Istar of Babylon: A Phantasy. Margaret Horton Potter
as interested in their success as they themselves. Phalaris still sulked, unnoticed; and the Phœnician was too anxious for an opportunity of judging his new protégé's ability to risk protest by undue urging. He was fortunate in choosing the passive course. At his mother's request, Charmides rose at once and brought out his well-strung lyre. Seating himself in a corner of the open door-way, and looking out upon the night, he struck two or three thin, minor chords. Then, in a voice whose limpid tenor Kabir had never heard equalled, he sang. It was a melody well known to all Greeks, but transposed from the major to the minor key. The words were Charmides' own—of exquisite simplicity—twenty lines on the grief and weariness of a lost Pleiad. It rose gradually to a plaintive climax, and ended in a tired pianissimo. There was no applause. None of his audience and neither of the slaves cared to break silence as the shepherd rose and returned the instrument to its place. Kabir thirsted for more; and presently Theron, with a little effort, asked, softly:
"Why do you stop?"
"Father, I am tired. Grant me permission to go to my bed."
"Permission need not be asked. Get thee away, and the gods send you dreamless sleep."
Half an hour later Phalaris and the Phœnician followed the shepherd's example, and Theron and his wife also sought a willing rest. The athlete made quick work of preparing for the night, and, almost upon the instant of his lying down, fell fast asleep. Kabir was slower. He had disrobed as promptly as his companion, but he did not immediately lay him down. As on the previous evening, the window was open, and the moonlight streamed over Charmides' bed. Kabir stole across the room to look out upon the night, moving noiselessly, that he might not disturb the shepherd, who, since the others entered the room, had lain motionless. The Phœnician, standing over him, brought his eyes slowly from the moon to the fair face below him, and gave a quick, unfeigned start to find Charmides' eyes wide open, staring up at him. Neither of them spoke. Kabir, in unaccountable confusion, quickly returned to his own couch and lay down upon it, far wider awake than he had been ten minutes before.
Now ensued a period of silence and of uneasiness. The shepherd, his form flooded with silver light, lay immovable, eyes still unclosed, hands clenched, brain on fire, listening mechanically to the regular breathing of Phalaris, and waiting eagerly, anxiously, tensely, for the same sound from the couch of the Phœnician. His nerves, too highly strung, twitched and pulled. His body gradually grew numb. And still, while he waited, ears pricked, eyes brilliant, Kabir refused to sleep. The moon rode in mid-heavens before the sign came. At last the faint snores sounded like muffled drum-taps, one—two—three—four—five. A long sigh escaped Charmides' lips. For one blessed instant his muscles relaxed. Then he rose swiftly, drew on his day tunic, threw about him the chlamys that Phalaris had worn, and slipped noiselessly from the room. For a moment after his disappearance everything remained quiet behind him. Then, suddenly, Kabir's snores ceased, and he sat cautiously up. Yes, Charmides was really gone. The Phœnician rose and passed over to the door. The living-room was empty and the outer door open to the night. Throwing on as much clothing as he needed in the mild air, the trader hurried outside and looked about him, first towards the sea, then along the path to the city. Upon this, walking swiftly, and already far on his moonlit way, went the shepherd. Kabir, with a kind of wonderment at his own curiosity, started at a half-run to follow.
Evidently Charmides was bound for a definite spot. He moved straight along through the rank grass, gorse, and wild onion that here took the place of near-growing daisies and sweet alyssum, and, looking neither to the right nor left, passed along the path to the acropolis.
The shepherd was acting on what was hardly an impulse. His strange action had been irresistibly impelled by some force emanating from his own mind, and yet not of himself. He wished to be upon consecrated ground, in the precincts of a temple, where, it seemed to him, the burning thirst of his imagination might be quenched. In obedience to his guiding voice, he left behind him the temples of the hill on which he lived, and made his way towards the abode of his patron god of the Silver Bow, who had for years been worshipped on the acropolis, and whose immense temple on the other hill was still unfinished. Charmides had brought with him his lyre, again obeying the impulse, though without any idea of how he was to use it. He accomplished most of his journey, indeed, without thought of any kind; and not till the last, sharp ascent up the acropolis road was begun did it occur to him that, at this hour of the night, he might not pass the guard at the gate. The thought, when it came, scarcely troubled him. He would go at least as far as he could. He passed rapidly up the steep slope, Kabir following noiselessly; and, as they drew near the gate of Dawn, the southeastern opening in the defending wall, Charmides saw a strange thing. The guard, one of a long-trained company for whom discovered slumber at his post meant death, sat squat upon the ground, his helmeted head bowed between his knees, sunk in a deep sleep. The passage into the agora was open. Charmides and the other passed into the empty square, finally pausing before the portico of the temple of Apollo.
A scene of supernal beauty confronted them. The great market-place, filled from dawn to dusk with murmurous life of the city, was robed by night in ineffable stillness. All around, the white columns rose in shadowy beauty to their high architraves; while the ground below was barred with fluted shadows. The warm, perfume-laden air was heavy with the essence of spring. Below, on the sides of the hill, the city lay asleep; and the only sound that broke the universal silence was the distant, musical swish of the rising tide.
In the midst of this Charmides stood, half panting, his overwrought mind in a state of blankness. Then, still passively obeying his guiding impulse, he ascended the two steps that led into the portico of the temple of Apollo, and, after hesitating for a moment, entered the open door-way. By the light of the two sacred torches that burned throughout the night by the altar of the god, the youth made his way to the high-walled fane, within which was the celebrated statue of the Patron of Selinous. Here, in the dim, bluish light, with the cool stillness above and around him, and the divine presence very near, the shepherd fell upon one knee and bowed his head in a prayer, the words of which rose to his lips without any effort of thought on his part, and were more beautiful than any that he had ever heard spoken by priest or poet.
When he had finished he did not rise. It seemed to him that, if he but dared to lift his eyes, he should see the Lord of the Silver Bow above him, in all his blinding radiance. Charmides' head swam. A cloud of faintest incense enveloped him. His parted lips drank in air that affected him like rare old wine. A fine intoxication stole upon all his senses. He waited, breathlessly, for that which he knew at last was to come. Yet in the beginning of the miracle his heart for a long moment ceased to beat, and he swayed forward till he lay prone upon the marble pavement.
A sound, a long note, thin and bright and finely drawn as silver wire, was quivering down from the dusk of the uppermost vault. On it spun, and on, over the head of the listener, whose every nerve quivered beneath the spell of its vibration. Time had ceased for him, and he did not know whether it was a moment or an hour before the single note became two, then three, and gradually many more, which mingled and melted together in a stream of delicious harmony, so strange, so marvellous, that the shepherd strained ears and brain in an agony lest he should fail to catch a single tone. But the low Æolian chimes grew fainter after a little while; and then, at the pianissimo, there entered into their midst something that no man of earth had as yet dreamed of—a mighty organ note, that rose and swelled through the moving air in a peal of such majesty that Charmides, trembling with his temerity, rose to his feet and looked up. Nothing unusual was to be seen in the temple room. Half-way down, between the frescoed columns, burned the two torches before the empty altar. Yes, and there, in the shadow of the wall, stood Kabir, the Phœnician, watching quietly the movements of the shepherd. Charmides perceived him, but failed to wonder at his presence. It was natural that any one should wish to be here to-night. Yet how could any living man stand unmoved in the midst of such a glory of sound as whirled about him now? The lyre music rose anew to a great fortissimo, high above the deeply resonant chords of the sky-organ. Flutes and trumpets, and the minor notes of myriad plaintive flageolets, and a high-pealing chime of silver-throated bells joined in swinging harmony, finally resolving into such a pæan of praise that Charmides was carried back to the memories of many a former dream. Shaking the dripping sweat from his forehead, he stepped forward a pace or two, and, lifting his lyre, joined its tones and those of his pygmy