e other deities
who protected marriage. The wedding-banquet was to be given at the house
of Theopompus, which was looked upon as the bridegroom's. The prince's
costly bridal presents had been entrusted to Rhodopis' care, and Bartja
had insisted on renouncing the paternal inheritance which belonged to his
bride and on transferring it to Rhodopis, notwithstanding her determined
resistance.

Syloson accompanied the friends to Rhodopis' house, and was just about to
leave them, when a loud noise in the streets broke the quiet stillness of
the night, and soon after, a troop of the watch passed by, taking a man
to prison. The prisoner seemed highly indignant, and the less his broken
Greek oaths and his utterances in some other totally unintelligible
language were understood by the Egyptian guards, the more violent he
became.

Directly Bartja and Darius heard the voice they ran up, and recognized
Zopyrus at once.

Syloson and Theopompus stopped the guards, and asked what their captive
had done. The officer on duty recognized them directly; indeed every
child in Naukratis knew the Milesian merchant and the brother of the
tyrant Polykrates by sight; and he answered at once, with a respectful
salutation, that the foreign youth they were leading away had been guilty
of murder.

Theopompus then took him on one side and endeavored, by liberal promises,
to obtain the freedom of the prisoner. The man, however, would concede
nothing but a permission to speak with his captive. Meanwhile his friends
begged Zopyrus to tell them at once what had happened, and heard the
following story: The thoughtless fellow had visited the flower-girls at
dusk and remained till dawn. He had scarcely closed their housedoor on
his way home, when he found himself surrounded by a number of young men,
who had probably been lying in wait for him, as he had already had a
quarrel with one of them, who called himself the betrothed lover of
Stephanion, on that very morning. The girl had told her troublesome
admirer to leave her flowers alone, and had thanked Zopyrus for
threatening to use personal violence to the intruder. When the young
Achaemenidae found himself surrounded, he drew his sword and easily
dispersed his adversaries, as they were only armed with sticks, but
chanced to wound the jealous lover, who was more violent than the rest,
so seriously, that he fell to the ground. Meanwhile the watch had come
up, and as Zopyrus' victim howled "thieves" and "m