, Prexaspes, Otanes, Darius, and a number of courtiers, only just
aroused from their sleep, took a wild ride through the game-park. He knew
by experience, that he could best overcome or forget any violent mental
emotion when mounted on an unmanageable horse.

Nebenchari started on hearing the sound of horses' hoofs in the distance.
In a waking dream he had seen Cambyses enter his native land at the head
of immense hosts; he had seen its cities and temples on fire, and its
gigantic pyramids crumbling to pieces under the powerful blows of his
mighty hand. Women and children lay in the smouldering ruins, and
plaintive cries arose from the tombs in which the very mummies moved like
living beings; and all these-priests, warriors, women, and children--the
living and the dead--all had uttered his,--Nebenchari's,--name, and had
cursed him as a traitor to his country. A cold shiver struck to his
heart; it beat more convulsively than the blood in the veins of the dying
girl at his side. Again the curtain was raised; Atossa stole in once more
and laid her hand on his shoulder. He started and awoke. Nebenchari had
been sitting three days and nights with scarcely any intermission by this
sick-bed, and such dreams were the natural consequence.

Atossa slipped back to her mother. Not a sound broke the sultry air of
the sick-room, and Nebenchiari's thoughts reverted to his dream. He told
himself that he was on the point of becoming a traitor and a criminal,
the visions he had just beheld passed before him again, but this time it
was another, and a different one which gained the foremost place. The
forms of Amasis, who had laughed at and exiled him,--of Psamtik and the
priests,--who had burnt his works,--stood near him; they were heavily
fettered and besought mercy at his hands. His lips moved, but this was
not the place in which to utter the cruel words which rose to them. And
then the stern man wiped away a tear as he remembered the long nights, in
which he had sat with the reed in his hand, by the dull light of the
lamp, carefully painting every sign of the fine hieratic character in
which he committed his ideas and experience to writing. He had discovered
remedies for many diseases of the eye, spoken of in the sacred books of
Thoth and the writings of a famous old physician of Byblos as incurable,
but, knowing that he should be accused of sacrilege by his colleagues, if
he ventured on a correction or improvement of the sacred writing