with their worship.
Zoroaster, he thought, would be able to give him advice upon this point,
which would be good. In sending for the man he would fulfil the double
purpose of seeming to grant the queen's request, and at the same time,
of providing himself with a sage counsellor in his difficulties. With
his usual impetuosity, he at once fulfilled his purpose, assuring
himself that Zoroaster must have forgotten Nehushta by this time, and
that he, the king, was strong enough to prevent trouble if he had not.

But many days passed, and though the proclamation was sent to all parts
of the kingdom, nothing was heard of Zoroaster. His retreat was a sure
one and there was no possibility of his being found.

Atossa, who in her heart longed for Zoroaster's return, both because by
his means she hoped to bring trouble upon Nehushta, and because she
still felt something akin to love for him, began to fear that he might
be dead, or might have wandered out of the kingdom; but Nehushta herself
knew not whether to hope that he would return, or to rejoice that she
was to escape the ordeal of meeting him. She would have given anything
to see him for a moment, to decide, as it were, whether she wished to
see him, or not. She was deeply disturbed by the anxiety she felt and
longed to know definitely what she was to expect.

She began to hate Stakhar with its splendid gardens and gorgeous
colonnades, with its soft southern air that blew across the valley of
roses all day long, wafting up a wondrous perfume to the south windows.
She hated the indolent pomp in which she lived and the idle luxury of
her days. Something in her hot-blooded Hebrew nature craved for the
blazing sun and the sand-wastes of Syria, for the breath of the desert
and for the burning heat of the wilderness. She had scarcely ever seen
these things, for she had sojourned during the one-and-twenty years of
her life, in the most magnificent palaces of the kingdom, and amid the
fairest gardens the hand of man could plant. But the love of the sun and
of the sand was bred in the blood. She began to hate the soft cushions
and the delicate silks and the endless flowers scenting the heavy air.

Stakhar[8] itself was a mighty fortress, in the valley of the Araxes,
rising dark and forbidding from the banks of the little river, crowned
with towers and turrets and massive battlements, that overlooked the
fertile extent of gardens, as a stern schoolmaster frowning over a crowd
of fa