For a time every one remained silent, out of respect to the old man's emotion. But at last the stillness was broken by Joshua the Jew, who began thus, in broken Greek:
"Weep thy fill, O man of Sparta! I also have known what it is to lose a son. Eleven years have passed since I buried him in the land of strangers, by the waters of Babylon, where my people pined in captivity. Had yet one year been added unto the life of the beautiful child, he had died in his own land, and had been buried in the sepulchres of his fathers. But Cyrus the Persian (Jehovah bless his posterity!) released us from bondage one year too late, and therefore do I weep doubly for this my son, in that he is buried among the enemies of my people Israel. Can there be an evil greater than to behold our children, who are unto us as most precious treasure, go down into the grave before us? And, may the Lord be gracious unto me, to lose so noble a son, in the dawn of his early manhood, just at the moment he had won such brilliant renown, must indeed be a bitter grief, a grief beyond all others!"
Then the Spartan took away his hands from before his face; he was looking stern, but smiled through his tears, and answered:
"Phoenician, you err! I weep not for anguish, but for joy, and would have gladly lost my other son, if he could have died like my Lysander."
The Jew, horrified at these, to him, sinful and unnatural words, shook his head disapprovingly; but the Greeks overwhelmed the old man with congratulations, deeming him much to be envied. His great happiness made Aristomachus look younger by many years, and he cried to Rhodopis: "Truly, my friend, your house is for me a house of blessing; for this is the second gift that the gods have allowed to fall to my lot, since I entered it."—"What was the first?" asked Rhodopis. "A propitious oracle."—"But," cried Phanes, "you have forgotten the third; on this day the gods have blessed you with the acquaintance of Rhodopis. But, tell me, what is this about the oracle?"—"May I repeat it to our friends?" asked the Delphian.
Aristomachus nodded assent, and Phryxus read aloud a second time the answer of the Pythia:
"If once the warrior hosts from the snow-topped mountains descending
Come to the fields of the stream watering richly the plain,
Then shall the lingering boat to the beckoning meadows convey thee
Which to the wandering foot peace and a home will afford.
When those warriors come from the snow-topped mountains descending
Then will the powerful Five grant thee what they long refused."
Scarcely was the last word out of his mouth, when Kallias the Athenian, springing up, cried: "In this house, too, you shall receive from me the fourth gift of the gods. Know that I have kept my rarest news till last: the Persians are coming to Egypt!"
At this every one, except the Sybarite, rushed to his feet, and Kallias found it almost impossible to answer their numerous questions. "Gently, gently, friends," he cried at last; "let me tell my story in order, or I shall never finish it at all. It is not an army, as Phanes supposes, that is on its way hither, but a great embassy from Cambyses, the present ruler of the most powerful kingdom of Persia. At Samos I heard that they had already reached Miletus, and in a few days they will be here. Some of the king's own relations, are among the number, the aged Croesus, king of Lydia, too; we shall behold a marvellous splendor and magnificence! Nobody knows the object of their coming, but it is supposed that King Cambyses wishes to conclude an alliance with Amasis; indeed some say the king solicits the hand of Pharaoh's daughter."
"An alliance?" asked Phanes, with an incredulous shrug of the shoulders. "Why the Persians are rulers over half the world already. All the great Asiatic powers have submitted to their sceptre; Egypt and our own mother- country, Hellas, are the only two that have been shared by the conqueror."