possible give me an opportunity of doing you service in return."

"You ought to come to me first, though," exclaimed Zopyrus, embracing his
deliverer. "I am perfectly ready to share my last gold piece with you;
or what is more, if it would do you a service, to sit a whole week in
that infernal hole from which you saved me. Ah! they're weighing anchor.
Farewell, you brave Greek. Remember me to the flower-sisters, especially
to the pretty, little Stephanion, and tell her her long-legged lover
won't be able to plague her again for some time to come at least. And
then, one more thing; take this purse of gold for the wife and children
of that impertinent fellow, whom I struck too hard in the heat of the
fray."

The anchors fell rattling on to the deck, the wind filled the sails, the
Trieraules--[Flute-player to a trireme]--took his flute and set the
measure of the monotonous Keleusma or rowing-song, which echoed again
from the hold of the vessel. The beak of the ship bearing the statue of
Hygieia, carved in wood, began to move. Bartja and Sappho stood at the
helm and gazed towards Naukratis, until the shores of the Nile vanished
and the green waves of the Hellenic sea splashed their foam over the deck
of the trireme.




CHAPTER XII.

Our young bride and bridegroom had not travelled farther than Ephesus,
when the news reached them that Amasis was dead. From Ephesus they went
to Babylon, and thence to Pasargadae, which Kassandane, Atossa and