allest box of perfume, nor the tiniest of their golden hair-pins?
Surely you have deserved to have a royal chain hung about your neck and
to be called the king's friend."

"The reward was doubtless greater than my desert. It was no great feat
of arms that I had to perform; and yet, in these days a man may leave
Media under one king, and reach Shushan under another. The queen knoweth
better than any one what sudden changes may take place in the empire,"
answered Zoroaster, looking calmly into her face as he stood; and she
who had been the wife of Cambyses and the wife of the murdered
Gomata-Smerdis, and who was now the wife of Darius, looked down and was
silent, turning over in her beautiful hands the sealed scroll she bore.

The sun had risen higher while they talked, and his rays were growing
hot in the clear air. The mist had lifted from the city below, and all
the streets and open places were alive with noisy buyers and sellers,
whose loud talking and disputing came up in a continuous hum to the
palace on the hill, like the drone of a swarm of bees. The queen rose
from her seat.

"It is too warm here," she said, and she once more moved toward the
stairway. Zoroaster followed her respectfully, still holding his helmet
in his hand. Atossa did not speak till she reached the threshold. Then,
as Zoroaster bowed low before her, she paused and looked at him with her
clear, deep-blue eyes.

"You have grown very formal in four years," she said softly. "You used
to be more outspoken and less of a courtier. I am not changed--we must
be friends as we were formerly."

Zoroaster hesitated a moment before he answered:

"I am the Great King's man," he said slowly. "I am, therefore, also the
queen's servant."

Atossa raised her delicate eyebrows a little and a shade of annoyance
passed for the first time over her perfect face, which gave her a look
of sternness.

"I am the queen," she said coldly. "The king may take other wives, but I
am the queen. Take heed that you be indeed my servant." Then, as she
gathered her mantle about her and put one foot upon the stairs, she
touched his shoulder gently with the tips of her fingers and added with
a sudden smile, "And I will be your friend." So she passed down the
stairs out of sight, leaving Zoroaster alone.

Slowly he paced the terrace again, reflecting profoundly upon his
situation. Indeed he had no small cause for anxiety; it was evident that
the queen suspected his love for N