ated to him the dream
which had alarmed him. "It is on that account," said he, "that I am so
anxious about you. You are, in fact, my only son, for your speechless
brother can never be my heir."

Atys said, in reply, that he was not surprised, under those
circumstances, at his father's anxiety; but he maintained that this
was a case to which his caution could not properly apply.

"You dreamed," he said, "that I should be killed by a weapon pointed
with iron; but a boar has no such weapon. If the dream had portended
that I was to perish by a tusk or a tooth, you might reasonably have
restrained me from going to hunt a wild beast; but iron-pointed
instruments are the weapons of men, and we are not going, in this
expedition, to contend with men."

The king, partly convinced, perhaps, by the arguments which Atys
offered, and partly overborne by the urgency of his request, finally
consented to his request and allowed him to go. He consigned him,
however, to the special care of Adrastus, who was likewise to
accompany the expedition, charging Adrastus to keep constantly by his
side, and to watch over him with the utmost vigilance and fidelity.

The band of huntsmen was organized, the dogs prepared, and the train
departed. Very soon afterward, a messenger came back from the hunting
ground, breathless, and with a countenance of extreme concern and
terror, bringing the dreadful tidings that Atys was dead. Adrastus
himself had killed him. In the ardor of the chase, while the huntsmen
had surrounded the boar, and were each intent on his own personal
danger while in close combat with such a monster, and all were hurling
darts and javelins at their ferocious foe, the spear of Adrastus
missed its aim, and entered the body of the unhappy prince. He bled to
death on the spot.

Soon after the messenger had made known these terrible tidings, the
hunting train, transformed now into a funeral procession, appeared,
bearing the dead body of the king's son, and followed by the wretched
Adrastus himself, who was wringing his hands, and crying out
incessantly in accents and exclamations of despair. He begged the king
to kill him at once, over the body of his son, and thus put an end to
the unutterable agony that he endured. This second calamity was more,
he said, than he could bear. He had killed before his own brother, and
now he had murdered the son of his greatest benefactor and friend.

Croesus, though overwhelmed with anguish, was dis