dignitaries watched the old men with deep sympathy, and though the proofs of Bartja’s innocence were as yet only founded on conjecture, not one of those present doubted it one moment longer. Wherever the belief in a man’s guilt is but slight, his defender finds willing listeners.
CHAPTER VI.
The sharp-witted Athenian saw clearly how matters lay in this sad story; nor did it escape him that malice had had a hand in the affair. How could Bartja’s dagger have come into the hanging-gardens except through treachery?
While he was telling the king his suspicions, Oropastes was led into the hall.
The king looked angrily at him and without one preliminary word, asked: “Have you a brother?”
“Yes, my King. He and I are the only two left out of a family of six. My parents...”
“Is your brother younger or older than yourself?”
“I was the eldest of the family; my brother, the youngest, was the joy of my father’s old age.”
“Did you ever notice a remarkable likeness between him and one of my relations?”
“Yes, my King. Gaumata is so like your brother Bartja, that in the school for priests at Rhagae, where he still is, he was always called ‘the prince.’”
“Has he been at Babylon very lately?”
“He was here for the last time at the New Year’s festival.”
“Are you speaking the truth?”
“The sin of lying would be doubly punishable in one who wears my robes, and holds my office.”
The king’s face flushed with anger at this answer and he exclaimed: “Nevertheless you are lying; Gaumata was here yesterday evening. You may well tremble.”
“My life belongs to the king, whose are all things; nevertheless I swear—the high-priest-by the most high God, whom I have served faithfully for thirty years, that I know nothing of my brother’s presence in Babylon yesterday.”
“Your face looks as if you were speaking the truth.”
“You know that I was not absent from your side the whole of that high holiday.”
“I know it.”
Again the doors opened; this time they admitted the trembling Mandane. The high-priest cast such a look of astonishment and enquiry on her, that the king saw she must be in some way connected with him, and therefore, taking no notice of the trembling girl who lay at his feet, he asked: “Do you know this woman?”
“Yes, my King. I obtained for her the situation of upper attendant to the—may Auramazda forgive her!—King of Egypt’s daughter.”
“What led you,—a priest,—to do a favor to this girl?”
“Her parents died of the same pestilence, which carried off my brothers. Her father was a priest, respected, and a friend of our family; so we adopted the little girl, remembering the words: ‘If thou withhold help from the man who is pure in heart and from his widow and orphans, then shall the pure, subject earth cast thee out unto the stinging-nettles, to painful sufferings and to the most fearful regions!’ Thus I became her foster-father, and had her brought up with my youngest brother until he was obliged to enter the school for priests.”
The king exchanged a look of intelligence with Phanes, and asked: “Why did not you keep the girl longer with you?”
“When she had received the ear-rings I, as priest, thought it more suitable to send such a young girl away from my house, and to put her in a position to earn her own living.”
“Has she seen your brother since she has been grown up?”
“Yes, my King. Whenever Gaumata came to see me I allowed him to be with her as with a sister; but on discovering later that the passionate love of youth had begun to mingle with the childish friendship of former days, I felt strengthened in my resolution to send her away.”
“Now we know enough,” said the king, commanding the high-priest by a nod to retire. He then looked down on the prostrate girl, and said imperiously: “Rise!”
Mandane rose, trembling with fear. Her fresh young face was pale as death, and her red lips were blue from terror.
“Tell all you know about yesterday evening; but remember, a lie and your death are one and the same.”
The girl’s knees trembled so violently that she could hardly stand, and her fear entirely took away the power of speaking.
“I have not much patience,” exclaimed Cambyses. Mandane started, grew paler still, but could not speak. Then Phanes came forward and asked the angry king to allow him to examine the girl, as he felt sure that fear alone had closed her lips and that a kind word would open them.
Cambyses allowed this, and the Athenian’s words proved true; no sooner had he assured Mandane of the good-will of all present, laid his hand on her head and spoken kindly to her, than the source of her tears was unlocked, she wept freely, the spell which had seemed to chain her tongue, vanished, and she began to tell her story, interrupted only by low sobs. She hid nothing, confessed that Boges had given her his sanction and assistance to the meeting with Gaumata, and ended by saying: “I know that I have forfeited my life, and am the worst and most ungrateful creature in the world; but none of all this would have happened, if Oropastes had allowed his brother to marry me.”
The serious audience, even the king himself, could not resist a smile at the longing tone in which these words were spoken and the fresh burst of sobs which succeeded them.
And this smile saved her life. But Cambyses would not have smiled, after hearing such a story, if Mandane, with that instinct which always seems to stand at a woman’s command in the hour of her greatest danger, had not known how to seize his weak side, and use it for her own interests, by dwelling much longer than was necessary, on the delight which Nitetis had manifested at the king’s gifts.
“A thousand times” cried she, “did my mistress kiss the presents which were brought from you, O King; but oftenest of all did she press her lips to the nosegay which you plucked with your own hands for her, some days ago. And when it began to fade, she took every flower separately, spread out the petals with care, laid them between woollen cloths, and, with her own hands, placed her heavy, golden ointment-box upon them, that they might dry and so she might keep them always as a remembrance of your kindness.”
Seeing Cambyses’ awful features grow a little milder at these words, the girl took fresh courage, and at last began to put loving words into her mistress’s mouth which the latter had never uttered; professing that she herself had heard Nitetis a hundred times murmur the word “Cambyses” in her sleep with indescribable tenderness. She ended her confession by sobbing and praying for mercy.
The king looked down at her with infinite contempt, though without anger, and pushing her away with his foot said: “Out of my sight, you dog of a woman! Blood like yours would soil the executioner’s axe. Out of my sight!”
