instant removal.

This seeming store of gold was shown to the secretary, who hastened back
to Polycrates with a glowing description of the treasure he had seen.
Polycrates, on hearing this story, decided to go at once and bring
Oroetes and his chests of gold to Samos.

Against this action his friends protested, while the soothsayers found
the portents unfavorable. His daughter, also, had a significant dream.
She saw her father hanging high in the air, washed by Zeus, the king of
the gods, and anointed by the sun. Yet in spite of all this the
infatuated king persisted in going. His daughter followed him on the
ship, still begging him to return. His only answer was that if he
returned successfully he would keep her an old maid for years.

"Oh that you may perform your threat!" she answered. "It is far better
for me to be an old maid than to lose my father."

Yet the infatuated king went, despite all warnings and advice, taking
with him a considerable suite. On his arrival at Magnesia grief instead
of gold proved his portion. His enemy seized him, put him to a miserable
death, and hung his dead body on a cross to the mercy of the sun and the
rains. Thus his daughter's dream was fulfilled, for, in the old belief,
to be washed by the rain was to be washed by Zeus, while the sun
anointed him by causing the fat to exude from his body.

A year or two after the death of Polycrates, his banished brother
Syloson came to the throne in a singular way. During his exile he found
himself at Memphis, in Egypt, while Cambyses was there with his
conquering army. Among the guards of the king was Darius, the future
king of Persia, but then a soldier of little note. Syloson wore a
scarlet cloak to which Darius took a fancy and proposed to buy it. By a
sudden impulse Syloson replied, "I cannot for any price sell it; but I
give it you for nothing, if it must be yours."

Darius thanked him for the cloak, and that ended the matter there and
then,--Syloson afterwards holding himself as silly for the impulsive
good nature of his gift.

But at length he learned with surprise that the simple Persian soldier
whom he had benefited was now king of the great Persian empire. He went
to Susa, the capital, and told who he was. Darius had forgotten his
face, but he remembered the incident of the cloak, and offered to pay a
kingly price for the small favor of his humbler days, tendering gold and
silver in profusion to his visitor. Syloson rejected th