"It is true," said Merodach, "I die; but that which is mortal of me remains upon earth to be a witness for me in the memory of man."
"The whole of recorded time is but a second, a pulsation, in the ages," answered Bagoas, "and the memory of man is the frailest of monuments. The Temple of Bel at Nippur is not two thousand years old; yet its bricks are engraven with a dead language, and we know not its builder's name. So it will be with thy temples and cities, O King!"
"I have said it," answered Merodach.
"Perhaps after thousands of years have lapsed," continued Bagoas, "a peasant will find a brick with thy name upon it, and cast it aside, or tread it under foot. But even to-day I have met and spoken with a man in whose horoscope it was written that his name would be remembered while man exists upon the earth; yet he is naked, and his house is a cabin of boughs."
"Was it foreshadowed that he would become King?" enquired Merodach anxiously.
"No; his inheritance is poverty and pain."
"What is his name?" enquired the King.
"His name is Adam," answered Bagoas.
Then there was a silence in the garden of the King's harem; and Merodach wondered that the memory of one who went naked, and dwelt in a cabin of boughs, should outlast the memory of a King before whom the nations trembled, who went clothed in purple and fine linen, and whose palace was built of thirty-five million bricks. But he consoled himself with the thought that eventually even Adam would be forgotten, and the lights of Sirius and Aldebaran extinguished.
"Tell me of Adam," he said to Bagoas; and the Princess Candace drew closer to listen.