A King of Tyre: A Tale of the Times of Ezra and Nehemiah. James M. Ludlow
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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.
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