But while the words quitted his lips, a young man in the foremost of the assailants, had bounded past the demoralized soldiers, and in an instant loosed the Hebrew’s bands. “Shaphat! Shaphat the accuser of Daniel!” howled many voices together; but rescuer and rescued were already swallowed in the sea of writhing, fighting forms. A moment later, the victorious priests of Nabu had plucked their leader out of the hands of the panic-struck guardsmen, and Imbi-Ilu once more headed his cheering followers. “Away with Avil-Marduk!” rang the shout, never louder. “Fling him over the _ziggurat_!” The pontiff barely saved himself by most headlong flight up the next stairway to the second stage of the tower. After him fled Mermaza, and many a dignitary followed them. But there was one who did not fly, and that was the king. Marduk, guardian of his house, cast his shield indeed before him, and saved him, for he was foremost in the press of death; and more than one stout priest of Nabu and riotous burgher howled no more after the royal sword smote them. Atossa had watched the first moments of the battle with keen delight. The hated Avil and the scarce less hated king were the assailed; their enemies were her friends. But now that the strife was all about her, she was whirled from her place by a sudden rush of the rioters; an instant more and she was in rough hands, the veil rudely torn from her face, with ten brutal voices crying in her ear:— “Praise Istar! A prize! A prize! Off with her!” They should have guessed from her dress who she might be; and she declared herself haughtily, but her voice was drowned in the babel. Atossa was feeling herself hurried down the stairway to the temple enclosure, the whole rude scene enacted so swiftly that she scarce knew what had befallen, when suddenly a strong arm was thrusting aside her excited captors. “Fools!” a loud voice was crying, “are you bat-blind? Release! she is no spoil for you. Wrong her, and you bring Cyrus down on Babylon!” The hands upon Atossa relaxed, as her captors stared into the face of the young man who had awed them so shortly before—Isaiah the Jew. “She is ours,” commented the leader of the band, little liking to let so fair a bit of spoil slip through his fingers. “Who are you, Master Hebrew, to give the law unto us?” He flourished a cudgel in air, when a second cudgel, wielded by the same young man who had released Isaiah, smote the weapon out of his hand, and left him disarmed and cowed. The brutish weavers who had taken Atossa blinked at one another in confusion. “This way, lady,” commanded the Hebrew, taking Atossa by the hand, “and those who lay finger on you shall pay right dear.” The weavers stared at him, but Shaphat’s cudgel was waving very close to their heads. One fellow, bolder than the rest, stretched forth a hand to seize the Persian again, but he only earned from Isaiah a buffet behind the ear that laid him prone on the pavement.