Many thousands of the citizens of Nisaea were within reach of his voice, as he cried aloud:  “Ye all know that the kings who have, up to the present time, loaded you with honor and glory, belonged to the house of the Achaemenidae.  Cyrus governed you like a real father, Cambyses was a stern master, and Bartja would have guided you like a bridegroom, if I, with this right hand which I now show you, had not slain him on the shores of the Red Sea.  By Mithras, it was with a bleeding heart that I committed this wicked deed, but I did it as a faithful servant in obedience to the king’s command.  Nevertheless, it has haunted me by day and night; for four long years I have been pursued and tormented by the spirits of darkness, who scare sleep from the murderer’s couch.  I have now resolved to end this painful, despairing existence by a worthy deed, and though even this may procure me no mercy at the bridge of Chinvat, in the mouths of men, at least, I shall have redeemed my honorable name from the stain with which I defiled it.  Know then, that the man who gives himself out for the son of Cyrus, sent me hither; he promised me rich rewards if I would deceive you by declaring him to be Bartja, the son of the Achaemenidae.  But I scorn his promises and swear by Mithras and the Feruers of the kings, the most solemn oaths I am acquainted with, that the man who is now ruling you is none other than the Magian Gaumata, he who was deprived of his ears, the brother of the king’s vicegerent and high-priest, Oropastes, whom ye all know.  If it be your will to forget all the glory ye owe to the Achaemenidae, if to this ingratitude ye choose to add your own degradation, then acknowledge these creatures and call them your kings; but if ye despise a lie and are ashamed to obey worthless impostors, drive the Magi from the throne before Mithras has left the heavens, and proclaim the noblest of the Achaemenidae, Darius, the exalted son of Hystaspes, who promises to become a second Cyrus, as your king.  And now, in order that ye may believe my words and not suspect that Darius sent me hither to win you over to his side, I will commit a deed, which must destroy every doubt and prove that the truth and glory of the Achaemenidae are clearer to me, than life itself.  Blessed be ye if ye follow my counsels, but curses rest upon you, if ye neglect to reconquer the throne from the Magi and revenge yourselves upon them.—­Behold, I die a true and honorable man!”

With these words he ascended the highest pinnacle of the tower and cast himself down head foremost, thus expiating the one crime of his life by an honorable death.

The dead silence with which the people in the court below had listened to him, was now broken by shrieks of rage and cries for vengeance.  They burst open the gates of the palace and were pressing in with cries of “Death to the Magi,” when the seven princes of the Persians appeared in front of the raging crowd to resist their entrance.