urned out marvellously; I even
succeeded in getting hold of a dagger which Bartja had lost while
hunting, and in laying it under Nitetis' window. In order to get rid of
the prince during these occurrences, and prevent him from meeting the
king or any one else who might be important as a witness, I asked the
Greek merchant Kolxus, who was then at Babylon with a cargo of Milesian
cloth, and who is always willing to do me a favor, because I buy all the
woollen stuffs required for the harem of him, to write a Greek letter,
begging Bartja, in the name of her he loved best, to come alone to
the first station outside the Euphrates gate at the rising of the
Tistar-star. But I had a misfortune with this letter, for the messenger
managed the matter clumsily. He declares that he delivered the letter
to Bartja; but there can be no doubt that he gave it to some one else,
probably to Gaumata, and I was not a little dismayed to hear that Bartja
was sitting over the wine with his friends on that very evening. Still
what had been done could not be undone, and I knew that the witness of
men like your father, Hystaslies, Croesus and Intaphernes, would far
outweigh anything that Darius, Gyges and Araspes could say. The former
would testify against their friend, the latter for him. And so at
last everything went as I would have had it. The young gentlemen
are sentenced to death and Croesus, who as usual, presumed to speak
impertinently to the king, will have lived his last hour by this time.
As to the Egyptian Princess, the secretary in chief has just been
commanded to draw up the following order. Now listen and rejoice, my
little dove! "'Nitetis, the adulterous daughter of the King of Egypt,
shall be punished for her hideous crimes according to the extreme rigor
of the law, thus: She shall be set astride upon an ass and led through
the streets of Babylon; and all men shall see that Cambyses knows how
to punish a king's daughter, as severely as his magistrates would punish
the meanest beggar. --To Boges, chief of the eunuchs, is entrusted the
execution of this order.

By command of King Cambyses. Ariabignes, chief of the Secretaries'

"I had scarcely placed these lines in the sleeve of my robe, when
the king's mother, with her garments rent, and led by Atossa, pressed
hastily into the hall. Weeping and lamentation followed; cries,
reproaches, curses, entreaties and prayers; but the king remained firm,
and I verily believe Kassandane and At