Assyrian camp captured, he was
absent, having gone away on an embassage to another nation. This
circumstance shows that Abradates, though called a king, could hardly
have been a sovereign and independent prince, but rather a governor or
viceroy--those words expressing to our minds more truly the station of
such a sort of king as could be sent on an embassy.

Araspes went on to say that, at the time of their making the capture,
he, with some others, went into Panthea's tent, where they found her
and her attendant ladies sitting on the ground, with veils over their
faces, patiently awaiting their doom. Notwithstanding the concealment
produced by the attitudes and dress of these ladies, there was
something about the air and figure of Panthea which showed at once
that she was the queen. The leader of Araspes's party asked them all
to rise. They did so, and then the superiority of Panthea was still
more apparent than before. There was an extraordinary grace and beauty
in her attitude and in all her motions. She stood in a dejected
posture, and her countenance was sad, though inexpressibly lovely. She
endeavored to appear calm and composed, though the tears had evidently
been falling from her eyes.

The soldiers pitied her in her distress, and the leader of the party
attempted to console her, as Araspes said, by telling her that she had
nothing to fear; that they were aware that her husband was a most
worthy and excellent man; and although, by this capture, she was lost
to him, she would have no cause to regret the event, for she would be
reserved for a new husband not at all inferior to her former one
either in person, in understanding, in rank, or in power.

These well-meant attempts at consolation did not appear to have the
good effect desired. They only awakened Panthea's grief and suffering
anew. The tears began to fall again faster than before. Her grief soon
became more and more uncontrollable. She sobbed and cried aloud, and
began to wring her hands and tear her mantle--the customary Oriental
expression of inconsolable sorrow and despair. Araspes said that in
these gesticulations her neck, and hands, and a part of her face
appeared, and that she was the most beautiful woman that he had ever
beheld. He wished Cyrus to see her.

Cyrus said, "No; he would not see her by any means." Araspes asked him
why. He said that there would be danger that he should forget his duty
to the army, and lose his interest in the great