For two years they
remained in security, and laughed at the Persian army outside; but at
last Cyrus devised a new plan, and set his men to dig trenches to draw
off the water of the Euphrates, and leave the bed of the river dry.
Still there were the great gates upon the river, which he expected
to have to break down; but on the very day his trenches were ready,
Belshazzar was giving a great feast in his palace, and drinking wine out
of the golden vessels that Nebuchadnezzar had brought from the Temple.
Full in the midst of his revelry appeared a strange sight. Near the
seven-branched Candlestick that once had burnt in the Holy Place, came
forth a bodiless hand, and the fingers wrote upon the wall in characters
such as no man knew. The hearts of the revellers failed them for fear,
and the king's knees smote together! Then Nitocris, his mother, a brave
and wise woman, bethought her of all that Daniel had done in the days of
Nebuchadnezzar, and at her advice he was called for. He knew the words;
they were in the Hebrew tongue, the language of his own Scriptures, the
same in which the Finger of God revealed the Commandments.
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