"Who hath accused me of the deed?"
"The priest of Bel."
"Amraphel?"
"Yea."
"Then I ask thee only why I should have killed him that my soul loves as it loved not God?"
"Knowest thou, then, the murderer?"
"He that accused me shall, in God's time, answer to that charge. But thou, Cyrus, see that thou punish him not. Thy hands are red with the blood of many slain in battle; and shall the slayer accuse the slayer? Now speak no more to me. I return again to the city."
In spite of her last bidding, Cyrus, slightly angered by her perfect assurance, would have spoken again, had he not found it to be a physical impossibility. It was in his heart to accuse her of his own accord of the death of Belshazzar. Yet he could not voice the thought. As she left the tent he moved after her to the door-way, whence he could look over the plain to the walls of the city. He saw the black-robed figure glide unaccosted through the camp and beyond it, in the direction that Amraphel had taken more than an hour before. And as he watched her Cyrus felt a great reverence spring up in his heart, and in the after-wonder at her bearing and her words he forgot how she had looked. And presently, as he stood there lost in thought, Bardiya came to his shoulder, asking, softly:
"My father, is she all that men have said?"
Cyrus hesitated in his reply. Finally, after a long pause, he answered of his own will: "More wonderful than any have said. She is a woman sent of God."