on!"

The officers who had charge of the execution asked him what he meant.
Cyrus, too, who was himself personally superintending the scene, asked
for an explanation. Croesus was, for a time, too much agitated and
distracted to reply. There were difficulties in respect to language,
too, which embarrassed the conversation, as the two kings could speak
to each other only through an interpreter. At length Croesus gave an
account of his interview with Solon, and of the sentiment which the
philosopher had expressed, that no one could decide whether a man was
truly prosperous and happy till it was determined how his life was
to end. Cyrus was greatly interested in this narrative; but, in the
mean time, the interpreting of the conversation had been slow, a
considerable period had elapsed, and the officers had lighted the
fire. The pile had been made extremely combustible, and the fire was
rapidly making its way through the whole mass. Cyrus eagerly ordered
it to be extinguished. The efforts which the soldiers made for this
purpose seemed, at first, likely to be fruitless; but they were aided
very soon by a sudden shower of rain, which, coming down from the
mountains, began, just at this time, to fall; and thus the flames were
extinguished, and Croesus and the captives saved.

Cyrus immediately, with a fickleness very common among great monarchs
in the treatment of both enemies and favorites, began to consider
Croesus as his friend. He ordered him to be unbound, brought him
near his person, and treated him with great consideration and honor.

Croesus remained after this for a long time with Cyrus, and
accompanied him in his subsequent campaigns. He was very much incensed
at the oracle at Delphi for having deceived him by its false responses
and predictions, and thus led him into the terrible snare into which
he had fallen. He procured the fetters with which he had been chained
when placed upon the pile, and sent them to Delphi with orders that
they should be thrown down upon the threshold of the temple--the
visible symbol of his captivity and ruin--as a reproach to the oracle
for having deluded him and caused his destruction. In doing this, the
messengers were to ask the oracle whether imposition like that which
had been practiced on Croesus was the kind of gratitude it evinced
to one who had enriched it by such a profusion of offerings and gifts.

To this the priests of the oracle said in reply, that the destruction
of the