the juice of the vine has one quality which outweighs all the
rest: it can turn even a silent man into a chatter-box. The youth
confessed that the great attraction which had brought him to Babylon was,
not the sacrifice, but a girl who held the office of upper attendant to
the Egyptian Princess. He said he had loved her since he was a child; but
his ambitious brother had higher views for him, and in order to get the
lovely Mandane out of his way, had procured her this situation. At last
he begged me to arrange an interview with her. I listened good-naturedly,
made a few difficulties, and at last asked him to come the next day and
see how matters were going on. He came, and I told him that it might be
possible to manage it, but only if he would promise to do what I told him
without a question. He agreed to everything, returned to Rhagae at my
wish, and did not come to Babylon again until yesterday, when he arrived
secretly at my house, where I concealed him. Meanwhile Bartja had
returned from the war. The great point now was to excite the king's
jealousy again, and ruin the Egyptian at one blow. I roused the
indignation of your relations through your public humiliation, and so
prepared the way for my plan. Events were wonderfully in my favor. You
know how Nitetis behaved at the birthday banquet, but you do not know
that that very evening she sent a gardener's boy to the palace with a
note for Bartja. The silly fellow managed to get caught and was executed
that very night, by command of the king, who was almost mad with rage;
and I took care that Nitetis should be as entirely cut off from all
communication with her friends, as if she lived in the nest of the
Simurg. You know the rest."

"But how did Gaumata escape?"

"Through a trap-door, of which nobody knows but myself, and which stood
wide open waiting for him. Everything turned out marvellously; I even
succeeded in getting hold of a dagger which Bartja had lost while
hunting, and in laying it under Nitetis' window. In order to get rid of
the prince during these occurrences, and prevent him from meeting the
king or any one else who might be important as a witness, I asked the
Greek merchant Kolxus, who was then at Babylon with a cargo of Milesian
cloth, and who is always willing to do me a favor, because I buy all the
woollen stuffs required for the harem of him, to write a Greek letter,
begging Bartja, in the name of her he loved best, to come alone to the
first stat