e he had power to interpret dreams and make all
doubtful things clear.

[Illustration: The handwriting on the wall]

So Daniel was brought before the king, and the king told him that if he
would read the writing on the wall he should be clothed royally and be
made the third ruler in the kingdom.

"Let thy gifts be to thyself," said Daniel, "and give thy rewards to
another, yet I will read the writing unto the king, and make known to
him the interpretation."

Then Daniel reminded the king of that which fell upon his father
Nebuchadnezzar, when he had grown proud and hard-hearted toward God and
men, and, though he knew all this, he also had lifted himself up
against the Lord of heaven, and had defiled the holy vessels of the
Temple by drinking from them to gods which could neither see or hear,
and because of this the message had been written on the wall. And this
was the interpretation of the strange words,--

"God hath numbered thy kingdom and finished it. Thou art weighed in
the balances, and art found wanting. Thy kingdom is divided, and given
to the Medes and the Persians."

The king clothed Daniel in scarlet, and gave him a chain of gold, and
proclaimed him third ruler in the kingdom, but the same night
Belshazzar was slain, and Darius the Medean took the kingdom.

The new king set one hundred and twenty princes over the kingdom, and
over these he set three presidents, the first of which was Daniel. The
king loved Daniel for the wise and good spirit that was in him, and
this stirred up jealousy in the hearts of the Babylonian princes, and
they watched Daniel to see if they could find something against him to
tell the king, but they could not, for he was faithful in all his work.

Then they agreed to plot against him, and they went to the king and
persuaded him to make a decree that whoever should ask any petition of
any god or man for thirty days, except of the king, he should be thrown
into the den of lions, and they asked the king to sign the decree, so
that it could not be changed, and he signed it.

When Daniel heard of the decree, and knew that the king had signed it,
he went into his own house, and to his chamber. There the windows were
always open toward Jerusalem, and he kneeled down as he had done every
day since he was taken from his own land, and prayed to God with his
face toward the Temple in Jerusalem. And the men who were plotting
against him watched him.

Then they hurried to the kin