tle, as though
he had been her brother, instead of the Great King himself, who bore
life and death in his right hand and his left, whose shadow was a terror
to the world already, and at whose brief, imperious word a nation rose
to arms and victory. Was this the terrible Darius? The man who had slain
the impostor with his own sword? who had vanquished rebel Babylon in a
few days and brought home four thousand captives at his back? He was as
gentle as a girl, this savage warrior--but when she recalled his
features, she remembered the stern look that came into his face when he
was serious, she grew thoughtful and wandered slowly down the path,
biting a rose-leaf delicately with her small white teeth and thinking
many things; most of all, how she might be revenged upon Atossa for what
she had suffered that morning.

But Atossa herself was enjoying at that very moment the triumph of the
morning and quietly planning how she might continue the torment she had
imagined for Nehushta, without allowing its cruelty to diminish, while
keeping herself amused and occupied to the fullest extent until
Zoroaster should return. It was not long before she learned from her
chief tirewoman that the king had been in the pavilion of the garden
with Nehushta that morning, and it at once occurred to her that, if the
king returned on the following day, it would be an easy thing to appear
while he was with the princess, and by veiled words and allusions to
Zoroaster, to make her rival suffer the most excruciating torments,
which she would be forced to conceal from the king.

But, at the same time, the news gave her cause for serious thought. She
had certainly not intended that Nehushta should be left alone for hours
with Darius. She knew indeed that the princess loved Zoroaster, but she
could not conceive that any woman should be insensible to the
consolation the Great King could offer. If affairs took such a turn, she
fully intended to allow the king to marry Nehushta, while she
confidently believed it in her power to destroy her just when she had
reached the summit of her ambition.

It chanced that the king chose that day to eat his evening meal in the
sole company of Atossa, as he sometimes did when weary of the court
ceremony. When, therefore, they reclined at sundown upon a small
secluded terrace of the upper story, Atossa found an excellent
opportunity of discussing Nehushta and her doings.

Darius lay upon a couch on one side of the low