lm,
and in a short time fell asleep.

In a word, the king rapidly recovered; and, overwhelmed with gratitude
toward the benefactor whose skill had saved him from such suffering,
he ordered that, in place of his single pair of iron fetters, he
should have two pairs of fetters of gold!

It might at first be imagined that such a strange token of regard as
this could be intended only as a jest and an insult; but there is no
doubt that Darius meant it seriously as a compliment and an honor. He
supposed that Democedes, of course, considered his condition of
captivity as a fixed and permanent one; and that his fetters were not,
in themselves, an injustice or disgrace, but the necessary and
unavoidable concomitant of his lot, so that the sending of golden
fetters to a slave was very naturally, in his view, like presenting a
golden crutch to a cripple. Democedes received the equivocal donation
with great good nature. He even ventured upon a joke on the subject to
the convalescent king. "It seems, sire," said he "that in return for
my saving your limb and your life, you double my servitude. You have
given me two chains instead of one."

The king, who was now in a much better humor to be pleased than when,
writhing in anguish, he had ordered Democedes to be put to the
torture, laughed at this reply, and released the captive from the
bonds entirely. He ordered him to be conducted by the attendants to
the apartments of the palace, where the wives of Darius and the other
ladies of the court resided, that they might see him and express their
gratitude. "This is the physician," said the eunuchs, who introduced
him, "that cured the king." The ladies welcomed him with the utmost
cordiality, and loaded him with presents of gold and silver as he
passed through their apartments. The king made arrangements, too,
immediately, for providing him with a magnificent house in Susa, and
established him there in great luxury and splendor, with costly
furniture and many attendants, and all other marks of distinction and
honor. In a word, Democedes found himself, by means of another
unexpected change of fortune, suddenly elevated to a height as lofty
as his misery and degradation had been low. He was, however, a captive
still.

The Queen Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus, who has already been
mentioned as the wife of Cambyses and of Smerdis the magian, was one
of the wives of Darius. Her sister Antystone was another. A third was
Phaedyma, the daught