ne, master and stranger alike. Thus he grew more sedate, but his
company was still most fascinating, and little wonder: for whenever it
came to a trial of skill between himself and his comrades he would never
challenge his mates to those feats in which he himself excelled: he
would start precisely one where he felt his own inferiority, averring
that he would outdo them all,--indeed, he would spring to horse in order
to shoot or hurl the javelin before he had got a firm seat--and
then, when he was worsted, he would be the first to laugh at his own
discomfiture. [5] He had no desire to escape defeat by giving up the
effort, but took glory in the resolution to do better another time,
and thus he soon found himself as good a horseman as his peers, and
presently, such was his ardour, he surpassed them all, and at last the
thinning of the game in the king's preserves began to show what he could
do. What with the chasing and the shooting and the spearing, the stock
of animals ran so low that Astyages was hard put to it to collect enough
for him. Then Cyrus, seeing that his grandfather for all his goodwill
could never furnish him with enough, came to him one day and said,
"Grandfather, why should you take so much trouble in finding game for
me? If only you would let me go out to hunt with my uncle, I could fancy
every beast we came across had been reared for my particular delight!"
[6] But however anxious the lad might be to go out to the chase, he had
somehow lost the old childish art of winning what he wanted by coaxing:
and he hesitated a long time before approaching the king again. If in
the old days he had quarrelled with Sacas for not letting him in, now
he began to play the part of Sacas against himself, and could not summon
courage to intrude until he thought the right moment had come: indeed,
he implored the real Sacas to let him know when he might venture. So
that the old butler's heart was won, and he, like the rest of the world,
was completely in love with the young prince.

[7] At last when Astyages saw that the lad's heart was really set on
hunting in the open country, he gave him leave to go out with his uncle,
taking care at the same time to send an escort of mounted veterans at
his heels, whose business it was to keep watch and ward over him in any
dangerous place or against any savage beast. Cyrus plied his retinue
with questions about the creatures they came across, which must he avoid
and which might he hunt?