f seeming prosperity wherewith Fate can curse a man, the
worst was the curse of Xerxes. To be called "god" when one is finite and
mortal; to have no friends, but only a hundred million slaves; to be
denied the joys of honest wish and desire because there were none left
unsatisfied; to have one's hastiest word proclaimed as an edict of deity;
never to be suffered to confess a mistake, cost what the blunder might,
that the "king of kings" might seem lifted above all human error; in
short, to be the bondsman of one's own deification,--this was the hard
captivity of the lord of the twenty satrapies.

For Xerxes the king was a man,--of average instincts, capacities, goodness,
wickedness. A god or a genius could have risen above his fearful
isolation. Xerxes was neither. The iron ceremonial of the Persian court
left him of genuine pleasures almost none. Something novel, a rare
sensation, an opportunity to vary the dreary monotony of splendour by an
astounding act of generosity or an act of frightful cruelty,--it mattered
little which,--was snatched at by the king with childlike eagerness. And
this night Xerxes was in an unwontedly gracious mood. At his elbow, as he
sat on the throne cased with lapis lazuli and onyx, waited the one man who
came nearest to being a friend and not a slave,--Mardonius, son of Gobryas,
the bow-bearer,--and therefore more entitled than any other prince of the
Persians to stand on terms of intimacy with his lord.

While Spitames passed the wine, the king hearkened with condescending and
approving nod to the report of the Prince as to his mad adventure in
Hellas. Xerxes even reproved his brother-in-law mildly for hazarding his
own life and that of his wife among those stiff-necked tribesmen who were
so soon to taste the Aryan might.

"It was in your service, Omnipotence," the Prince was rejoining blandly;
"what if not I alone, but a thousand others of the noblest of the Persians
and the Medes may perish, if only the glory of their king is advanced?"

"Nobly said; you are a faithful slave, Mardonius. I will remember you when
I have burned Athens."

He even reached forth and stroked the bow-bearer's hand, a condescension
which made the footstool-bearer, parasol-bearer, quiver-bearer, and a
dozen great lords more gnaw their lips with envy. Hydarnes, the commander
who had waited an auspicious moment, now thought it safe to kneel on the
lowest step of the throne.

"Omnipotence, I am constrained to tel