“Down with Avil! Away with Avil, the king’s evil councillor!” swelled the shout. “Charge! Drown out this yell in blood!” commanded Belshazzar. And with this command winging them, the guardsmen hurled themselves on the mob. But Mulis, the barber, had warned truly, that the king would repent that the soldiers had marched with only their parade swords. Charging in a solid body upon the disorderly array opposed to them, they had small difficulty in beating down the first rioters they encountered; slew some, arrested others, and drove the whole multitude—rebellious priests and lawless city folk—backward toward the temple gates. Flushed with their triumph, Sirusur’s men even surrounded the ship of Nabu, and dragged from his high car Imbi-Ilu, author of the outbreak. “Ha, good pontiff!” the general laughed, covering his real sympathy with Imbi-Ilu’s cause under a mighty show of zeal, “you are not likely to find this day’s sport cheaply bought!” And he called to two under officers to hale the arch-malcontent before the king. But even as Belshazzar was foaming and threatening over his captive, the tide of conflict turned; for, led by Hasba, the priests of Nabu rallied to a man for the rescue of their chief. The ranks of the soldiers had been broken as they followed up their victory. And once their solid array shattered, their advantage was gone. The priests and rioters were all around them, almost crushing them with incessant volleys of bricks, and guardsmen as well as the mob were now falling fast. The rioters tore down the copings of the enclosure walls, securing an exhaustless supply of missiles. The troops were brave. They charged this way and that, but every time their companies were shivered into smaller fragments, around which the multitude rolled like the billows of an angry sea. Sirusur was in the act of re-forming his men to attempt a second charge, when a brick smote his helmet, and with a great yell of triumph the priests of Nabu leaped on him, plucked him out of the midst of his men, and dragged him away safe prisoner. The soldiers made one last effort to rally, but with their leader taken, and outnumbered ten to one, they were swept back to the stairs of the _ziggurat_; and in a moment the exulting priests of Nabu were charging after them, forcing them upward step by step, and making straight for the lower terrace of the tower, where the royal party was stationed. Only when they saw Sirusur taken had their own peril dawned fully on Belshazzar and his suite. The riot was taking alarming proportions. A new king might be proclaimed ere sunset—who could say? “Glory, glory to Nabu! to Samas! to Nergal!” a thousand throats were yelling. “Rescue for Imbi-Ilu! Death to Avil!” The troops, desperate now, turned at bay halfway up the wide staircase, and for an instant their close array of swinging swords made the rioters recoil; but what with the bricks’ constant pelting, no men without armour could hold such a position long.