With a rhythmic sway of warlike
tone the clangour rose and fell, and rose again as the trumpeters came
out upon the great staircase and began to descend. After them came other
musicians, whose softer instruments began to be heard in harmony with
the resounding bass of the horns, and then, behind them, came singers,
whose strong, high voices completed the full burst of music that went
before the king.

With measured tread the procession advanced. There were neither priests,
nor sacrificers, nor any connected with any kind of temple; but after
the singers came two hundred noble children clad in white, bearing long
garlands of flowers that trailed upon the ground, so that many of the
blossoms were torn off and strewed the sand.

But Zoroaster looked neither on the singers, nor on the children. His
eyes were fixed intently on the two figures that followed them--Darius,
the king, and Nehushta, the bride. They walked side by side, and the
procession left an open spaced ten paces before and ten paces behind
the royal pair. Darius wore the tunic of purple and white stripes, the
mantle of Tyrian purple on his shoulders and upon his head the royal
crown of gold surrounded the linen tiara; his left hand, bare and brown
and soldier-like, rested upon the golden hilt of his sword, and in his
right, as he walked, he carried a long golden rod surmounted by a ball,
twined with myrtle from end to end. He walked proudly forward, and as he
passed, many a spearman thought with pride that the Great King looked as
much a soldier as he himself.

By his left side came Nehushta, clad entirely in cloth of gold, while a
mantle of the royal purple hung down behind her. Her white linen tiara
was bound round with myrtle and roses, and in her hands she bore a
myrtle bough.

Her face was pale in the torchlight, but she seemed composed in manner,
and from time to time she glanced at the king with a look which was
certainly not one of aversion.

Zoroaster felt himself growing as cold as ice as they approached, and
his teeth chattered in his head. His brain reeled with the smoke of the
torches, the powerful, moving tones of the music and the strangeness of
the whole sight. It seemed as though it could not be real. He fixed his
eyes upon Nehushta, but his face was shaded all around by his dark hood.
Nevertheless, so intently did he gaze upon her that, as she came near,
she felt his look, as it were, and, searching in the crowd behind the
soldiers, m