“It is really too bad; see, there is the sixth boat full of these foreigners!”

“Yes, it is hard indeed!” sighed the priest, “one might fancy a whole army arriving.  Amasis will go on in this manner until the strangers drive him from his throne and country, and plunder and make slaves of us poor creatures, as the evil Hyksos, those scourges of Egypt, and the black Ethiopians did, in the days of old.”

“The seventh boat!” shouted the tailor.

“May my protectress Neith, the great goddess of Sais, destroy me, if I can understand the king,” complained the priest.  “He sent three barks to Naukratis, that poisonous nest hated of the gods, to fetch the servants and baggage of these Persians; but instead of three, eight had to be procured, for these despisers of the gods and profaners of dead bodies have not only brought kitchen utensils, dogs, horses, carriages, chests, baskets and bales, but have dragged with them, thousands of miles, a whole host of servants.  They tell me that some of them have no other work than twining of garlands and preparing ointments.  Their priests too, whom they call Magi, are here with them.  I should like to know what they are for? of what use is a priest where there is no temple?”

The old King Amasis received the Persian embassy shortly after their arrival with all the amiability and kindness peculiar to him.

Four days later, after having attended to the affairs of state, a duty punctually fulfilled by him every morning without exception, he went forth to walk with Croesus in the royal gardens.  The remaining members of the embassy, accompanied by the crown-prince, were engaged in an excursion up the Nile to the city of Memphis.

The palace-gardens, of a royal magnificence, yet similar in their arrangement to those of Rhodopis, lay in the north-west part of Sais, near the royal citadel.

Here, under the shadow of a spreading plane-tree, and near a gigantic basin of red granite, into which an abundance of clear water flowed perpetually through the jaws of black basalt crocodiles, the two old men seated themselves.

The dethroned king, though in reality some years the elder of the two, looked far fresher and more vigorous than the powerful monarch at his side.  Amasis was tall, but his neck was bent; his corpulent body was supported by weak and slender legs:  and his face, though well-formed, was lined and furrowed.  But a vigorous spirit sparkled in the small, flashing eyes, and an expression of raillery, sly banter, and at times, even of irony, played around his remarkably full lips.  The low, broad brow, the large and beautifully-arched head bespoke great mental power, and in the changing color of his eyes one seemed to read that neither wit nor passion were wanting in the man, who, from his simple place as soldier in the ranks, had worked his way up to the throne of the Pharaohs.  His voice was sharp and hard, and his movements, in comparison with the deliberation of the other members of the Egyptian court, appeared almost morbidly active.