“Bearing Pantarbè, fear not flames, fair maid,
Fate, to whom naught is hard, shall bring thee aid.”
And to Theagenes:
“From Arsace, the morrow sets thee free—
To Aethiopia with the virgin flee.”[109]
Chariclea interpreted these oracles to mean that her jewel, the Pantarbè, was protecting her; and that on the next day they would be freed from Arsace and go to Ethiopia.
Meanwhile Bagoas arrived at Memphis and Euphrates on receiving the letter of Oroondates sent Theagenes and Chariclea off secretly with Bagoas. On their journey they received first the news that Arsace had killed herself and second that Oroondates had gone to Syene. Later on the way they were seized by a band of Troglodite Ethiopians who took Bagoas and the two Greeks to their king, Hydaspes. He planned to save them as victims to be sacrificed to the gods.
Hydaspes was besieging Syene. Oroondates had got inside the city before the blockade and was directing the defense. But Hydaspes used a new weapon against him, inundation. His army dug a great trench around Syene with earth-works encircling it. This trench he connected with the river Nile by a long canal, fifty feet wide, banked by high walls. When the works were finished, he cut away the embankment between his canal and the Nile and let the river in. Syene became an island city and the pressure of the water on the walls threatened inundation. So Oroondates and the people of Syene had to sue for peace. This was granted, and Hydaspes built up again the embankment between his canal and the Nile and proceeded to drain off the water.
During the festival of the overflowing of the Nile Oroondates and his army slipped away in the night, bridging the mud swamps about Syene by planks, and went to Elephantine, which revolted with him against Hydaspes. In the new battle Hydaspes was again victorious and took Oroondates prisoner, but the Ethiopian was a generous conqueror and sent Oroondates back to be again viceroy of his province.
Hydaspes on his way home stopped two days at Philae and from there sent home letters announcing his victory to Persinna and the Gymnosophists. Persinna recalled a dream that she had brought forth a full-grown daughter and interpreted the daughter as this victory. The people assembled for the celebration at the island city of Meroe and according to their traditions demanded human sacrifice of foreign captives of war. The prisoners now underwent the test of chastity by ascending the altar of fire and of course Theagenes and Chariclea passed the test.