troop of soldiers.  Grandmother showed them the letter by which Amasis secured our house from all attack and made it a sure refuge, but they laughed the writing to scorn and showed us on their side a document with the crown-prince’s seal, in which we were sternly commanded to deliver up Phanes’ children at once to this rough troop of men.  Theopompus reproved the soldiers for their roughness, telling them that the children came from Corinth and had no connection with Phanes; but the captain of the troop defied and sneered at him, pushed my grandmother rudely away, forced his way into her own apartment, where among her most precious treasures, at the head of her own bed, the two children lay sleeping peacefully, dragged them out of their little beds and took them in an open boat through the cold night-air to the royal city.  In a few days we heard the boy was dead.  They say he has been killed by Psamtik’s orders; and the little girl, so sweet and dear, is lying in a dismal dungeon, and pining for her father and for us.  Oh, dearest, isn’t it a painful thing that sorrows such as these should come to mar our perfect happiness?  My eyes weep joy and sorrow in the same moment, and my lips, which have just been laughing with you, have now to tell you this sad story.”

“I feel your pain with you, my child, but it makes my hand clench with rage instead of filling my eyes with tears.  That gentle boy whom you loved, that little girl who now sits weeping in the dark dungeon, shall both be revenged.  Trust me; before the Nile has risen again, a powerful army will have entered Egypt, to demand satisfaction for this murder.”

“Oh, dearest, how your eyes are glowing!  I never saw you look so beautiful before.  Yes, yes, the boy must be avenged, and none but you must be his avenger.”

“My gentle Sappho is becoming warlike too.”

“Yes, women must feel warlike when wickedness is so triumphant; women rejoice too when such crimes are punished.  Tell me has war been declared already?”

“Not yet; but hosts on hosts are marching to the valley of the Euphrates to join our main army.”

“My courage sinks as quickly as it rose.  I tremble at the word, the mere word, war.  How many childless mothers Ares makes, how many young fair heads must wear the widow’s veil, how many pillows are wet through with tears when Pallas takes her shield.”

“But a man developes in war; his heart expands, his arm grows strong.  And none rejoice more than you when he returns a conqueror from the field.  The wife of a Persian, especially, ought to rejoice in the thought of battle, for her husband’s honor and fame are dearer to her than his life.”

“Go to the war.  I shall pray for you there.”

“And victory will be with the right.  First we will conquer Pharaoh’s host, then release Phanes’ little daughter . . .”