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But for Nitetis, who had been spoilt for such things by an intimate acquaintance with the best Greek poets, they could have but little charm.
For when Amasis and Ladice embraced Nitetis for the last time with tears when Tachot, in presence of all the inhabitants of Sais, following her sister down the broad flight of steps that led to the river, threw her arms round her neck once more and burst into sobs when at last the wind filled the sails of the royal boat and bore the princess, destined to be the great king's bride, from their sight, few eyes among that vast crowd remained dry.
Her last cry of agony pierced the wounds of the mutilated man like a sharp lance-thrust. On the twelfth day after Nitetis' death Cambyses went out hunting, in the hope that the danger and excitement of the sport might divert his mind. The magnates and men of high rank at his court received him with thunders of applause, for which he returned cordial thanks.
Poor letter, I am sure your writer never thought Nitetis would leave you a quarter of an hour on the ground unread." In this happy mood she began to read, but her face soon grew serious and when she had finished, the letter fell once more to the ground.
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.
The letter read as follows: "Ladice the wife of Amasis and Queen of Upper and Lower Egypt, to her daughter Nitetis, consort of the great King of Persia. "It has not been our fault, my beloved daughter, that you have remained so long without news from home.
Nitetis returned her thanks to both these men in kind and friendly words; then entering the house laid aside the dress and ornaments of her native land, weeping as she did so, allowed the strangers to unloose the plait of hair which hung down at the left side of her head, and was the distinctive mark of an Egyptian princess, and to array her in Median garments. Rosellini, Mon. stor.
"The Egyptian lady's waiting-woman Mandane," he answered; "the Magian's daughter." "For my brother Bartja?" "She said I was to give the letter to the handsome prince, before the banquet, with a greeting from her mistress Nitetis, and I was to tell him . . ."
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.
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.
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