ring it to Rhodopis, notwithstanding her
determined resistance.

Syloson accompanied the friends to Rhodopis' house, and was just
about to leave them, when a loud noise in the streets broke the quiet
stillness of the night, and soon after, a troop of the watch passed by,
taking a man to prison. The prisoner seemed highly indignant, and the
less his broken Greek oaths and his utterances in some other totally
unintelligible language were understood by the Egyptian guards, the more
violent he became.

Directly Bartja and Darius heard the voice they ran up, and recognized
Zopyrus at once.

Syloson and Theopompus stopped the guards, and asked what their captive
had done. The officer on duty recognized them directly; indeed every
child in Naukratis knew the Milesian merchant and the brother of the
tyrant Polykrates by sight; and he answered at once, with a respectful
salutation, that the foreign youth they were leading away had been
guilty of murder.

Theopompus then took him on one side and endeavored, by liberal
promises, to obtain the freedom of the prisoner. The man, however, would
concede nothing but a permission to speak with his captive. Meanwhile
his friends begged Zopyrus to tell them at once what had happened,
and heard the following story: The thoughtless fellow had visited the
flower-girls at dusk and remained till dawn. He had scarcely closed
their housedoor on his way home, when he found himself surrounded by a
number of young men, who had probably been lying in wait for him, as
he had already had a quarrel with one of them, who called himself the
betrothed lover of Stephanion, on that very morning. The girl had told
her troublesome admirer to leave her flowers alone, and had thanked
Zopyrus for threatening to use personal violence to the intruder. When
the young Achaemenidae found himself surrounded, he drew his sword and
easily dispersed his adversaries, as they were only armed with sticks,
but chanced to wound the jealous lover, who was more violent than the
rest, so seriously, that he fell to the ground. Meanwhile the watch
had come up, and as Zopyrus' victim howled "thieves" and "murder"
incessantly, they proceeded to arrest the offender. This was not so
easy. His blood was up, and rushing on them with his drawn sword, he had
already cut his way through the first troop when a second came up.
He was not to be daunted, attacked them too, split the skull of one,
wounded another in the arm and was taking a