Cambyses’ looks grew milder on hearing these words, and when Oropastes suggested that an evil spirit must have taken Bartja’s form to ruin him, he nodded assent and stretched out his hand towards Bartja.  At this moment a staff-bearer came in and gave the king a dagger found by a eunuch under Nitetis’ window.  Cambyses examined it, dashed the dagger violently to the ground, and shrieked, “This is your dagger!  At last you are convicted, you liar!  Ah, you are feeling in your girdle!  You may well turn pale, your dagger is gone!  Seize him, put on his fetters!  He shall be strangled to-morrow!  Away with you, you perjured villains!  They shall all die to-morrow!  And the Egyptian—­at noon she shall be flogged through the streets.  Then I’ll——­”

But here he was stopped by another fit of epilepsy, and sank down in convulsions.

The fate of the unfortunates was sealed when, afterwards, Cambyses made Croesus read to him Nitetis’ Greek letter to Bartja.

“Nitetis, daughter of Amasis of Egypt, to Bartja, son of the great Cyrus.

“I have something important to tell you; I can tell it to no one but yourself.  To-morrow I hope to meet you in your mother’s rooms.  It lies in your power to comfort a sad and loving heart, and to give it one happy moment before death.  I repeat that I must see you soon.”

Croesus, who tried to intercede on behalf of the condemned, was sentenced to share their fate.  In his heart even he was now convinced of Bartja’s guilt, and of the perjury of his own son and of Darius.

IV.—­The Unexpected Witness

Nitetis had passed many a wretched hour since the great banquet.  All day long she was kept in strict seclusion, and in the twilight Boges came to her to tell her jeeringly that her letter had fallen into the king’s hand, and that its bearer had been executed.  The princess swooned away, and Boges carried her to her sleeping-room, the door of which he barred carefully.  When, later, Mandane left her lover Gaumata, the maid hurried into her mistress’s room, found her in a faint, and used every remedy to restore her to consciousness.

Then Boges came with two eunuchs, loaded the princess’s arms with fetters, and gave vent to his long-nourished spite, telling her of the awful fate that was in store for her.  Nitetis resolved to swallow a poisonous ointment for the complexion directly the executioner should draw near her.  Then, in spite of her fetters, she managed to write to Cambyses, to assure him once more of her love and to explain her innocence.  “I commit this crime against myself, Cambyses, to save you from doing a disgraceful deed.”