“Lord, we have many things to think of before wasting time or sleep on a slip of a girl. When the father is snug in the palace prison, we can give thought to the child. Yet give me time, your Majesty, and I will weave a net for Daniel, and his daughter, too; but make no new attempt on her for the present. Again I repeat, nothing to offend the Persian.” “Now, by Allat’s fiends!” cursed Belshazzar, “must it be the Persian, always the Persian? I grow weary dissembling; yet I do it well?” “Excellently well,” soothed Avil, who felt he might be stepping too far. “But consider once more: touch Daniel before there is proper occasion, or outrage the envoy, and abroad we have war with Cyrus, and at home all Babylon buzzing about the palace in revolt. Gently, my king, gently! Remember that your government is not two months old.” “Daniel the Jew!” repeated Belshazzar; “the Jew! I do not know why I hate that race so utterly. They are a stiff-necked people, sticking to their Jehovah-worship like flies at the mouth of a wine-jar. And the Persians are like them. Oh, that they all had one neck, that Khatin might cut it!” “Let the king’s liver be at peace,” began Mermaza, comforting; but he took a step backward. Darius, behind a shrub, had been unable to stir hand or foot from the beginning of the conversation, for the least sound would have betrayed. His cheeks had flushed hot when he heard his own name spoken; he had swelled with utter wrath when he knew that the pledge touching Ruth had been given only to be conveniently broken. Mermaza’s arm swung at a careless gesture, and brushed the Persian’s face. A shout, and Avil and Belshazzar had leaped upon the eavesdropper before he could escape in the dark. “Conspirators! Assassins!” Avil-Marduk was howling. “Help, guards! The king is beset!”