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.