ch troop
as your Immortals. Well, who knows what the future may bring! Perhaps we
may all make a little trip together to the Nile some day. In my opinion,
your good swords have been rather long idle." These well-calculated
words were received with such shouts of applause, that the king turned
his horse to enquire the cause. Phanes answered quickly that the
Achaemenidae were rejoicing in the thought that a war might possibly be
near at hand.

"What war?" asked the king, with the first smile that had been seen on
his face for many days.

"We were only speaking in general of the possibility of such a thing,"
answered Phanes carelessly; then, riding up to the king's side, his
voice took an impressive tone full of feeling, and looking earnestly
into his face, he began: "It is true, my Sovereign, that I was not born
in this beautiful country as one of your subjects, nor can I boast of a
long acquaintance with the most powerful of monarchs, but yet I cannot
resist the presumptuous, perhaps criminal thought, that the gods at my
birth appointed me to be your real friend. It is not your rich gifts
that have drawn me to you. I did not need them, for I belong to the
wealthier class of my countrymen, and I have no son,--no heir,--to
whom I can bequeath my treasures. Once I had a boy--a beautiful, gentle
child;--but I was not going to speak of that,--I... Are you offended at
my freedom of speech, my Sovereign?"

"What is there to offend me?" answered the king, who had never been
spoken to in this manner before, and felt strongly attracted to the
original foreigner.

"Till to-day I felt that your grief was too sacred to be disturbed, but
now the time has come to rouse you from it and to make your heart glow
once more. You will have to hear what must be very painful to you."

"There is nothing more now, that can grieve me."

"What I am going to tell you will not give you pain; on the contrary, it
will rouse your anger."

"You make me curious."

"You have been shamefully deceived; you and that lovely creature, who
died such an early death a few days ago."

Cambyses' eyes flashed a demand for further information.

"Amasis, the King of Egypt, has dared to make sport of you, the lord
of the world. That gentle girl was not his daughter, though she herself
believed that she was; she..."

"Impossible!"

"It would seem so, and yet I am speaking the simple truth. Amasis spun
a web of lies, in which he managed to entrap, not only