, I daresay Zoroaster, too, has repeated many verses to you
in the winter evenings at Ecbatana. He used to know endless poetry when
he was a boy."

This time Nehushta looked at the queen, and wondered how she, who could
not be more than two or three and twenty years old, although now married
to her third husband, could speak of having known Zoroaster as a boy,
seeing that he was past thirty years of age. She turned the question
upon the queen.

"You must have seen Zoroaster very often before he left Shushan," she
said. "You know him so well."

"Yes--every one knew him. He was the favourite of the court, with his
beauty and his courage and his strange affection for that old--for the
old Hebrew prophet. That is why Cambyses sent them both away," added she
with a light laugh. "They were far too good, both of them, to be endured
among the doings of those times."

Atossa spoke readily enough of Cambyses. Nehushta wondered whether she
could be induced to speak of Smerdis. Her supposed ignorance of the true
nature of what had occurred in the last few months would permit her to
speak of the dead usurper with impunity.

"I suppose there have been great changes lately in the manners of the
court--during this last year," suggested Nehushta carelessly. She pulled
a raisin from the dry stem, and tried to peel it with her delicate
fingers.

"Indeed there have been changes," answered Atossa, calmly. "A great many
things that used to be tolerated will never be heard of now. On the
whole, the change has been rather in relation to religion than
otherwise. You will understand that in one year we have had three court
religions. Cambyses sacrificed to Ashtaroth--and I must say he made a
most appropriate choice of his tutelary goddess. Smerdis"--continued the
queen in measured tones and with the utmost calmness of manner--"Smerdis
devoted himself wholly to the worship of Indra, who appeared to be a
convenient association of all the most agreeable gods; and the Great
King now rules the earth by the grace of Auramazda. I, for my part, have
always inclined to the Hebrew conception of one God--perhaps that is
much the same as Auramazda, the All-Wise. What do you think?"

Nehushta smiled at the deft way in which the queen avoided speaking of
Smerdis by turning the conversation again to religious topics. But
fearing another lecture on the comparative merits of idolatry, human
sacrifice, and monotheism, she manifested very little interest i