Kassandane had made up her mind that Nitetis was faithless, and her own
beloved son innocent.  But in whom could she ever place confidence again,
now that this girl, whom she had looked upon as the very embodiment of
every womanly virtue, had proved reprobate and faithless--now that the
noblest youths in the realm had proved perjurers?

Nitetis was more than dead for her; Bartja, Croesus, Darius, Gyges,
Araspes, all so closely allied to her by relationship and friendship, as
good as dead.  And yet she durst not indulge her sorrow; she had to
restrain the despairing outbursts of grief of her impetuous child.

Atossa behaved like one deprived of her senses when she heard of the
sentences of death.  The self-control which she had learnt from Nitetis
gave way, and her old impetuosity burst forth again with double
vehemence.

Nitetis, her only friend,--Bartja, the brother whom she loved with her
whole heart,--Darius, whom she felt now she not only looked up to as her
deliverer, but loved with all the warmth of a first affection--Croesus to
whom she clung like a father,--she was to lose every one she loved in one
day.

She tore her dress and her hair, called Cambyses a monster, and every one
who could possibly believe in the guilt of such people, infatuated or
insane.  Then her tears would burst out afresh, she would utter imploring
supplications to the gods for mercy, and a few minutes later, begin
conjuring her mother to take her to the hanging-gardens, that they might
hear Nitetis' defence of her own conduct.

Kassandane tried to soothe the violent girl, and assured her every
attempt to visit the hanging-gardens would be in vain.  Then Atossa began
to rage again, until at last her mother was forced to command silence,
and as morning had already began to dawn, sent her to her sleeping-room.

The girl obeyed, but instead of going to bed, seated herself at a tall
window looking towards the hanging-gardens.  Her eyes filled with tears
again, as she thought of her friend--her sister-sitting in that palace
alone, forsaken, banished, and looking forward to an ignominious death.
Suddenly her tearful, weary eyes lighted up as if from some strong
purpose, and instead of gazing into the distance, she fixed them on a
black speck which flew towards her in a straight line from Nitetis'
house, becoming larger and more distinct every moment; and finally
settling on a cypress before her window.  The sorrow vanished at once
from her lovely face and with a deep sigh of relief she sprang up,
exclaiming:

"Oh, there is the Homai, the bird of good fortune!  Now everything will
turn out well."

It was the same bird of paradise which had brought so much comfort to
Nitetis that now gave poor Atossa fresh confidence.

She bent forward to see whether any one was in the garden; and finding
that she would be seen by no one but the old gardener, she jumped out,
trembling like a fawn, plucked a few roses and cypress twigs and took
them to the old man, who had been watching her performances with a
doubtful shake of the head.

She stroked his cheeks coaxingly, put her flowers in his brown hand, and
said: "Do you love me, Sabaces?"

"O, my mistress!"  was the only answer the old man could utter, as he
pressed the hem of her robe to his lips.

"I believe you, my old friend, and I will show you how I trust my
faithful, old Sabaces.  Hide these flowers carefully and go quickly to
the king's palace.  Say that you had to bring fruit for the table.  My
poor brother Bartja, and Darius, the son of the noble Hystaspes, are in
prison, near the guard-house of the Immortals.  You must manage that
these flowers reach them, with a warm greeting from me, but mind, the
message must be given with the flowers."

"But the guards will not allow me to see the prisoners."

"Take these rings, and slip them into their hands."

"I will do my best."

"I knew you loved me, my good Sabaces.  Now make haste, and come back
soon."

The old man went off as fast as he could.  Atossa looked thoughtfully
after him, murmuring to herself: "Now they will both know, that I loved
them to the last.  The rose means, 'I love you,' and the evergreen
cypress, 'true and steadfast.'"  The old man came back in an hour;
bringing her Bartja's favorite ring, and from Darius an Indian
handkerchief dipped in blood.

Atossa ran to meet him; her eyes filled with tears as she took the
tokens, and seating herself under a spreading plane-tree, she pressed
them by turns to her lips, murmuring: "Bartja's ring means that he thinks
of me; the blood-stained handkerchief that Darius is ready to shed his
heart's blood for me."

Atossa smiled as she said this, and her tears, when she thought of her
friends and their sad fate, were quieter, if not less bitter, than
before.

A few hours later a messenger arrived from Croesus with news that the
innocence of Bartja and his friends had been proved, and that Nitetis
was, to all intents and purposes, cleared also.

Kassandane sent at once to the hanging-gardens, with a request that
Nitetis would come to her apartments.  Atossa, as unbridled in her joy as
in her grief, ran to meet her friend's litter and flew from one of her
attendants to the other crying: "They are all innocent; we shall not lose
one of them--not one!"

When at last the litter appeared and her loved one, pale as death, within
it, she burst into loud sobs, threw her arms round Nitetis as she
descended, and covered her with kisses and caresses till she perceived
that her friend's strength was failing, that her knees gave way, and she
required a stronger support than Atossa's girlish strength could give.

The Egyptian girl was carried insensible into the queen-mother's
apartments.  When she opened her eyes, her head-more like a marble piece
of sculpture than a living head--was resting on the blind queen's lap,
she felt Atossa's warm kisses on her forehead, and Cambyses, who had
obeyed his mother's call, was standing at her side.

She gazed on this circle, including all she loved best, with anxious,
perplexed looks, and at last, recognizing them one by one, passed her
hand across her pale fore head as if to remove a veil, smiled at each,
and closed her eyes once more.  She fancied Isis had sent her a beautiful
vision, and wished to hold it fast with all the powers of her mind.

Then Atossa called her by her name, impetuously and lovingly.  She opened
her eyes again, and again she saw those loving looks that she fancied had
only been sent her in a dream.  Yes, that was her own Atossa--this her
motherly friend, and there stood, not the angry king, but the man she
loved.  And now his lips opened too, his stern, severe eyes rested on her
so beseechingly, and he said: "O Nitetis, awake!  you must not--you
cannot possibly be guilty!"  She moved her head gently with a look of
cheerful denial and a happy smile stole across her features, like a
breeze of early spring over fresh young roses.

"She is innocent! by Mithras, it is impossible that she can be guilty,"
cried the king again, and forgetful of the presence of others, he sank on
his knees.

A Persian physician came up and rubbed her forehead with a sweet-scented
oil, and Nebenchari approached, muttering spells, felt her pulse, shook
his head, and administered a potion from his portable medicine-chest.
This restored her to perfect consciousness; she raised herself with
difficulty into a sitting posture, returned the loving caresses of her
two friends, and then turning to Cambyses, asked: "How could you believe
such a thing of me, my King?"  There was no reproach in her tone, but
deep sadness, and Cambyses answered softly, "Forgive me."

Kassandane's blind eyes expressed her gratitude for this self-
renunciation on the part of her son, and she said: "My daughter, I need
your forgiveness too."

"But I never once doubted you,"  cried Atossa, proudly and joyfully
kissing her friend's lips.

"Your letter to Bartja shook my faith in your innocence," added
Kassandane.

"And yet it was all so simple and natural," answered Nitetis.  "Here, my
mother, take this letter from Egypt.  Croesus will translate it for you.
It will explain all.  Perhaps I was imprudent.  Ask your mother to tell
you what you would wish to know, my King.  Pray do not scorn my poor, ill
sister.  When an Egyptian girl once loves, she cannot forget.  But I feel
so frightened.  The end must be near.  The last hours have been so very,
very terrible.  That horrible man, Boges, read me the fearful sentence of
death, and it was that which forced the poison into my hand.  Ah, my
heart!"

And with these words she fell back into the arms of Kassandane.

Nebenchari rushed forward, and gave her some more drops, exclaiming: "I
thought so!  She has taken poison and her life cannot be saved, though
this antidote may possibly prolong it for a few days."  Cambyses stood
by, pale and rigid, following the physician's slightest movements, and
Atossa bathed her friend's forehead with her tears.

"Let some milk be brought,"  cried Nebenchari, "and my large medicine-
chest; and let attendants be called to carry her away, for quiet is
necessary, above all things."

Atossa hastened into the adjoining room; and Cambyses said to the
physician, but without looking into his face: "Is there no hope?"

"The poison which she has taken results in certain death."

On hearing this the king pushed Nebenchari away from the sick girl,
exclaiming: "She shall live.  It is my will.  Here, eunuch! summon all
the physicians in Babylon--assemble the priests and Alobeds!  She is not
to die; do you hear?  she must live, I am the king, and I command it."

Nitetis opened her eyes as if endeavoring to obey her lord.  Her face was
turned towards the window, and the bird of paradise with the gold chain
on its foot, was still there, perched on the cypress-tree.  Her eyes fell
first on her lover, who had sunk down at her side and was pressing his
burning lips to her right hand.  She murmured with a smile:  "O, this
great happiness!"  Then she saw the bird, and pointed to it with tier
left hand, crying: "Look, look, there is the Phoenix, the bird of Ra!"

After saying this she closed her eyes and was soon seized by a violent
attack of fever.




CHAPTER VII.

Prexaspes, the king's messenger, and one of the highest officials at
court, had brought Gaumata, Mandane's lover, whose likeness to Bartja was
really most wonderful, to Babylon, sick and wounded as he was.  He was
now awaiting his sentence in a dungeon, while Boges, the man who had led
him into crime, was nowhere to be found, notwithstanding all the efforts
of the police.  His escape had been rendered possible by the trap-door in
the hanging-gardens, and greatly assisted by the enormous crowds
assembled in the streets.

Immense treasures were found in his house.  Chests of gold and jewels,
which his position had enabled him to obtain with great ease, were
restored to the royal treasury.  Cambyses, however, would gladly have
given ten times as much treasure to secure possession of the traitor.

To Phaedime's despair the king ordered all the inhabitants of the harem,
except his mother, Atossa and the dying Nitetis, to be removed to Susa,
two days after the accused had been declared innocent.  Several eunuchs
of rank were deposed from their offices.  The entire caste was to suffer
for the sins of him who had escaped punishment.

Oropastes, who had already entered on his duties as regent of the
kingdom, and had clearly proved his non-participation in the crime of
which his brother had been proved guilty, bestowed the vacant places
exclusively on the Magi.  The demonstration made by the people in favor
of Bartja did not come to the king's ears until the crowd had long
dispersed.  Still, occupied as he was, almost entirely, by his anxiety
for Nitetis, he caused exact information of this illegal manifestation to
be furnished him, and ordered the ringleaders to be severely punished.
He fancied it was a proof that Bartja had been trying to gain favor with
the people, and Cambyses would perhaps have shown his displeasure by some
open act, if a better impulse had not told him that he, not Bartja, was
the brother who stood in need of forgiveness.  In spite of this, however,
he could not get rid of the feeling that Bartja, had been, though
innocent, the cause of the sad events which had just happened, nor of his
wish to get him out of the way as far as might be; and he therefore gave
a ready consent to his brother's wish to start at once for Naukratis.

Bartja took a tender farewell of his mother and sister, and started two
days after his liberation.  He was accompanied by Gyges, Zopyrus, and a
numerous retinue charged with splendid presents from Cambyses for Sappho.
Darius remained behind, kept back by his love for Atossa.  The day too
was not far distant, when, by his father's wish, he was to marry
Artystone, the daughter of Gobryas.

Bartja parted from his friend with a heavy heart, advising him to be very
prudent with regard to Atossa.  The secret had been confided to
Kassandane, and she had promised to take Darius' part with the king.

If any one might venture to raise his eyes to the daughter of Cyrus,
assuredly it was the son of Hystaspes; he was closely connected by
marriage with the royal family, belonged like Cambyses to the Pasargadae,
and his family was a younger branch of the reigning dynasty.  His father
called himself the highest noble in the realm, and as such, governed the
province of Persia proper, the mother-country, to which this enormous
world-empire and its ruler owed their origin.  Should the family of Cyrus
become extinct, the descendants of Hystaspes would have a well-grounded
right to the Persian throne.  Darius therefore, apart from his personal
advantages, was a fitting claimant for Atossa's hand.  And yet no one
dared to ask the king's consent.  In the gloomy state of mind into which
he had been brought by the late events, it was likely that he might
refuse it, and such an answer would have to be regarded as irrevocable.
So Bartja was obliged to leave Persia in anxiety about the future of
these two who were very dear to him.

Croesus promised to act as mediator in this case also, and before Bartja
left, made him acquainted with Phanes.

The youth had heard such a pleasant account of the Athenian from Sappho,
that he met him with great cordiality, and soon won the fancy of the
older and more experienced man, who gave him many a useful hint, and a
letter to Theopompus, the Milesian, at Naukratis.  Phanes concluded by
asking for a private interview.

Bartja returned to his friends looking grave and thoughtful; soon,
however, he forgot his cause of anxiety and joked merrily with them over
a farewell cup.  Before he mounted his horse the next morning, Nebenchari
asked to be allowed an audience.  He was admitted, and begged Bartja to
take the charge of a large written roll for king Amasis.  It contained a
detailed account of Nitetis' sufferings, ending with these words: "Thus
the unhappy victim of your ambitious plans will end her life in a few
hours by poison, to the use of which she was driven by despair.  The
arbitrary caprices of the mighty can efface all happiness from the life
of a human creature, just as we wipe a picture from the tablet with a
sponge.  Your servant Nebenchari is pining in a foreign land, deprived of
home and property, and the wretched daughter of a king of Egypt dies a
miserable and lingering death by her own hand.  Her body will be torn to
pieces by dogs and vultures, after the manner of the Persians.  Woe unto
them who rob the innocent of happiness here and of rest beyond the
grave!"

Bartja had not been told the contents of this letter, but promised to
take it with him; he then, amid the joyful shouts of the people, set up
outside the city-gate the stones which, according to a Persian
superstition, were to secure him a prosperous journey, and left Babylon.

Nebenchari, meanwhile, prepared to return to his post by Nitetis' dying-
bed.

Just as he reached the brazen gates between the harem-gardens and the
courts of the large palace, an old man in white robes came up to him.
The sight seemed to fill Nebenchari with terror; he started as if the
gaunt old man had been a ghost.  Seeing, however, a friendly and familiar
smile on the face of the other, he quickened his steps, and, holding out
his hand with a heartiness for which none of his Persian acquaintances
would have given him credit, exclaimed in Egyptian: "Can I believe my
eyes?  You in Persia, old Hib?  I should as soon have expected the sky to
fall as to have the pleasure of seeing you on the Euphrates.  But now, in
the name of Osiris, tell me what can have induced you, you old ibis, to
leave your warm nest on the Nile and set out on such a long journey
eastward."

While Nebenchari was speaking, the old man listened in a bowing posture,
with his arms hanging down by his side, and when he had finished, looked
up into his face with indescribable joy, touched his breast with
trembling fingers, and then, falling on the right knee, laying one hand
on his heart and raising the other to heaven, cried: "Thanks be unto
thee, great Isis, for protecting the wanderer and permitting him to see
his master once more in health and safety.  Ah, child, how anxious I have
been!  I expected to find you as wasted and thin as a convict from the
quarries; I thought you would have been grieving and unhappy, and here
you are as well, and handsome and portly as ever.  If poor old Hib had
been in your place he would have been dead long ago."

"Yes, I don't doubt that, old fellow.  I did not leave home of my own
will either, nor without many a heartache.  These foreigners are all the
children of Seth.  The good and gracious gods are only to be found in
Egypt on the shores of the sacred, blessed Nile."

"I don't know much about its being so blessed," muttered the old man.

"You frighten me, father Hib.  What has happened then?"

"Happened!  Things have come to a pretty pass there, and you'll hear of
it soon enough.  Do you think I should have left house and grandchildren
at my age,--going on for eighty,--like any Greek or Phoenician vagabond,
and come out among these godless foreigners (the gods blast and destroy
them!), if I could possibly have staid on in Egypt?"

"But tell me what it's all about."

"Some other time, some other time.  Now you must take me to your own
house, and I won't stir out of it as long as we are in this land of
Typhon."

The old man said this with so much emphasis, that Nebenchiari could not
help smiling and saying: "Have they treated you so very badly then, old
man?"

"Pestilence and Khamsin!" blustered the old man.

[The south-west wind, which does so much injury to the crops in the
Nile valley.  It is known to us as the Simoom, the wind so perilous
to travellers in the desert.]

"There's not a more good-for-nothing Typhon's brood on the face of the
earth than these Persians.  I only wonder they're not all red-haired and
leprous.  Ah, child, two whole days I have been in this hell already, and
all that time I was obliged to live among these blasphemers.  They said
no one could see you; you were never allowed to leave Nitetis' sick-bed.
Poor child!  I always said this marriage with a foreigner would come to
no good, and it serves Amasis right if his children give him trouble.
His conduct to you alone deserves that."

"For shame, old man!"

"Nonsense, one must speak one's mind sometimes.  I hate a king, who comes
from nobody knows where.  Why, when he was a poor boy he used to steal
your father's nuts, and wrench the name-plates off the house-doors.  I
saw he was a good-for-nothing fellow then.  It's a shame that such people
should be allowed to..."

"Gently, gently, old man.  We are not all made of the same stuff, and if
there was such a little difference between you and Amasis as boys, it, is
your own fault that, now you are old men, he has outstripped you so far.

"My father and grandfather were both servants in the temple, and of
course I followed in their footsteps."

"Quite right; it is the law of caste, and by that rule, Amasis ought
never to have become anything higher than a poor army-captain at most."

"It is not every one who's got such an easy conscience as this upstart
fellow."

"There you are again!  For shame, Hib!  As long as I can remember, and
that is nearly half a century, every other word with you has been an
abusive one.  When I was a child your ill-temper was vented on me, and
now the king has the benefit of it."

"Serves him right!  All, if you only knew all!  It's now seven months
since .  .  ."

"I can't stop to listen to you now.  At the rising of the seven stars I
will send a slave to take you to my rooms.  Till then you must stay in
your present lodging, for I must go to my patient."

"You must?--Very well,--then go and leave poor old Hib here to die.
I can't possibly live another hour among these creatures."

"What would you have me do then?"

"Let me live with you as long as we are in Persia."

"Have they treated you so very roughly?"

"I should think they had indeed.  It is loathsome to think of.  They
forced me to eat out of the same pot with them and cut my bread with the
same knife.  An infamous Persian, who had lived many years in Egypt, and
travelled here with us, had given them a list of all the things and
actions, which we consider unclean.  They took away my knife when I was
going to shave myself.  A good-for-nothing wench kissed me on the
forehead, before I could prevent it.  There, you needn't laugh; it will
be a month at least before I can get purified from all these pollutions.
I took an emetic, and when that at last began to take effect, they all
mocked and sneered at me.  But that was not all.  A cursed cook-boy
nearly beat a sacred kitten to death before my very eyes.  Then an
ointment-mixer, who had heard that I was your servant, made that godless
Bubares ask me whether I could cure diseases of the eye too.  I said yes,
because you know in sixty years it's rather hard if one can't pick up
something from one's master.  Bubares was interpreter between us, and the
shameful fellow told him to say that he was very much disturbed about a
dreadful disease in his eyes.  I asked what it was, and received for
answer that he could not tell one thing from another in the dark!"

"You should have told him that the best remedy for that was to light a
candle."

"Oh, I hate the rascals!  Another hour among them will be the death of
me!"

"I am sure you behaved oddly enough among these foreigners," said
Nebenchiari smiling, "you must have made them laugh at you, for the
Persians are generally very polite, well-behaved people.  Try them again,
only once.  I shall be very glad to take you in this evening, but I can't
possibly do it before."

"It is as I thought!  He's altered too, like everybody else!  Osiris is
dead and Seth rules the world again."

"Farewell!  When the seven stars rise, our old Ethiopian slave, Nebununf,
will wait for you here."

"Nebununf, that old rogue?  I never want to see him again."

"Yes, the very same."

"Him--well it's a good thing, when people stay as they were.  To be sure
I know some people who can't say so much of themselves, and who instead
of minding their own business, pretend to heal inward diseases, and when
a faithful old servant .  .  ."

"Hold your tongue, and wait patiently till evening."  These last words
were spoken seriously, and produced the desired impression.  The old man
made another obeisance, and before his master left him, said: "I came
here under the protection of Phanes, the former commander of the Greek
mercenaries.  He wishes very much to speak with you."

"That is his concern.  He can come to me."

"You never leave that sick girl, whose eyes are as sound as .  .  ."

"Hib!"

"For all I care she may have a cataract in both.  May Phanes come to you
this evening?"

"I wished to be alone with you."

"So did I; but the Greek seems to be in a great hurry, and he knows
nearly everything that I have to tell you."

"Have you been gossiping then?"

"No--not exactly--but .  .  ."

"I always thought you were a man to be trusted."

"So I was.  But this Greek knows already a great deal of what I know, and
the rest .  .  ."

"Well?"

"The rest he got out of me, I hardly know how myself.  If I did not wear
this amulet against an evil eye, I should have been obliged .  .  ."

"Yes, yes, I know the Athenian--I can forgive you.  I should like him to
come with you this evening.  But I see the sun is already high in the
heavens.  I have no time to lose.  Tell me in a few words what has
happened."

"I thought this evening .  .  ."

"No, I must have at least a general idea of what has happened before I
see the Athenian.  Be brief."

"You have been robbed!"

"Is that all?"

"Is not that enough?"

"Answer me.  Is that all?"

"Yes!"

"Then farewell."

"But Nebenchari!"

The physician did not even hear this exclamation; the gates of the harem
had already closed behind him.

When the Pleiades had risen, Nebenchari was to be found seated alone in
one of the magnificent rooms assigned to his use on the eastern side of
the palace, near to Kassandane's apartments.  The friendly manner in
which he had welcomed his old servant had given place to the serious
expression which his face usually wore, and which had led the cheerful
Persians to call him a morose and gloomy man.

Nebenchari was an Egyptian priest through and through; a member of that
caste which never indulged in a jest, and never for a moment forgot to be
dignified and solemn before the public; but when among their relations
and their colleagues completely threw off this self-imposed restraint,
and gave way at times even to exuberant mirth.

Though he had known Phanes in Sais, he received him with cold politeness,
and, after the first greeting was ended, told Hib to leave them alone.

"I have come to you," said the Athenian, "to speak about some very
important affairs."

"With which I am already acquainted," was the Egyptian's curt reply.

"I am inclined to doubt that," said Phanes with an incredulous smile.

"You have been driven out of Egypt, persecuted and insulted by Psamtik,
and you have come to Persia to enlist Cambyses as an instrument of
revenge against my country."

"You are mistaken.  I have nothing against your country, but all the more
against Amasis and his house.  In Egypt the state and the king are one,
as you very well know."

"On the contrary, my own observations have led me to think that the
priests considered themselves one with the state."

"In that case you are better informed than I, who have always looked on
the kings of Egypt as absolute.  So they are; but only in proportion as
they know how to emancipate themselves from the influence of your caste.
--Amasis himself submits to the priests now."

"Strange intelligence!"

"With which, however, you have already long been made acquainted."

"Is that your opinion?"

"Certainly it is.  And I know with still greater certainty that once--you
hear me--once, he succeeded in bending the will of these rulers of his to
his own."

"I very seldom hear news from home, and do not understand what you are
speaking of."

"There I believe you, for if you knew what I meant and could stand there
quietly without clenching your fist, you would be no better than a dog
who only whimpers when he's kicked and licks the hand that torments him."

The physician turned pale.  "I know that Amasis has injured and insulted
me," he said, "but at the same time I must tell you that revenge is far
too sweet a morsel to be shared with a stranger."

"Well said!  As to my own revenge, however, I can only compare it to a
vineyard where the grapes are so plentiful, that I am not able to gather
them all myself."

"And you have come hither to hire good laborers."

"Quite right, and I do not even yet give up the hope of securing you to
take a share in my vintage."

"You are mistaken.  My work is already done.  The gods themselves have
taken it in hand.  Amasis has been severely enough punished for banishing
me from country, friends and pupils into this unclean land."

"You mean by his blindness perhaps?"

"Possibly."

"Then you have not heard that Petammon, one of your colleagues, has
succeeded in cutting the skin, which covered the pupil of the eye and so
restoring Amasis' sight?"

The Egyptian started and ground his teeth; recovered his presence of
mind, however, in a moment, and answered: "Then the gods have punished
the father through the children."

"In what way?  Psamtik suits his father's present mood very well.  It is
true that Tachot is ill, but she prays and sacrifices with her father all
the more for that; and as to Nitetis, you and I both know that her death
will not touch him very closely."

"I really do not understand you."

"Of course not, so long as you fancy that I believe your beautiful
patient to be Amasis' daughter."

The Egyptian started again, but Phanes went on without appearing to
notice his emotion: "I know more than you suppose.  Nitetis is the
daughter of Hophra, Amasis' dethroned predecessor.  Amasis brought her
up as his own child-first, in order to make the Egyptians believe that
Hophra had died childless; secondly, in order to deprive her of her
rights to the throne; for you know women are allowed to govern on the
Nile."

"These are mere suppositions."

"For which, however, I can bring irrefragable proofs.  Among the papers
which your old servant Hib brought with him in a small box, there must be
some letters from a certain Sonnophre, a celebrated accoucheur, your own
father, which .  .  ."

[To judge from the pictures on the monuments and from the 1st Chap.
of Exodus, it would seem that in ancient, as in modern Egypt,
midwives were usually called in to assist at the birth of children;
but it is also certain, that in difficult cases physicians were
employed also.  In the hieratic medical papyrus in Berlin, women are
often spoken of as assisting at such times.  In the medical Papyrus
Ebers certain portions are devoted to diseases peculiar to women.
"There were special rooms set aside in private houses for the birth
of children, as symbolical ones were reserved in the temples.  These
chambers were called meschen, and from them was derived the name
given to midwives, to meschennu.]

"If that be the case, those letters are my property, and I have not the
slightest intention of giving them up; besides which you might search
Persia from one end to the other without finding any one who could
decipher my father's writing."

"Pardon me, if I point out one or two errors into which you have fallen.
First, this box is at present in my hands, and though I am generally
accustomed to respect the rights of property, I must assure you that, in
the present instance, I shall not return the box until its contents have
served my purpose.  Secondly, the gods have so ordained, that just at
this moment there is a man in Babylon who can read every kind of writing
known to the Egyptian priests.  Do you perhaps happen to know the name of