If this great connoisseur in love were right, Cambyses must love her passionately, or his jealousy could not have caught fire so quickly and fearfully.  Sad thoughts about her home, however, and dark forebodings of the future would mix with this confidence in Cambyses’ love, and she could not shut them out.  Mid-day came, the sun stood high and burning in the sky, but no news came from those she loved so well; and a feverish restlessness seized her which increased as night came on.  In the twilight Boges came to her, and told her, with bitter scorn, that her letter to Bartja had come into the king’s hands, and that the gardener’s boy who brought it had been executed.  The tortured nerves of the princess could not resist this fresh blow, and before Boges left, he carried the poor girl senseless into her sleeping-room, the door of which he barred carefully.

A few minutes later, two men, one old, the other young, came up through the trap-door which Boges had examined so carefully two days before.  The old man remained outside, crouching against the palace, wall; a hand was seen to beckon from the window:  the youth obeyed the signal, swung himself over the ledge and into the room at a bound.  Then words of love were exchanged, the names Gaumata and Mandane whispered softly, kisses and vows given and received.  At last the old man clapped his hands.  The youth obeyed, kissed and embraced Nitetis’ waiting-maid once more, jumped out of the window into the garden, hurried past the admirers of the blue lily who were just coming up, slipped with his companion into the trap-door which had been kept open, closed it carefully, and vanished.

Mandane hurried to the room in which her mistress generally spent the evening.  She was well acquainted with her habits and knew that every evening, when the stars had risen, Nitetis was accustomed to go to the window looking towards the Euphrates, and spend hours gazing into the river and over the plain; and that at that time she never needed her attendance.  So she felt quite safe from fear of discovery in this quarter, and knowing she was under the protection of the chief of the eunuchs himself, could wait for her lover calmly.

But scarcely had she discovered that her mistress had fainted, when she heard the garden filling with people, a confused sound of men’s and eunuchs’ voices, and the notes of the trumpet used to summon the sentries.  At first she was frightened and fancied her lover had been discovered, but Boges appearing and whispering:  “He has escaped safely,” she at once ordered the other attendants, whom she had banished to the women’s apartments during her rendezvous, and who now came flocking back, to carry their mistress into her sleeping-room, and then began using all the remedies she knew of, to restore her to consciousness.  Nitetis had scarcely opened her eyes when Boges came in, followed by two eunuchs, whom he ordered to load her delicate arms with fetters.