The same evening Cambyses was seized by one of his old epileptic attacks.  Two days later he gave Nebenchari permission to embalm Nitetis’ body in the Egyptian manner, according to her last wish.  The king gave way to the most immoderate grief; he tore the flesh of his arms, rent his clothes and strewed ashes on his head, and on his couch.  All the magnates of his court were obliged to follow his example.  The troops mounted guard with rent banners and muffled drums.  The cymbals and kettle-drums of the “Immortals” were bound round with crape.  The horses which Nitetis had used, as well as all which were then in use by the court, were colored blue and deprived of their tails; the entire court appeared in mourning robes of dark brown, rent to the girdle, and the Magi were compelled to pray three days and nights unceasingly for the soul of the dead, which was supposed to be awaiting its sentence for eternity at the bridge Chinvat on the third night.

Neither the king, Kassandane, nor Atossa shrank from submitting to the necessary purifications; they repeated, as if for one of their nearest relations, thirty prayers for the dead, while, in a house outside the city gates Nebenchari began to embalm her body in the most costly manner, and according to the strictest rules of his art.

[Embalming was practised in three different ways.  The first cost a talent of silver (L225.); the second 20 Minae (L60.) and the third was very inexpensive.  Herod.  II. 86-88.  Diod.  I. 9.  The brain was first drawn out through the nose and the skull filled with spices.  The intestines were then taken out, and the body filled in like manner with aromatic spices.  When all was finished, the corpse was left 70 days in a solution of soda, and then wrapped in bandages of byssus spread over with gum.  The microscopical examinations of mummy-bandages made by Dr. Ure and Prof.  Czermak have proved that byssus is linen, not cotton.  The manner of embalming just described is the most expensive, and the latest chemical researches prove that the description given of it by the Greeks was tolerably correct.  L. Penicher maintains that the bodies were first somewhat dried in ovens, and that then resin of the cedar-tree, or asphalte, was poured into every opening.  According to Herodotus, female corpses were embalmed by women.  Herod.  II. 89.  The subject is treated in great detail by Pettigrew, History of Egyptian Mummies.  London. 1834.  Czermak’s microscopical examinations of Egyptian mummies show how marvellously the smallest portions of the bodies were preserved, and confirm the statements of Herodotus on many points.  The monuments also contain much information in regard to embalming, and we now know the purpose of nearly all the amulets placed with the dead.]

For nine days Cambyses remained in a condition, which seemed little short of insanity.  At times furious, at others dull and stupefied, he did not even allow his relations or the high-priest to approach him.  On the morning of the tenth day he sent for the chief of the seven judges and commanded, that as lenient a sentence as possible should be pronounced on Gaumata.  Nitetis, on her dying-bed, had begged him to spare the life of this unhappy youth.