"What is the matter here?" asked Cambyses.
"This fellow," answered the eunuch, "has had the audacity to make his way into the palace with a message from your consort Nitetis to Bartja."
At sight of the king, the boy had fallen on his knees, touching the ground with his forehead.
Cambyses looked at him and turned deadly pale. Then, turning to the eunuch, he asked: "What does the Egyptian Princess wish from my brother?"
"The boy declares that he has orders to give up what has been entrusted to him to no one but Bartja." On hearing this the boy looked imploringly up at the king, and held out a little papyrus roll.
Cambyses snatched it out of his hand, but the next moment stamped furiously on the ground at seeing that the letter was written in Greek, which he could not read.
He collected himself, however, and, with an awful look, asked the boy who had given him the letter. "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 . . ."
Here the king stamped so furiously, that the boy was frightened and could only stammer: "Before the banquet the prince was walking with you, so I could not speak to him, and now I am waiting for him here, for Mandane promised to give me a piece of gold if I did what she told me cleverly."