“I know of a remedy for the king though,” exclaimed Otanes when he heard these words.  “We must persuade him to send for the women, or at least for my daughter Phaedime, back from Susa.  Love is good for dispersing melancholy, and makes the blood flow faster.”  We acknowledged that he was right, and advised him to remind the king of his banished wives.  He ventured to make the proposal while we were at supper, but got such a harsh rebuff for his pains, that we all pitied him.  Soon after this, Cambyses sent one morning for all the Mobeds and Chaldaeans, and commanded them to interpret a strange dream which he had bad.  In his dream he had been standing in the midst of a dry and barren plain:  barren as a threshing-floor, it did not produce a single blade of grass.  Displeased at the desert aspect of the place, he was just going to seek other and more fruitful regions, when Atossa appeared, and, without seeing him, ran towards a spring which welled up through the arid soil as if by enchantment.  While he was gazing in wonder at this scene, he noticed that wherever the foot of his sister touched the parched soil, graceful terebinths sprang up, changing, as they grew, into cypresses whose tops reached unto heaven.  As he was going to speak to Atossa, he awoke.

The Mobeds and Chaldaeans consulted together and interpreted the dream thus?  ‘Atossa would be successful in all she undertook.’

“Cambyses seemed satisfied with this answer, but, as the next night the vision appeared again, he threatened the wise men with death, unless they could give him another and a different interpretation.  They pondered long, and at last answered, ’that Atossa would become a queen and the mother of mighty princes.’

“This answer really contented the king, and he smiled strangely to himself as he told us his dream.  ’The same day Kassandane sent for me and told me to give up all thoughts of her daughter, as I valued my life.

“’Just as I was leaving the queen’s garden I saw Atossa behind a pomegranate-bush.  She beckoned.  I went to her; and in that hour we forgot danger and sorrow, but said farewell to each other for ever.  Now you know all; and now that I have given her up—­now that I know it would be madness even to think of her again—­I am obliged to be very stern with myself, lest, like the king, I should fall into deep melancholy for the sake of a woman.  And this is the end of the story, the close of which we were all expecting, when Atossa, as I lay under sentence of death, sent me a rose, and made me the happiest of mortals.  If I had not betrayed my secret then, when we thought our last hour was near, it would have gone with me to my grave.  But what am I talking about?  I know I can trust to your secrecy, but pray don’t look at me so deplorably.  I think I am still to be envied, for I have had one hour of enjoyment that would outweigh a century of misery.  Thank you,—­thank you:  now let me finish my story as quickly as I can.