, if I should need their assistance. Then, when the Egyptian
is ruined, if you have done as I wish, the king will remember your sad
pale face, your humility and forgetfulness of self. The Achaemenidae, and
even the Magi, will beg him to take a queen from his own family; and
where in all Persia is there a woman who can boast of better birth than
you? Who else can wear the royal purple but my bright bird of Paradise,
my beautiful rose Phaedime? With such a prize in prospect we must no more
fear a little humiliation than a man who is learning to ride fears a fall
from his horse."

And she, princess as she was, answered: "I will obey you."

"Then we are certain of victory," said the eunuch. "There, now your eyes
are flashing darkly again as I like to see them, my queen. And so
Cambyses shall see you when the tender flesh of the Egyptian shall have
become food for dogs and the birds of the air, and when for the first
time after long months of absence, I bring him once more to the door of
your apartments. Here, Armorges! tell the rest of the women to get ready
and enter their litters. I will go on and be there to show them their
places."

..........................

The great banqueting-hall was bright as day--even brighter, from the
light of thousands of candles whose rays were reflected in the gold
plates forming the panelling of the walls. A table of interminable length
stood in the middle of the hall, overloaded with gold and silver cups,
plates, dishes, bowls, jugs, goblets, ornaments and incense-altars, and
looked like a splendid scene from fairy-land.

"The king will soon be here," called out the head-steward of the table,
of the great court-lords, to the king's cup-bearer, who was a member of
the royal family. "Are all the wine-jugs full, has the wine been tasted,
are the goblets ranged in order, and the skins sent by Polykrates, have
they been emptied?"

"Yes," answered the cup-bearer, "everything is ready, and that Chian wine
is better than any I ever tasted; indeed, in my opinion, even the Syrian
is not to be compared to it. Only taste it."

So saying he took a graceful little golden goblet from the table in one
hand, raised a wine-pitcher of the same costly metal with the other,
swung the latter high into the air and poured the wine so cleverly into
the narrow neck of the little vessel that not a drop was lost, though the
liquid formed a wide curve in its descent. He then presented the goblet
to