“Knowest thou one Phraortes, of Ecbatana?” the king asked suddenly when he was alone with Zoroaster.

“I know him,” answered the prince.  “A man rich, and powerful, full of vanity as a peacock, and of wiles like a serpent.  Not noble.  He is the son of a fish-vendor, grown rich by selling salted sturgeons in the market-place.  He is also the overseer of the queen’s farmlands in Media, and of the Great King’s horse-breeding stables.”

“Go forth and bring him to me,” said the king shortly.  Without a word, Zoroaster made a brief salute and turned upon his heel to go.  But it was as though a man had thrust him through with a knife.  The king gazed after him in admiration of his magnificent obedience.

“Stay!” he called out.  “How long wilt thou be gone?”

Zoroaster turned sharply round in military fashion, as he answered: 

“It is a hundred and fifty farsangs[3] to Ecbatana.  By the king’s relays I can ride there in six days, and I can bring back Phraortes in six days more—­if he die not of the riding,” he added, with a grim smile.

     [Footnote 3:  Between five and six hundred English miles.  South
     American postilions at the present day ride six hundred miles a
     week for a bare living.]

“Is he old, or young?  Fat, or meagre?” asked the king, laughing.

“He is a man of forty years, neither thin nor fat—­a good horseman in his way, but not as we are.”

“Bind him to his horse if he falls off from weariness.  And tell him he is summoned to appear before me.  Tell him the business brooks no delay.  Auramazda be with thee and bring thee help.  Go with speed.”

Again Zoroaster turned and in a moment he was gone.  He had sworn to be the king’s faithful servant, and he would keep his oath, cost what it might, though it was bitterness to him to leave Nehushta without a word.  He bethought him as he hastily put on light garments for the journey, that he might send her a letter, and he wrote a few words upon a piece of parchment, and folded it together.  As he passed by the entrance of the garden on his way to the stables, he looked about for one of Nehushta’s slaves; but seeing none, he beckoned to one of the Greek tirewomen, and giving her a piece of gold, bade her take the little scroll to Nehushta, the Hebrew princess, who was in the gardens.  Then he went quickly on, and mounting the best horse in the king’s stables, galloped at a break-neck pace down the steep incline.  In five minutes he had crossed the bridge, and was speeding over the straight, dusty road toward Nineveh.  In a quarter of an hour, a person watching him from the palace would have seen his flying figure disappearing as in a tiny speck of dust far out upon the broad, green plain.