unger by many years, and he cried to Rhodopis:
"Truly, my friend, your house is for me a house of blessing; for this
is the second gift that the gods have allowed to fall to my lot, since
I entered it."--"What was the first?" asked Rhodopis. "A propitious
oracle."--"But," cried Phanes, "you have forgotten the third; on this
day the gods have blessed you with the acquaintance of Rhodopis. But,
tell me, what is this about the oracle?"--"May I repeat it to our
friends?" asked the Delphian.

Aristomachus nodded assent, and Phryxus read aloud a second time the
answer of the Pythia:

"If once the warrior hosts from the snow-topped mountains descending
Come to the fields of the stream watering richly the plain,
Then shall the lingering boat to the beckoning meadows convey thee
Which to the wandering foot peace and a home will afford.
When those warriors come from the snow-topped mountains descending
Then will the powerful Five grant thee what they long refused."

Scarcely was the last word out of his mouth, when Kallias the Athenian,
springing up, cried: "In this house, too, you shall receive from me the
fourth gift of the gods. Know that I have kept my rarest news till last:
the Persians are coming to Egypt!"

At this every one, except the Sybarite, rushed to his feet, and Kallias
found it almost impossible to answer their numerous questions. "Gently,
gently, friends," he cried at last; "let me tell my story in order, or
I shall never finish it at all. It is not an army, as Phanes supposes,
that is on its way hither, but a great embassy from Cambyses, the
present ruler of the most powerful kingdom of Persia. At Samos I heard
that they had already reached Miletus, and in a few days they will be
here. Some of the king's own relations, are among the number, the aged
Croesus, king of Lydia, too; we shall behold a marvellous splendor
and magnificence! Nobody knows the object of their coming, but it is
supposed that King Cambyses wishes to conclude an alliance with Amasis;
indeed some say the king solicits the hand of Pharaoh's daughter."

"An alliance?" asked Phanes, with an incredulous shrug of the shoulders.
"Why the Persians are rulers over half the world already. All the
great Asiatic powers have submitted to their sceptre; Egypt and our own
mother-country, Hellas, are the only two that have been shared by the
conqueror."

"You forget India with its wealth of gold, and the great migratory
nations of Asi