nging anger?'

'I did not know you were so wise and prudent,' said Candaules, with
a slightly ironical smile; 'but such dangers are all imaginary, and I
shall hide you in such a way that Nyssia will never know she has been
seen by any one except her royal husband.'

Being unable to offer any further defence, Gyges made a sign of assent
in token of complete submission to the king's will. He had made all the
resistance in his power, and thenceforward his conscience could feel
at ease in regard to whatever might happen; besides, by any further
opposition to the will of Candaules, he would have feared to oppose
destiny itself, which seemed striving to bring him still nearer to
Nyssia for some grim ulterior purpose into which it was not given to him
to see further.

Without actually being able to foresee any result, he beheld a thousand
vague and shadowy images passing before his eyes. That subterranean
love, so long crouched at the foot of his soul's stairway, had climbed
a few steps higher, guided by some fitful glimmer of hope. The weight of
the impossible no longer pressed so heavily upon his breast, now that
he believed himself aided by the gods. In truth, who would have dreamed
that the much-boasted charms of the daughter of Megabazus would ere long
cease to own any mystery for Gyges?

'Come, Gyges,' said Candaules, taking him by the hand, 'let us make
profit of the time. Nyssia is walking in the garden with her women; let
us look at the place, and plan our stratagems for this evening.'

The king took his confidant by the hand and led him along the winding
ways which conducted to the nuptial apartment. The doors of the
sleeping-room were made of cedar planks so perfectly put together that
it was impossible to discover the joints. By dint of rubbing them with
wool steeped in oil, the slaves had rendered the wood as polished as
marble. The brazen nails, with heads cut in facets, which studded them,
had all the brilliancy of the purest gold. A complicated system of
straps and metallic rings, whereof Candaules and his wife alone knew
the combination, served to secure them, for in those heroic ages the
locksmith's art was yet in its infancy.

Candaules unloosed the knots, made the rings slide back upon the thongs,
raised with a handle which fitted into a mortise the bar that fastened
the door from within, and bidding Gyges place himself against the wall,
turned back one of the folding-doors upon him in such a way as t