uties. Ye are dismissed from the presence."

Waving them away, he indulged his fancy in thoughts of the coming
executions, chuckling the while.

From day to day he received reports that his commands were being
carried out. The land was filled with weeping, for the cruel butchery
was worse than war. None could defend themselves. Mere suspicion was
enough for the executioners. They wasted no time with doubts, but slew
all who were said to belong to the House of David. The Shah looked
over the list each night and chuckled. At last he was informed that
all had been slaughtered.

"'Tis well, 'tis well," he said, rubbing his hands, gleefully, "I
shall sleep in peace tonight."

He slept in a bower in a rose garden, and nowhere in the world are the
roses so magnificent and so sweet-scented as in Persia.

"I shall have pleasant dreams," he muttered, but instead he had a
nightmare that frightened him terribly.

He dreamed that he was walking in his rose garden, but instead of
deriving pleasure from the beautiful trees, he was only angered.

"Are there no white, or yellow, or pink roses?" he asked, but received
no answer. "All red, deep, deep red," he muttered, in his troubled
manner.

"Tell me," he demanded fiercely, stopping before a tree heavily laden
with flowers, "why are you so red today?"

And the roses spoke and replied, "Because of the innocent blood that
has been shed. It is royal blood that has drenched the ground, and
none but crimson roses shall bloom this year in Persia."

"Bah!" screamed the enraged Shah and, drawing his scimitar, he began
hacking right and left among the flowers. The beautiful blooms fell to
the ground in great showers until the garden was so littered with the
red petals that it seemed flooded with a pool of blood. At last only
one tree remained, and as the Shah raised his sword to cut it down, an
old man stepped from behind it and confronted the king.

"Who art thou, and whence camest thou?" the monarch asked fiercely.

No answer did the old man make. Gazing sternly into the eyes of the
Shah, he raised his hand suddenly and unexpectedly, and struck the
king such a violent blow that he fell sprawling to the ground. He lay
half-stunned among the red petals, looking up at the old man.

"Art thou not satisfied with the destruction thou hast wrought?" the
old man asked. "Must thou take the life of the last rose tree?"

The old man stooped to pick up the scimitar which had fallen from th