THE sharp-witted Athenian saw clearly how matters lay in this sad story; nor did it escape him that malice had had a hand in the affair. How could Bartja's dagger have come into the hanging-gardens except through treachery?
While he was telling the king his suspicions, Oropastes was led into the hall.
The king looked angrily at him and without one preliminary word, asked: "Have you a brother?"
"Yes, my King. He and I are the only two left out of a family of six. My parents..."
"Is your brother younger or older than yourself?"
"I was the eldest of the family; my brother, the youngest, was the joy of my father's old age."
"Did you ever notice a remarkable likeness between him and one of my relations?"
"Yes, my King. Gaumata is so like your brother Bartja, that in the school for priests at Rhagae, where he still is, he was always called 'the prince.'"
"Has he been at Babylon very lately?"
"He was here for the last time at the New Year's festival."
"Are you speaking the truth?"
"The sin of lying would be doubly punishable in one who wears my robes, and holds my office."
The king's face flushed with anger at this answer and he exclaimed: "Nevertheless you are lying; Gaumata was here yesterday evening. You may well tremble."
"My life belongs to the king, whose are all things; nevertheless I swear--the high-priest-by the most high God, whom I have served faithfully for thirty years, that I know nothing of my brother's presence in Babylon yesterday."
"Your face looks as if you were speaking the truth."
"You know that I was not absent from your side the whole of that high holiday."
"I know it."
Again the doors opened; this time they admitted the trembling Mandane. The high-priest cast such a look of astonishment and enquiry on her, that the king saw she must be in some way connected with him, and therefore, taking no notice of the trembling girl who lay at his feet, he asked: "Do you know this woman?"
"Yes, my King. I obtained for her the situation of upper attendant to the--may Auramazda forgive her!--King of Egypt's daughter."
"What led you,--a priest,--to do a favor to this girl?"
"Her parents died of the same pestilence, which carried off my brothers. Her father was a priest, respected, and a friend of our family; so we adopted the little girl, remembering the words: 'If thou withhold help from the man who is pure in heart and from his widow and orphans, then shall the pure, subject earth cast thee out unto the stinging-nettles, to painful sufferings and to the most fearful regions!' Thus I became her foster-father, and had her brought up with my youngest brother until he was obliged to enter the school for priests."