Cambyses examined the weapon carefully.  Its costly hilt was thickly set with rubies and turquoises.  As he looked he turned pale, and dashed the dagger on the ground before Bartja with such violence, that the stones fell out of their setting.

“This is your dagger, you wretch!” he shrieked, seized by the same violent passion as before.  “This very morning you used it to give the last thrust to the wild boar, that I had mortally wounded.  Croesus, you ought to know it too, for my father brought it from your treasure-house at Sardis.  At last you are really convicted, you liar!—­you impostor!  The Divs require no weapons, and such a dagger as this is not to be picked up everywhere.  Ah, ha! you are feeling in your girdle!  You may well turn pale; your dagger is gone!”

“Yes, it is gone.  I must have lost it, and some enemy . . .”

“Seize him, Bischen, put on his fetters!  Take him to prison—­the traitor, the perjurer!  He shall be strangled to-morrow.  Death is the penalty of perjury.  Your heads for theirs, you guards, if they escape.  Not one word more will I hear; away with you, you perjured villains!  Boges, go at once to the hanging-gardens and bring the Egyptian to me.  Yet no, I won’t see that serpent again.  It is very near dawn now, and at noon she shall be flogged through the streets.  Then I’ll . . .”

But here he was stopped by another fit of epilepsy, and sank down on to the marble floor in convulsions.  At this fearful moment Kassandane was led into the hall by the old general Megabyzus.  The news of what had happened had found its way to her solitary apartments, and, notwithstanding the hour, she had risen in order to try and discover the truth and warn her son against pronouncing a too hasty decision.  She believed firmly that Bartja and Nitetis were innocent, though she could not explain to herself what had happened.  Several times she had tried to put herself in communication with Nitetis, but without avail.  At last she had been herself to the hanging-gardens, but the guards had actually had the hardihood to refuse her admission.

Croesus went at once to meet her, told her what had happened, suppressing as many painful details as possible, confirmed her in her belief of the innocence of the accused, and then took her to the bedside of the king.

The convulsions had not lasted long this time.  He lay on his golden bed under purple silk coverlets, pale and exhausted.  His blind mother seated herself at his side, Croesus and Oropastes took their station at the foot of the bell, and in another part of the room, four physicians discussed the patient’s condition in low whispers.