts were busier than his hands, and they moved not wholly through regretful ways. It would have been wonderful had his young imagination not been excited by the prospect before him, that of strange lands and peoples, of pleasures and dangers with which he was to become acquainted. His fancy strayed often through pleasant paths, so that sometimes half a day went by before a remembrance of the coming separation from his home and from his mother brought a shadow across his new road.