now."

"I will accompany you with pleasure, if. . ."

"No conditions to the king! Have you had much practice in hunting?"

"In the Libyan desert I have killed many a lion."

"Then come, follow me."

In the thought of the chase the king seemed to have thrown off all his
weakness and roused himself to action; he was just leaving the hall, when
Hystaspes once more threw himself at his feet, crying with up-raised
hands: "Is my son--is your brother, to die innocent? By the soul of your
father, who used to call me his truest friend, I conjure you to listen to
this noble stranger."

Cambyses stood still. The frown gathered on his brow again, his voice
sounded like a menace and his eyes flashed as he raised his hand and said
to the Greek: "Tell me what you know; but remember that in every untrue
word, you utter your own sentence of death."

Phanes heard this threat with the greatest calmness, and answered, bowing
gracefully as he spoke: "From the sun and from my lord the king, nothing
can be hid. What power has a poor mortal to conceal the truth from one so
mighty? The noble Hystaspes has said, that I am able to prove your
brother innocent. I will only say, that I wish and hope I may succeed in
accomplishing anything so great and beautiful. The gods have at least
allowed me to discover a trace which seems calculated to throw light on
the events of yesterday; but you yourself must decide whether my hopes
have been presumptuous and my suspicions too easily aroused. Remember,
however, that throughout, my wish to serve you has been sincere, and that
if I have been deceived, my error is pardonable; that nothing is
perfectly certain in this world, and every man believes that to be
infallible which seems to him the most probable."

"You speak well, and remind me of . . . curse her! there, speak and have
done with it! I hear the dogs already in the court."

"I was still in Egypt when your embassy came to fetch Nitetis. At the
house of Rhodopis, my delightful, clever and celebrated countrywoman, I
made the acquaintance of Croesus and his son; I only saw your brother and
his friends once or twice, casually; still I remembered the young
prince's handsome face so well, that some time later, when I was in the
workshop of the great sculptor Theodorus at Samos, I recognized his
features at once."

"Did you meet him at Samos?"

"No, but his features had made such a deep and faithful impression on
Theodorus' memory, that he used t