Robert W. Chambers

“ I demanded wrathfully.
"The rug is woven; the weaver is dead," she said.
"Oh, go on, Geraldine," I insisted; "don't stop half way in a thing like that. It's the East—it's the real East, I tell you. How you do it—you who have never seen the East—Heaven only knows!" ”

“ I said, "it was always believed that a young girl who dared to weave the Tree of Heaven into an Eighur carpet died when her task was ended,—her entire physical and spiritual vitality entering into the sacred tree and infusing it with mystic splendor."
"Oh, I died as you say," observed Geraldine gravely.
"I don't see that you infused much physical or spiritual splendor into that rug," observed Westover.
"I must die again, you know, Jim, and bring its vanished beauty back," she said gayly. "Shall I, Dick?—and leave you a priceless carpet as my bequest and monument?" ”

“ Under the circumstances I went in to second Geraldine—for Westover never troubled himself to be civil to her friends.
There were people there, and tea,—and a pretty, wordless welcome from Geraldine.
The violet-tinted April dusk brought candle-light; people went away and others came; then, one by one, they left, and we were alone, Geraldine and I—and the new moon shining through the frail curtains. For a long time we talked together, aimlessly, of this and that which mattered nothing to anybody. A maid entered to draw the curtains. ”

“ A moment later Geraldine entered, and his small eyes, no longer furtive, became fixed and dull.
"They say in the East," I remarked, "that when all color is gone from an Eighur rug a lost soul takes it for its abode. Eighur women are supposed to have souls occasionally, and to lose them now and then."
"There are plenty of lost souls in town," observed Westover; "no doubt you'll have your choice of tenants for your carpet:—or," he added, staring at space, "if you like I'll provide you." ”

“ I am a pagan again. It was Istar who first taught my hands to weave and my fingers to tie the Sehna knot. I wove that carpet; what I have woven there I can read. Why do you laugh? Will you believe me if I translate the mystery of each inscription as easily as I read the gold cartouche? Come; we shall never need those papers again. ”

“ And I would not have it.
"An old man is to bring a rug to-night," I said abruptly.
Geraldine stirred in her armchair, repeating in a low voice:
"Ten thousand thousand stars shine down on Babylon. The desert well reflects but one. Abaddon none."
Bolt upright in my chair I listened, incredulous of my own ears.
"Where on earth did you hear that?" I demanded.
"I read it on Belshazzar's Rug in cuneiform with the Kufic key," she answered, watching me.
"You—all alone—interpreted that?" I asked, astounded.
"Yes. It is the cuneiform inscription in the gold cartouche." ”

“ If it be true that Time makes all hurts well, I do not know;—and a thousand years in Thy sight is but as yesterday when it is passed, and as a watch in the night—a thousand years! And this also is true; the flames of love make hot the furnace of Abaddon.
•⁠•⁠•⁠•⁠•
We were in the gallery as usual, Geraldine and I—the gallery where the carpets of the East were hung along the shadowy walls. ”

“ Over us a magic snare had fallen, and we had evaded it:—an unseen and delicate web, enmeshing us, drawing us together limb to limb, body to body, soul to soul, there on the kindling edges of destruction. ”

“ Dick would be the happiest man in the world. And then—your—your flowers came, and I sat for a while alone with them. Then, on impulse, I jumped up and took the Kufic tables and all the combinations that you and I had tried together, and I slipped up-stairs to the marble room and knelt down before Belshazzar's Rug. Oh Dick! ”

“ He fumbled in the pocket of his tattered coat and presently brought to light a scrap of paper on which was scrawled some Persian characters.
"It is such a carpet as I have never seen," he said; "there is nothing in our history or our traditions to teach us the meaning of this carpet nothing save that it is an Eighur rug inscribed in Persian and in an unknown script. I have traced the characters in a single cartouche. Read, my son."
And I read, translating freely:
"Ten thousand thousand stars shine down on Babylon. ”

“ I said. "Even an Eighur girl nodded pleasantly to Erlik now and then,—according to the chronicles of the Tekrins."
"Oh, they surely did," she said. And, "Thank you, Dick," she added, as we reached the gallery; "when I am an old woman you must help me up the steep places."
"It is you who help me," I said lightly.
She stood, resting her arm on the table while I gathered up the mass of papers containing our cuneiform combinations and the Kufic key.
"All that is useless," she said suddenly. Her manner and smile had altered. ”

“ It was strange, too; the intricate Kufic key seemed to be falling into place of its own impulse, symbol after symbol promising a linked symmetry of sense, until, almost before I was conscious of the miracle, it had been wrought there in the marble room; and my eyes were opened; and I, kneeling before the Tree of Heaven, read quite clearly what is written in the gold cartouche on the great carpet of Belshazzar. Dick! ”

“ She assented, laughing uncertainly.
"I think I'll pay Jim a little call," she said, rising from the piano and walking slowly toward the laboratory.
A few moments later as I passed down the broad stairway I heard Westover's penetrating voice: "Let that glass tube alone, Geraldine! Why the devil can't you keep your hands off things when you come in here?" ”

“ The desert well reflects but one."
Never before, save on the imperial carpet known as Belshazzar's Rug, had I encountered any inscription mentioning Babylon. So, at the first glance, the nomad's rug should have some value. ”