Atossa had raised herself upon her elbow, and her clear blue eyes were fixed upon the king's face, thoughtfully, as though expecting that he would say something. Contrary to all custom, she wore a Greek tunic with short sleeves caught at the shoulders by golden buckles, and her fair hair was gathered into a heavy knot, low down, behind her head. Her dazzling arms and throat were bare, but above her right elbow she wore a thick twisted snake of gold, her only ornament.
"The king is not athirst to-night," said Atossa at last, watching the full goblet that he grasped, but did not raise.
"I am not always thirsty," answered Darius moodily. "Would you have me always drunk, like a Babylonian dog?"
"No; nor always sober, like a Persian captain."
"What Persian captain?" asked the king, suddenly looking at her and knitting his brows.
"Why, like him, whom, for his sobriety you have sent to-day on the way to Nineveh," answered Atossa.
"I have sent no one to Nineveh to-day."
"To Ecbatana then, to inquire whether I told you the truth about my poor servant Phraortes—Fravartish, as you call him," said the queen, with a flash of spite in her blue eyes.
"I assure you," answered the king, laughing, "that it is solely on account of your remarkable beauty that I have not had you strangled. So soon as you grow ugly you shall surely die. It is very unwise of me, as it is!"
The queen, too, laughed, a low, silvery laugh.