and descriptions, and they sing hymns, in which they say that all these gods are the same.  It is most confusing, and as the principal part of their chief sacrifice consists in making themselves exceedingly drunk with the detestable milkweed juice of which they are so fond, the performance is disgusting.  The Great King began by saying that if they wished to sacrifice to their deities, they might do so, provided no one could find them doing it; and if they wished to be drunk, they might be drunk when and where they pleased; but that if they did the two together, he would crucify every Magian in Persia.  His argument was very amusing.  He said that a man who is drunk naturally speaks the truth, whereas a man who sacrifices to false gods inevitably tells lies; wherefore a man who sacrifices to false gods when he is drunk, runs the risk of telling lies and speaking the truth at the same time, and is consequently a creature revolting to logic, and must be immediately destroyed for the good of the whole race of mankind.”

Nehushta had listened with varying attention to the queen’s account of the religious difficulties in the kingdom, and she laughed at the Megoeric puzzle by which Darius justified the death of the Magians.  But in her heart she longed to see Zoroaster, and was weary of entertaining her royal guest.  By way of diversion she clapped her hands, and ordered the slaves who came at her summons to bring sweetmeats and sherbet of crushed fruit and snow.

“Are you fond of hunting?” asked Atossa, delicately taking a little piece of white fig-paste.

“I have never been allowed to hunt,” answered Nehushta.  “Besides, it must be very tiring.”

“I delight in it—­the fig-paste is not so good as it used to be—­there is a new confectioner.  Darius considered that the former one had religious convictions involving the telling of lies—­and this is the result!  We are fallen low indeed when we cannot eat a Magian’s pastry!  I am passionately fond of hunting, but it is far from here to the desert and the lions are scarce.  Besides, the men who are fit for lion-hunting are generally engaged in hunting their fellow-creatures.”

“Does the Great King hunt?” inquired Nehushta, languidly sipping her sherbet from a green jade goblet, as she lay among her cushions, supporting herself upon one elbow.

“Whenever he has leisure.  He will talk of nothing else to you—­”

“Surely,” interrupted Nehushta, with an air of perfect innocence, “I shall not be so far honoured as that the Great King should talk with me?”

Atossa raised her blue eyes and looked curiously at the dark princess.  She knew nothing of what had passed the night before, save that the king had seen Nehushta for a few moments, but she knew his character well enough to imagine that his frank and, as she thought, undignified manner might have struck Nehushta even in that brief interview.  The idea that the princess was already deceiving her flashed across her mind.  She smiled more tenderly than ever, with a little added air of sadness that gave her a wonderful charm.