wrath, and then with awful punishments. At last, as she only answered
his threats by a low scornful laugh, he ventured to throw his dagger at
her. She crumbled at once into a thousand pieces, like the wax statue.
But the derisive laughter echoed on, and became louder. Many voices
joined in it, each trying to outbid the other. And the voices of Bartja
and Nitetis were the loudest,--their tone the most bitter. At last he
could bear these fearful sounds no longer and stopped his ears; this was
of no use, and he buried his head, first in the glowing desert-sand and
then in the icy cold Nile-water, until his senses forsook him. On
awaking, the actual state of things seemed incomprehensible to him. He
had gone to bed in the evening, and yet he now saw, by the direction of
the sun's rays which fell on his bed, that, instead of dawning as he had
expected, the day was growing dark. There could be no mistake; he heard
the chorus of priests singing farewell to the setting Mithras.

Then he heard a number of people moving behind a curtain, which had been
hung up at the head of his bed. He tried to turn in his bed, but could
not; he was too weak. At last, finding it impossible to discover whether
he was in real life or still in a dream, he called for his dressers and
the courtiers, who were accustomed to be present when he rose. They
appeared in a moment, and with them his mother, Prexaspes, a number of
the learned among the Magi, and some Egyptians who were unknown to him.
They told him, that he had been lying in a violent fever for weeks, and
had only escaped death by the special mercy of the gods, the skill of the
physicians, and the unwearied nursing of his mother. He looked
enquiringly first at Kassandane, then at Prexaspes, lost consciousness
again, and fell into a deep sleep, from which he awoke the next morning
with renewed strength.

In four days he was strong enough to sit up and able to question