and the care of her aged
mother-in-law, Kassandane.

Little Parmys became very beautiful, and learnt to love the memory
of her vanished father next to the gods of her native land, for her
mother's tales had brought him as vividly before her as if he had been
still alive and present with them.

Atossa's subsequent good fortune and happiness did not cool her
friendship. She always called Sappho her sister. The hanging-gardens
were the latter's residence in summer, and in her conversations there
with Kassandane and Atossa one name was often mentioned--the name of
her, who had been the innocent cause of events which had decided the
destinies of great kingdoms and noble lives--the Egyptian Princess.

CHAPTER XVI.

Here we might end this tale, but that we feel bound to give our readers
some account of the last days of Cambyses. We have already described
the ruin of his mind, but his physical end remains still to be told, and
also the subsequent fate of some of the other characters in our history.

A short time after the departure of the queens, news reached Naukratis
that Oroetes, the satrap of Lydia, had, by a stratagem, allured his old
enemy, Polykrates, to Sardis and crucified him there, thus fulfilling
what Amasis had prophecied of the tyrant's mournful end. This act the
satrap had committed on his own responsibility, events having
taken place in the Median kingdom which threatened the fall of the
Achaemenidaean dynasty.

The king's long absence in a foreign country had either weakened or
entirely dissipated, the fear which the mere mention of his name had
formerly inspired in those who felt inclined to rebel. The awe that
his subjects had formerly felt for him, vanished at the tidings of
his madness, and the news that he had wantonly exposed the lives of
thousands of their countrymen to certain death in the deserts of Libya
and Ethiopia, inspired the enraged Asiatics with a hatred which, when
skilfully fed by the powerful Magi, soon roused, first the Medes and
Assyrians, and then the Persians, to defection and open insurrection.
Motives of self-interest led the ambitious high-priest, Oropastes, whom
Cambyses had appointed regent in his absence, to place himself at the
head of this movement. He flattered the people by remitting their taxes,
by large gifts and larger promises, and finding his clemency gratefully
recognized, determined on an imposture, by which he hoped to win the
crown of Persia for his own fa