“What do you want here?” asked Boges.  “I have something for the prince Bartja.”

“For Bartja?  Has he asked your master to send him some seeds or slips?”

The boy shook his sunburnt head and smiled roguishly.

“Some one else sent you then?” said Boges becoming more attentive.

“Yes, some one else.”

“Ah! the Egyptian has sent a message to her brother-in-law?”

“Who told you that?”

“Nitetis spoke to me about it.  Here, give me what you have; I will give it to Bartja at once.”

“I was not to give it to any one but the prince himself.”

“Give it to me; it will be safer in my hands than in yours.”

“I dare not.”

“Obey me at once, or—­”

At this moment the king came up.  Boges thought a moment, and then called in a loud voice to the whip-bearers on duty at the palace-gate, to take the astonished boy up.

“What is the matter here?” asked Cambyses.

“This fellow,” answered the eunuch, “has had the audacity to make his way into the palace with a message from your consort Nitetis to Bartja.”

At sight of the king, the boy had fallen on his knees, touching the ground with his forehead.

Cambyses looked at him and turned deadly pale.  Then, turning to the eunuch, he asked:  “What does the Egyptian Princess wish from my brother?”

“The boy declares that he has orders to give up what has been entrusted to him to no one but Bartja.”  On hearing this the boy looked imploringly up at the king, and held out a little papyrus roll.

Cambyses snatched it out of his hand, but the next moment stamped furiously on the ground at seeing that the letter was written in Greek, which he could not read.

He collected himself, however, and, with an awful look, asked the boy who had given him the letter.  “The Egyptian lady’s waiting-woman Mandane,” he answered; “the Magian’s daughter.”

“For my brother Bartja?”

“She said I was to give the letter to the handsome prince, before the banquet, with a greeting from her mistress Nitetis, and I was to tell him . . .”

Here the king stamped so furiously, that the boy was frightened and could only stammer:  “Before the banquet the prince was walking with you, so I could not speak to him, and now I am waiting for him here, for Mandane promised to give me a piece of gold if I did what she told me cleverly.”

“And that you have not done,” thundered the king, fancying himself shamefully deceived.  “No, indeed you have not.  Here, guards, seize this fellow!”

The boy begged and prayed, but all in vain; the whip-bearers seized him quick as thought, and Cambyses, who went off at once to his own apartments, was soon out of reach of his whining entreaties for mercy.

Boges followed his master, rubbing his fat hands, and laughing quietly to himself.