hes of military bands,
passed armed hoplites, merchants in long robes, cloaked bedouins,
Kelts in bearskins, priests in spangled dresses, tiara'd princes,
burdened slaves, kings discrowned, furtive forms--prostitutes,
pederasts, human wolves, vermin, sheep--the flux and reflux of the
gigantic city.

In that ocean, the captive Jews, if captive they were, rolled, lost as
a handful of salt spilt in the sea. Yet, from the depths, a few had
swum up and, filtering adroitly, had reached the dignity of high
place. One was pontiff. Others were viceroys. In addition to being
pontiff, Daniel was chancellor of the realm. Ezra was rector of the
university. As pontiff of a college of wizards, Daniel may have known
the future. As Minister of Wisdom, Ezra may have known, what is quite
as difficult, the past. For the moment there was but the present. Over
it ruled Belshazzar.

Yet, ruler though he was, there were powers potenter than his own:
Baalim, outraged at the elevation of a parvenu god; a priesthood
consequently disaffected; and, without, at the gates, the foe.

It would have been interesting to have assisted at the final festival
when, beneath cyclopean arches, in the sunlight of clustered
candelabra, amid the glitter of gold and white teeth, among the fair
sultanas that were strewn like flowers through the throne-room of the
imperial court, Belshazzar lay, smiling, amused rather than annoyed at
the impudent menace of Cyrus.

Babylon was impregnable. He knew it. But the subtle Jews, the
indignant gods, the alienated priests to whom the Persian was a
redeemer, of these he did not think. Daniel had indeed warned him and,
vaguely, he had promised something which he had since forgot.

Beyond, an orchestra was playing. Further yet, columns upheld a
ceiling so lofty that it was lost. On the adjacent wall was a frieze
of curious and chimerical beasts. Belshazzar was looking at them. In
their dumb stupidity was a suggestion of the foe. The suggestion
amused. Smiling still he raised a cup. Abruptly, before it could reach
his lips, it fell with a clatter on the lapis lazuli of the floor
beneath. Before him, on that wall, beneath those beasts, the
necromancy of the priesthood had projected an armless, fluidic hand
that mounted, descended, tracing with a forefinger the three luminous
hierograms of his doom.

The story, a little drama, was, with the tale concerning
Nebuchadnezzar, that of Daniel, and other novels quite as strange,
e