Cyrus quickly waved his hand to the scribes. "Get you to your tents. Do not return to me till I shall command."
He waited while the three men picked up their stools in sober joy, and, saluting the royal master with a single accord, departed in an orderly file. When they were out of hearing, and Cyrus and his two sons were quite alone, the king let fall the crimson flap over the tent door, and then turned to Bardiya with his face very eager. "The king, Bar—"
"Gobryas brings with him Nabu-Nahid, the king of Babylon, a prisoner, to deliver him up to you."
Cyrus nodded, with less satisfaction than the boy had expected, and then thoughtfully bent his head. There was a short silence, which neither of the sons dared break. They saw an expression of trouble creep into their father's face. They saw him frown, and they heard him sigh. Then suddenly he crossed to a small coffer in the lent, and drew from it a long, white streamer.
"Bardiya, fasten this to the head of the spear on top of the tent. Put it there thyself, and at once."
The boy, in extreme surprise, received the pennant from his father's hand and went outside with it. Fifteen minutes later it was floating in the hot afternoon wind from the top of the royal tent; and ten minutes after that a white-robed acolyte had left the summit of Nimitti-Bel and was speeding through the fields on his way to a certain house in the centre of the city.
The afternoon passed. It came to be the hour of day's death, and in that hour the final junction of the two invading armies was to be effected. Seven months before, in the hills of Elam, they had separated, Gobryas marching to the north, Cyrus to the south. And now, each of them having fulfilled to the letter his plan of campaign, there remained only one thing more to do, the taking of that city which, six years ago, Cyrus had found impregnable to arms, and which he was now to assault in a less honorable and surer way.
The lamps in the royal tent were already swinging from their chains in a glow of fire, and the full moon was rising from the east over the city, though the sky was still too white for stars, when Cyrus, with Cambyses on his right hand and Bardiya on his left, stood in the door-way of his tent, waiting. Over the plain, at no great distance, could be seen a slow-moving line of horses and men. In front of this line, advancing at full gallop, came a single chariot, drawn by three white horses harnessed abreast, and carrying three men—the driver and two others. This vehicle hurried along straight in the direction of the royal tent, until presently Cyrus stepped eagerly forward, while his sons cried in one voice, "Gobryas!"
The chariot came to a halt, and from it leaped a tall, bearded fellow, whom Cyrus seized in his arms and clasped delightedly. "Welcome, lord of Sippar. Welcome, O conqueror!" he cried, in the Aramaic language, generally used in his camp, and understood by Babylonian, Jew, and Elamite alike.
Having been embraced, Gobryas saw fit to bend the knee before his master, saying: "I bring the king my lord his royal prisoner. He is full of years and weary with the length of day. Let him, I pray, be removed to some tent that befits his rank, where refreshment may be given him."