this, thoughtless child, and tell our mother, Bartja and I are coming to visit her.  Now give me a kiss.  You will not?  We shall see, capricious little one!” And so saying the king sprang towards his refractory little sister, and seizing both her hands in one of his own, bent back her charming head with the other and kissed her in spite of her resistance.  She screamed from the violence of his grasp, and ran away crying to her attendants, who took her back to her apartments.

When Atossa had disappeared, Bartja said; “You were too rough with the little one, Cambyses.  She screamed with pain!”

Once more the king’s face clouded, but suppressing the harsh words which trembled on his lips, he only answered, turning towards the house:  “Let us come to our mother now; she begged me to bring you as soon as you arrived.  The women, as usual, are all impatience.  Nitetis told me your rosy cheeks and fair curls had bewitched the Egyptian women too.  I would advise you to pray betimes to Mithras for eternal youth, and for his protection against the wrinkles of age!”

“Do you mean to imply by these words that I have no virtues which could make an old age beautiful?” asked Bartja.

“I explain my words to no one.  Come.”

“But I ask for an opportunity of proving, that I am inferior to none of my nation in manly qualities.”

“For that matter, the shouts of the Babylonians today will have been proof enough, that deeds are not wanted from you, in order to win their admiration.”

“Cambyses!”

“Now come!  We are just on the eve of a war with the Massagetae; there you will have a good opportunity of proving what you are worth.”

A few minutes later, and Bartja was in the arms of his blind mother.  She had been waiting for her darling’s arrival with a beating heart, and in the joy of hearing his voice once more, and of being able to lay her hands again on that beloved head, she forgot everything else—­even her first-born son who stood by smiling bitterly, as he watched the rich and boundless stream of a mother’s love flowing out to his younger brother.

Cambyses had been spoiled from his earliest infancy.  Every wish had been fulfilled, every look regarded as a command; and thus he grew up totally unable to brook contradiction, giving way to the most violent anger if any of his subjects (and he knew no human beings who were not his subjects) dared to oppose him.

His father Cyrus, conqueror of half the world—­the man whose genius had raised Persia from a small nation to the summit of earthly greatness—­who had secured for himself the reverence and admiration of countless subjugated tribes—­this great king was incapable of carrying out in his own small family-circle the system of education he had so successfully adopted towards entire countries.  He could see nought else in Cambyses but the future king of Persia, and commanded his subjects to pay him an unquestioning obedience, entirely forgetful of the fact that he who is to govern well must begin by learning to obey.