ne moment, till I have said good-bye to my friends."

Bischen, the officer he spoke to, was one of Cyrus's old captains; he
had given Bartja his first lessons in shooting and throwing the spear,
had fought by his side in the war with the Tapuri, and loved him as if
he were his own son. He interrupted him, saying: "There is no need to
take leave of your friends, for the king, who is raging like a madman,
ordered me not only to arrest you, but every one else who might be with
you."

And then he added in a low voice: "The king is beside himself with rage
and threatens to have your life. You must fly. My men will do what I
tell them blindfold; they will not pursue you; and I am so old that
it would be little loss to Persia, if my head were the price of my
disobedience."

"Thanks, thanks, my friend," said Bartja, giving him his hand; "but I
cannot accept your offer, because I am innocent, and I know that though
Cambyses is hasty, he is not unjust. Come friends, I think the king will
give us a hearing to-day, late as it is."

CHAPTER III.

Two hours later Bartja and his friends were standing before the king.
The gigantic man was seated on his golden throne; he was pale and his
eyes looked sunken; two physicians stood waiting behind him with all
kinds of instruments and vessels in their hands. Cambyses had, only a
few minutes before, recovered consciousness, after lying for more than
an hour in one of those awful fits, so destructive both to mind and
body, which we call epileptic.

[The dangerous disease to which Herodotus says Cambyses had been
subject from his birth, and which was called "sacred" by some, can
scarcely be other than epilepsy. See Herod, III. 33.]

Since Nitetis' arrival he had been free from this illness; but it had
seized him to-day with fearful violence, owing to the overpowering
mental excitement he had gone through.

If he had met Bartja a few hours before, he would have killed him with
his own hand; but though the epileptic fit had not subdued his anger it
had at least so far quieted it, that he was in a condition to hear what
was to be said on both sides.

At the right hand of the throne stood Hystaspes, Darius's grey-haired
father, Gobryas, his future father-in-law, the aged Intaphernes, the
grandfather of that Phaedime whose place in the king's favor had been
given to Nitetis, Oropastes the high-priest, Croesus, and behind them
Boges, the chief of the eunuchs. At its left Bar