CHAPTER XI.

According to the law of Egypt, Zopyrus had deserved death.

As soon as his friends heard this, they resolved to go to Sais and try to rescue him by stratagem.  Syloson, who had friends there and could speak the Egyptian language well, offered to help them.

Bartja and Darius disguised themselves so completely by dyeing their hair and eyebrows and wearing broad-brimmed felt-hats,—­that they could scarcely recognize each other.  Theopompus provided them with ordinary Greek dresses, and, an hour after Zopyrus’ arrest, they met the splendidly-got-up Syloson on the shore of the Nile, entered a boat belonging to him and manned by his slaves, and, after a short sail, favored by the wind, reached Sais,—­which lay above the waters of the inundation like an island,—­before the burning midsummer sun had reached its noonday height.

They disembarked at a remote part of the town and walked across the quarter appropriated to the artisans.  The workmen were busy at their calling, notwithstanding the intense noonday heat.  The baker’s men were at work in the open court of the bakehouse, kneading bread—­the coarser kind of dough with the feet, the finer with the hands.  Loaves of various shapes were being drawn out of the ovens-round and oval cakes, and rolls in the form of sheep, snails and hearts.  These were laid in baskets, and the nimble baker’s boys would put three, four, or even five such baskets on their heads at once, and carry them off quickly and safely to the customers living in other quarters of the city.  A butcher was slaughtering an ox before his house, the creature’s legs having been pinioned; and his men were busy sharpening their knives to cut up a wild goat.  Merry cobblers were calling out to the passers-by from their stalls; carpenters, tailors, joiners and weavers—­were all there, busy at their various callings.  The wives of the work-people were going out marketing, leading their naked children by the hand, and some soldiers were loitering near a man who was offering beer and wine for sale.

But our friends took very little notice of what was going on in the streets through which they passed; they followed Syloson in silence.

At the Greek guard-house he asked them to wait for him.  Syloson, happening to know the Taxiarch who was on duty that day, went in and asked him if he had heard anything of a man accused of murder having been brought from Naukratis to Sais that morning.

“Of course,” said the Greek.  “It’s not more than half an hour since he arrived.  As they found a purse full of money in his girdle, they think he must be a Persian spy.  I suppose you know that Cambyses is preparing for war with Egypt.”

“Impossible!”

“No, no, it’s a fact.  The prince-regent has already received information.  A caravan of Arabian merchants arrived yesterday at Pelusium, and brought the news.”