the wide
palace halls and then her thoughts turned to her distant home and her
poor sister Tachot, longing for her and for the beautiful Bartja, who,
Croesus had told her, was going to-morrow to the war and possibly to
death. At last she fell asleep, overcome by the fatigue of the journey
and dreaming of her future husband. She saw him on his black charger.
The foaming animal shied at Bartja who was lying in the road, threw his
rider and dragged him into the Nile, whose waves became blood-red. In
her terror she screamed for help; her cries were echoed back from the
Pyramids in such loud and fearful tones that she awoke.

But hark! what could that be? That wailing, shrill cry which she had
heard in her dream,--she could hear it still.

Hastily drawing aside the shutters from one of the openings which served
as windows, she looked out. A large and beautiful garden, laid out with
fountains and shady avenues, lay before her, glittering with the early
dew.

[The Persian gardens were celebrated throughout the old world, and
seem to have been laid out much less stiffly than the Egyptian.
Even the kings of Persia did not consider horticulture beneath their
notice, and the highest among the Achaemenidae took an especial
pleasure in laying out parks, called in Persian Paradises. Their
admiration for well-grown trees went so far, that Xerxes, finding on
his way to Greece a singularly beautiful tree, hung ornaments of
gold upon its branches. Firdusi, the great Persian epic poet,
compares human beauty to the growth of the cypress, as the highest
praise he can give. Indeed some trees were worshipped by the
Persians; and as the tree of life in the Hebrew and Egyptian, so we
find sacred trees in their Paradise.]

No sound was to be heard except the one which had alarmed her, and this
too died away at last on the morning breeze. After a few minutes she
heard cries and noise in the distance, then the great city awaking to
its daily work, which soon settled down into a deep, dull murmur like
the roaring of the sea.

Nitetis was by this time so thoroughly awakened from the effect of the
fresh morning air, that she did not care to lie down again. She went
once more to the window and perceived two figures coming out of the
house. One she recognized as the eunuch Boges; he was talking to a
beautiful Persian woman carelessly dressed. They approached her window.
Nitetis hid herself behind the half-opene