e,
will prescribe your rules of life and conduct. Tell me now, how my
messengers pleased you and your countrymen?"

"Who could know the noble Croesus without loving him? Who could fail to
admire the beauty of the young heroes, your friends, and especially of
your handsome brother Bartja? The Egyptians have no love for strangers,
but he won all hearts."

At these words the king's brows darkened, he struck his horse so that
the creature reared, and then, turning it quickly round, he galloped
towards Babylon. He decided in his mind to give Bartja the command of an
expedition against the Tapuri, and to make him marry Rosana, the
daughter of a Persian noble. He also determined to make Nitetis his real
queen and adviser. She was to be to him what his mother Kassandane had
been to Cyrus, his great father. Not even Phaedime, his favourite wife,
had occupied such a position. And as for Bartja, "he had better take
care," he murmured, "or he shall know the fate that awaits the man who
dares to cross my path."

_II.--The Plot_

According to Persian custom a year had to pass before Nitetis could
become Cambyses' lawful wife, but, conscious of his despotic power, he
had decided to reduce this term to a few months. Meanwhile, he only saw
the fair Egyptian in the presence of his blind mother or of his sister
Atossa, both of whom became Nitetis' devoted friends. Meanwhile, Boges,
the eunuch, sank in public estimation, since it was known that Cambyses
had ceased to visit the harem, and he began to conspire with Phaedime as
to the best way of ruining Nitetis, who had come to love Cambyses with
ever growing passion.

The Egyptian princess's happiness was seriously disturbed by the arrival
of a letter from her mother, which brought her naught but sad news. Her
father, Amasis, had been struck with blindness on the very day she had
reached Babylon; and her frail twin-sister Tachot, after falling into a
violent fever, was wasting away for love of Bartja, whose beauty had
captured her heart at the time of his mission in Sais. His name had been
even on her lips in her delirium, and the only hope for her was to see
him again.

Nitetis' whole happiness was destroyed in one moment. She wept and
sighed, until she fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. When her maid
Mandane came to put a last touch to her dress for the banquet, she found
her sleeping, and as there was ample time she went out into the garden,
where she met the eunuch Boges. He