days after the accused had been declared innocent. Several eunuchs
of rank were deposed from their offices. The entire caste was to suffer
for the sins of him who had escaped punishment.

Oropastes, who had already entered on his duties as regent of the
kingdom, and had clearly proved his non-participation in the crime of
which his brother had been proved guilty, bestowed the vacant places
exclusively on the Magi. The demonstration made by the people in favor
of Bartja did not come to the king's ears until the crowd had long
dispersed. Still, occupied as he was, almost entirely, by his anxiety
for Nitetis, he caused exact information of this illegal manifestation
to be furnished him, and ordered the ringleaders to be severely
punished. He fancied it was a proof that Bartja had been trying to
gain favor with the people, and Cambyses would perhaps have shown his
displeasure by some open act, if a better impulse had not told him that
he, not Bartja, was the brother who stood in need of forgiveness. In
spite of this, however, he could not get rid of the feeling that Bartja,
had been, though innocent, the cause of the sad events which had just
happened, nor of his wish to get him out of the way as far as might be;
and he therefore gave a ready consent to his brother's wish to start at
once for Naukratis.

Bartja took a tender farewell of his mother and sister, and started two
days after his liberation. He was accompanied by Gyges, Zopyrus, and
a numerous retinue charged with splendid presents from Cambyses for
Sappho. Darius remained behind, kept back by his love for Atossa. The
day too was not far distant, when, by his father's wish, he was to marry
Artystone, the daughter of Gobryas.

Bartja parted from his friend with a heavy heart, advising him to be
very prudent with regard to Atossa. The secret had been confided to
Kassandane, and she had promised to take Darius' part with the king.

If any one might venture to raise his eyes to the daughter of Cyrus,
assuredly it was the son of Hystaspes; he was closely connected
by marriage with the royal family, belonged like Cambyses to the
Pasargadae, and his family was a younger branch of the reigning dynasty.
His father called himself the highest noble in the realm, and as such,
governed the province of Persia proper, the mother-country, to which
this enormous world-empire and its ruler owed their origin. Should the
family of Cyrus become extinct, the descendants of Hystaspes