tom, as much weight as the strictest command. After reflecting a few
moments, he called for huntsmen, dogs, bows and lances, sprang into a
light chariot and commanded the charioteer to drive him to the western
marshes, where, in pursuing the wild beasts of the desert, he could
forget the weight of his own cares and wreak on innocent creatures his
hitherto baffled vengeance.

Gyges was released immediately after the conversation between his father
and Amasis, and welcomed with acclamations of joy by his companions. The
Pharaoh seemed desirous of atoning for the imprisonment of his friend's
son by doubling his favors, for on the same day Gyges received from
the king a magnificent chariot drawn by two noble brown steeds, and
was begged to take back with him to Persia a curiously-wrought set of
draughts, as a remembrance of Sais. The separate pieces were made
of ebony and ivory, some being curiously inlaid with sentences, in
hieroglyphics of gold and silver.

Amasis laughed heartily with his friends at Gyges' artifice, allowed
the young heroes to mix freely with his family, and behaved towards
them himself as a jovial father towards his merry sons. That the ancient
Egyptian was not quite extinguished in him could only be discerned at
meal-times, when a separate table was allotted to the Persians. The
religion of his ancestors would have pronounced him defiled, had he
eaten at the same table with men of another nation.

[Herodotus II. 41. says that the Egyptians neither kissed, nor ate
out of the same dish with foreigners, nay, indeed, that they refused
to touch meat, in the cutting up of which the knife of a Greek had
been used. Nor were the lesser dynasties of the Delta allowed,
according to the Stela of Pianchi, to cross the threshold of the
Pharaohs because they were unclean and ate fish. In the book of
Genesis, the brethren of Joseph were not allowed to eat bread with
the Egyptians.]

When Amasis, at last, three days after the release of Gyges, declared
that his daughter Nitetis would be prepared to depart for Asia in the
course of two more weeks, all the Persians regretted that their stay in
Egypt was so near its close.

Croesus had enjoyed the society of the Samian poets and sculptors. Gyges
had shared his father's preference for Greek art and artists. Darius,
who had formerly studied astronomy in Babylon, was one evening observing
the heavens, when, to his surprise, he was addressed by th