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Updated: June 19, 2025
He leapt from the camel and knelt beside Elisa. She was not yet dead, for her eyes were open and her lips stirred. "I have kept faith, keep it also, Aziel! the story is not yet done," she gasped. Then her life flickered out, and her spirit passed. Aziel rose from beside the corpse and looked upward.
Thereon Sakon, her father, and Aziel blessed him, but Issachar said nothing. As the Phoenician was walking through the market-place early on the next day an aged black woman, whom he did not know, accosted him, saying that she had a message for his ear from the king Ithobal who was camped without the city and who desired to see the merchandise that he had brought with him from the coasts of Tyre.
Their variety was without end, while from them came a very babel of different tongues as they cried their wares, bargained and quarrelled. Aziel gazed at this novel sight with interest, till, as he was beginning to weary of it, the crowd parted to right and left, leaving a clear lane across the market-place to the narrow gate of the temple.
I will undertake it not only because I seek to enrich myself, but because I and others who serve him think it is a very evil thing that this prince, Aziel, whose blood is the most royal in the whole world, without the consent of the great king of Israel, his grandfather, should wed the daughter of a Phoenician officer, however beautiful and loving she may be.
"I shall not appear before Ithobal the king," she answered sharply. "You say so! Then what will the prince Aziel think of you when he sees you thus unadorned?" "My beauty is my adornment," she replied, "not these gems and gold. Moreover, it is nought to me what he thinks, for he hates me, and has reviled me."
Metem went to seek for water, while Elissa knelt by the couch and pressed her lover's hand. "I dare stay no longer," she whispered, "and Aziel, I know not how or when we shall meet again, but my heart is heavy, for, alas! I think that doom draws near me.
I know well what she will answer you, and I hold that this is a judgment upon us, who first made her Baaltis against her will, then threatened her with death because of the prince Aziel, and now would do sacrilege to her sacred office and violence to herself by tearing her from her consecrated throne, breaking her bond of marriage and delivering her to Ithobal."
But before it died away a voice at the far end of the hall called out: "Perchance the lady does not know that yonder in Egypt, and in Jerusalem also, prince Aziel is named the Ever-living." Now it was Elissa's turn to be overcome. "Nay, I knew it not," she said; "how should I know it? I spoke of that Dweller in the heavens whom I worship "
"Last night this woman Elissa, the daughter of Sakon, being the lady Baaltis duly elected, met men secretly in the courts of the temple and accompanied them, or one of them, to the chamber of Aziel, a prince of Israel, the guest of Sakon.
Is this a place for brawling, king Ithobal, and would you seek to fix a quarrel upon my guest, the prince Aziel, here in my council chamber, and to bring upon me the wrath of Israel, of Tyre, and of Egypt? Be sure that the prince shall cross no swords with you; no, not if I have to set him under guard to keep him safe.
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