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Twice she had ventured into the room, stepping so lightly as hardly to touch the thick carpet of Milesian wool, had stolen to her friend's bedside and lightly kissed her forehead, on which the pearly dew of death was standing, but each time a severe and reproving glance from Nebenchari had sent her back again into the next room, where her mother Kassandane was lying, awaiting the end.
"Be silent!" cried Cambyses in an overbearing tone, "or I shall have to teach you what is becoming in women and children. Bartja is on far too good terms with fortune to fall in the war. He will live, I hope, to deserve the love which is now so freely flung into his lap like an alms." "How canst thou speak thus?" cried Kassandane. "In what manly virtue is Bartja wanting?
Kassandane tells me, that you are going to undertake a delicate operation to-morrow in order to restore her sight. Are you not venturing too much?" "I can depend on my own skill, my Sovereign." "One more question. Did you know of this fraud?" "Yes." "And you allowed me to remain in error?" "I had been compelled to swear secrecy and an oath..." "An oath is sacred.
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.
The seats and couches were of gold covered with lions' skins, and a table of silver stood by the side of the blind queen. Kassandane was seated in a costly arm-chair. She wore a robe of violet-blue, embroidered with silver, and over her snow-white hair lay a long veil of delicate lace, woven in Egypt, the ends of which were wound round her neck and tied in a large bow beneath her chin.
Kassandane smiled again, murmuring in a scarcely audible voice: "You are right, my children, you will stand in need of your mother." "Now you are speaking once more like the wife of the great Cyrus," cried Croesus, kissing the robe of the blind woman. "Your presence will indeed be needed, who can say how soon? Cambyses is like hard steel; sparks fly wherever he strikes.
As every petitioner had been obliged to lay his request before the principal staff bearer the day before, in order to ascertain whether it was admissible, they all received satisfactory answers. The petitions of the women had been enquired into by the eunuchs in the same manner, and they too were now conducted before their lord and master by Boges, Kassandane alone remaining seated.
He was afraid of meeting with decided opposition; but Croesus had cleared the way far him by telling Kassandane so much in praise of Sappho, her virtues and her graces, her talents and skill, that Nitetis and Atossa maintained she must have given the old man a magic potion, and Kassandane, after a short resistance, yielded to her darling's entreaties.
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.
My father had, it is true, a hundred female slaves, but only one real, true wife, our mother Kassandane." "And I will be your Kassandane." "No, my Sappho, for what you will be to me, no woman ever yet was to her husband." "When shall you come to fetch me?" "As soon as I can, and am permitted to do so." "Then I ought to be able to wait patiently." "And shall I ever hear from you?"
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