ersian. Even he himself
was changed. His hair and beard grew long, after the Persian manner. He
wore the loose Median cloak, the tall felt cap of a Persian noble. The
elaborate genuflexions of the Asiatics no longer astonished him. He
learned to admire the valiant, magnanimous lords of the Persians. And
Xerxes, the distant king, the wielder of all this power, was he not truly
a god on earth, vicegerent of Lord Zeus himself?

"Forget you are a Hellene. We will talk of the Nile, not of the
Cephissus," Artazostra said, whenever he spoke of home. Then she would
tell of Babylon and Persepolis, and Mardonius of forays beside the wide
Caspian, and Roxana of her girlhood, while Gobryas was satrap of Egypt,
spent beside the magic river, of the Pharaohs, the great pyramid, of Isis
and Osiris and the world beyond the dead. Before the Athenian was opened
the golden East, its glitter, its wonderment, its fascination. He even was
silent when his hosts talked boldly of the coming war, how soon the
Persian power would rule from the Pillars of Heracles to Ind.

Yet once he stood at bay, showing that he was a Hellene still. They were
in the garden. Mardonius had come to them where under the pomegranate tree
the women spread their green tapestry which their nimble needles covered
with a battle scene in scarlet. The Prince told of the capture and
crucifixion of the chiefs of a futile revolt in Armenia. Then Artazostra
clapped her hands to cry.

"Fools! Fools whom Angra-Mainyu the Evil smites blind that he may destroy
them!"

Glaucon, sitting at her feet, looked up quickly. "Valiant fools, lady;
every man must strike for his own country."

Artazostra shook her shining head.

"Mazda gives victory to the king of Eran alone. Resisting Xerxes is not
rebellion against man, it is rebellion against Heaven."

"Are you sure?" asked the Athenian, his eye lighting ominously. "Are yours
the greatest gods?"

But Roxana in turn cast down the tapestry and opened her arms with a
charming gesture.

"Be not angry, Glaucon, for will you not become one with us? I dare to
prophesy like a seer from old Chaldea. Assur of Nineveh, Marduk of
Babylon, Baal of Tyre, Ammon of Memphis--all have bent the knee to Mazda
the Glorious, to Mithra the Fiend-Smiting, and shall the weak _daevas_, the
puny gods of Greece, save their land, when greater than they bow down in
sore defeat?"

Yet Glaucon still looked on her boldly.

"You have your mighty gods, but we ha