to Cyrus, who accordingly authorised Orontas to take a detachment from each of the generals, and be gone.  He, thinking that he had got his horsemen ready to his hand, wrote a letter to the king, announcing that he would ere long join him with as many troopers as he could bring; he bade him, at the same time, instruct the royal cavalry to welcome him as a friend.  The letter further contained certain reminders of his former friendship and fidelity.  This despatch he delivered into the hands of one who was a trusty messenger, as he thought; but the bearer took and gave it to Cyrus.  Cyrus read it.  Orontas was arrested.  Then Cyrus summoned to his tent seven of the noblest Persians among his personal attendants, and sent orders to the Hellenic generals to bring up a body of hoplites.  These troops were to take up a position round his tent.  This the generals did; bringing up about three thousand hoplites.  Clearchus was also invited inside, to assist at the court-martial; a compliment due to the position he held among the other generals, in the opinion not only of Cyrus, but also of the rest of the court.  When he came out, he reported the circumstances of the trial (as to which, indeed, there was no mystery) to his friends.  He said that Cyrus opened the inquiry with these words:  “I have invited you hither, my friends, that I may take advice with you, and carry out whatever, in the sight of God and man, it is right for me to do, as concerning the man before you, Orontas.  The 6 prisoner was, in the first instance, given to me by my father, to be my faithful subject.  In the next place, acting, to use his own words, under the orders of my brother, and having hold of the acropolis of Sardis, he went to war with me.  I met war with war, and forced him to think it more prudent to desist from war with me:  whereupon we shook hands, exchanging solemn pledges.  After that,” and at this point Cyrus turned to Orontas, and addressed him personally—­“after that, did I do you any wrong?” Answer, “Never.”  Again another question:  “Then later on, having received, as you admit, no injury from me, did you revolt to the Mysians and injure my territory, as far as in you lay?”—­“I did,” was the reply.  “Then, once more having discovered the limits of your power, did you flee to the altar of Artemis, crying out that you repented? and did you thus work upon my feelings, that we a second time shook hands and made interchange of solemn pledges?  Are these things so?” Orontas again assented.  “Then what injury have you received from me,” Cyrus asked, “that now for the third time, you have been detected in a treasonous plot against me?”—­“I must needs do so,” he answered.  Then Cyrus put one more question:  “But the day may come, may it not, when you will once again be hostile to my brother, and a faithful friend to myself?” The other answered:  “Even if I were, you could never be brought to believe it, Cyrus.”