At sunset on the thirteenth day, Kassandane sent to beg a visit from him.
The king went at once, for now he longed to look on the face of his
mother; he fancied it might give him back his lost sleep.

After he had greeted her with a tenderness so rare from him, that it
astonished her, he asked for what reason she had desired his presence.
She answered, that Bartja's wife had arrived at Memphis under singular
circumstances and had said she wished to present a gift to Cambyses. He
gave Sappho an audience at once, and heard from her that Prexaspes had
brought her husband an order to start for Arabia, and herself a summons
to Memphis from the queen-mother. At these words the king turned very
pale, and his features were agitated with pain as he looked at his
brother's lovely young wife. She felt that something unusual was passing
in his mind, and such dreadful forebodings arose in her own, that she
could only offer him the gift in silence and with trembling hands.

"My husband sends you this," she said, pointing to the ingeniously-
wrought box, which contained the wax likeness of Nitetis. Rhodopis had
advised her to take this to the king in Bartja's name, as a propitiatory
offering.

Cambyses showed no curiosity as to the contents of the box, gave it in
charge to a eunuch, said a few words which seemed meant as thanks to his
sister-in law, and left the women's apartments without even so much as
enquiring after Atossa, whose existence he seemed to have forgotten.

He had come to his mother, believing that the visit would comfort and
calm his troubled mind, but Sappho's words had destroyed his last hope,
and with that his last possibility of rest or peace. By this time either
Prexaspes would already have committed the murder, or perhaps at that