Perhaps they may be able to discover the truth. Can you see any light in
this darkness, Oropastes?"

"Thy servant supposes, that a Div has taken upon him the form of Bartja,
in order to ruin the king's brother and stain thine own royal soul with
the blood of thy father's son."

Cambyses and every one present nodded their assent to this proposition,
and the king was just going to offer his hand to Bartja, when a
staff-bearer came in and gave the king a dagger. A eunuch had found it
under the windows of Nitetis' sleeping-apartment.

Cambyses examined the weapon carefully. Its costly hilt was thickly set
with rubies and turquoises. As he looked he turned pale, and dashed the
dagger on the ground before Bartja with such violence, that the stones
fell out of their setting.

"This is your dagger, you wretch!" he shrieked, seized by the same
violent passion as before. "This very morning you used it to give the
last thrust to the wild boar, that I had mortally wounded. Croesus, you
ought to know it too, for my father brought it from your treasure-house
at Sardis. At last you are really convicted, you liar!--you impostor!
The Divs require no weapons, and such a dagger as this is not to be
picked up everywhere. Ah, ha! you are feeling in your girdle! You may
well turn pale; your dagger is gone!"

"Yes, it is gone. I must have lost it, and some enemy..."

"Seize him, Bischen, put on his fetters! Take him to prison--the
traitor, the perjurer! He shall be strangled to-morrow. Death is the
penalty of perjury. Your heads for theirs, you guards, if they escape.
Not one word more will I hear; away with you, you perjured villains!
Boges, go at once to the hanging-gardens and bring the Egyptian to me.
Yet no, I won't see that serpent again. It is very near dawn now, and at
noon she shall be flogged through the streets. Then I'll..."

But here he was stopped by another fit of epilepsy, and sank down on to
the marble floor in convulsions. At this fearful moment Kassandane was
led into the hall by the old general Megabyzus. The news of what
had happened had found its way to her solitary apartments, and,
notwithstanding the hour, she had risen in order to try and discover
the truth and warn her son against pronouncing a too hasty decision. She
believed firmly that Bartja and Nitetis were innocent, though she could
not explain to herself what had happened. Several times she had tried
to put herself in communication with Nitetis, but wi