set
with rubies and turquoises. As he looked he turned pale, and dashed the
dagger on the ground before Bartja with such violence, that the stones
fell out of their setting.

"This is your dagger, you wretch!" he shrieked, seized by the same
violent passion as before. "This very morning you used it to give the
last thrust to the wild boar, that I had mortally wounded. Croesus, you
ought to know it too, for my father brought it from your treasure-house
at Sardis. At last you are really convicted, you liar!--you impostor! The
Divs require no weapons, and such a dagger as this is not to be picked up
everywhere. Ah, ha! you are feeling in your girdle! You may well turn
pale; your dagger is gone!"

"Yes, it is gone. I must have lost it, and some enemy . . ."

"Seize him, Bischen, put on his fetters! Take him to prison--the traitor,
the perjurer! He shall be strangled to-morrow. Death is the penalty of
perjury. Your heads for theirs, you guards, if they escape. Not one word
more will I hear; away with you, you perjured villains! Boges, go at once
to the hanging-gardens and bring the Egyptian to me. Yet no, I won't see
that serpent again. It is very near dawn now, and at noon she shall be
flogged through the streets. Then I'll . . ."

But here he was stopped by another fit of epilepsy, and sank down on to
the marble floor in convulsions. At this fearful moment Kassandane was
led into the hall by the old general Megabyzus. The news of what had
happened had found its way to her solitary apartments, and,
notwithstanding the hour, she had risen in order to try and discover the
truth and warn her son against pronouncing a too hasty decision. She
believed firmly that Bartja and Nitetis were innocent, though she could
not explain to herself what had happened. Several times she had tried to
put herself in communication with Nitetis, but without avail. At last she
had been herself to the hanging-gardens, but the guards had actually had
the hardihood to refuse her admission.

Croesus went at once to meet her, told her what had happened, suppressing
as many painful details as possible, confirmed her in her belief of the
innocence of the accused, and then took her to the bedside of the king.

The convulsions had not lasted long this time. He lay on his golden bed
under purple silk coverlets, pale and exhausted. His blind mother seated
herself at his side, Croesus and Oropastes took their station at the foot
of the bell, and in anot