Phaedime joined in Boges’ laughter, bestowed on him all the flattering names which she had caught from his own smooth tongue, and in token of her gratitude, hung a heavy chain studded with jewels round his neck with her own beautiful arms.

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     Call everything that is beyond your comprehension a miracle
     Never so clever as when we have to find excuses for our own sins
     So long as we are able to hope and wish

AN EGYPTIAN PRINCESS.

By Georg Ebers

Volume 7.

CHAPTER V.

Before the sun had reached his mid-day height, the news of what had happened and of what was still to happen had filled all Babylon.  The streets swarmed with people, waiting impatiently to see the strange spectacle which the punishment of one of the king’s wives, who had proved false and faithless, promised to afford.  The whip-bearers were forced to use all their authority to keep this gaping crowd in order.  Later on in the day the news that Bartja and his friends were soon to be executed arrived among the crowd; they were under the influence of the palm-wine, which was liberally distributed on the king’s birthday and the following days, and could not control their excited feelings; but these now took quite another form.

Bands of drunken men paraded the streets, crying:  “Bartja, the good son of Cyrus, is to be executed!” The women heard these words in their quiet apartments, eluded their keepers, forgot their veils, and rushing forth into the streets, followed the excited and indignant men with cries and yells.  Their pleasure in the thought of seeing a more fortunate sister humbled, vanished at the painful news that their beloved prince was condemned to death.  Men, women and children raged, stormed and cursed, exciting one another to louder and louder bursts of indignation.  The workshops were emptied, the merchants closed their warehouses, and the school-boys and servants, who had a week’s holiday on occasion of the king’s birthday, used their freedom to scream louder than any one else, and often to groan and yell without in the least knowing why.

At last the tumult was so great that the whip-bearers were insufficient to cope with it, and a detachment of the body-guard was sent to patrol the streets.  At the sight of their shining armor and long lances, the crowd retired into the side streets, only, however, to reassemble in fresh numbers when the troops were out of sight.

At the gate, called the Bel gate, which led to the great western high-road, the throng was thicker than at any other point, for it was said that through this gate, the one by which she had entered Babylon, the Egyptian Princess was to be led out of the city in shame and disgrace.  For this reason a larger number of whipbearers were stationed here, in order to make way for travellers entering the city.  Very few people indeed left the city at all on this day, for curiosity was stronger than either business or pleasure; those, on the other hand, who arrived from the country, took up their stations near the gate on hearing what had drawn the crowd thither.