Bartja shuddered.  The blood came back to his face, but these words cut him to the heart.  For the first time in his life his belief in the justice of the gods forsook him.

He called himself the victim of a cruel, inexorable fate, and felt like a bunted animal driven to its last gasp and hearing the dogs and sportsmen fast coming nearer.  He had a sensitive, childlike nature, which did not yet know how to meet the hard strokes of fate.  His body and his physical courage had been hardened against bodily and physical enemies; but his teachers had never told him how to meet a hard lot in life; for Cambyses and Bartja seemed destined only to drink out of the cup of happiness and joy.

Zopyrus could not bear to see his friend in tears.  He reproached the old man angrily with being unjust and severe.  Gyges’ looks were full of entreaty, and Araspes stationed himself between the old man and the youth, as if to ward off the blame of the elder from cutting deeper into the sad and grieved heart of the younger man.  Darius, however, after having watched them for some time, came up with quiet deliberation to Croesus, and said:  “You continue to distress and offend one another, and yet the accused does not seem to know with what offence he is charged, nor will the accuser hearken to his defence.  Tell us, Croesus, by the friendship which has subsisted between us up to this clay, what has induced you to judge Bartja so harshly, when only a short time ago you believed in his innocence?”

The old man told at once what Darius desired to know—­that he had seen a letter, written in Nitetis’ own hand, in which she made a direct confession of her love to Bartja and asked him to meet her alone.  The testimony of his own eyes and of the first men in the realm, nay, even the dagger found under Nitetis’ windows, had not been able to convince him that his favorite was guilty; but this letter had gone like a burning flash into his heart and destroyed the last remnant of his belief in the virtue and purity of woman.

“I left the king,” he concluded, “perfectly convinced that a sinful intimacy must subsist between your friend and the Egyptian Princess, whose heart I had believed to be a mirror for goodness and beauty alone.  Can you find fault with me for blaming him who so shamefully stained this clear mirror, and with it his own not less spotless soul?”

“But how can I prove my innocence?” cried Bartja, wringing his hands.  “If you loved me you would believe me; if you really cared for me. . . . "

“My boy! in trying to save your life only a few minutes ago, I forfeited my own.  When I heard that Cambyses had really resolved on your death, I hastened to him with a storm of entreaties; but these were of no avail, and then I was presumptuous enough to reproach him bitterly in his irritated state of mind.  The weak thread of his patience broke, and in a fearful passion he commanded the guards to behead me at once.  I was seized directly by Giv, one of the whip-bearers; but as the man is under obligations to me, he granted me my life until this morning, and promised to conceal the postponement of the execution.  I am glad, my sons, that I shall not outlive you, and shall die an innocent man by the side of the guilty.”