The other laughed, though none too heartily.
“The young hotbloods who lead your Majesty’s cavalry troops are all valour and no prudence. An older eye is needed to see that Sirusur with his Babylonish chariots does not dash down on us unawares, and fling us, man and beast, into the Tigris.”
“Caution, always caution,” answered the king, with an impatient gesture, when the other attempted to salaam. “Come, you have no longing for the feast. Let tables be brought here. I have only promised to appear at the banquet when they serve the wine.”
“Your Majesty is thrice kind; a thousand pardons, but for some reason I cannot eat. Perhaps I have ridden too long; as you say, I grow old.”
But the king plucked him nigh roughly by the shoulder.
“No, you cannot eat, nor can I. Away with merry lips, when they speak from grieving hearts. Darius, your son, is not here. We were fools to trust the Jew, who has either failed or dealt falsely. Yet we must eat, must eat heartily—you and I—and all.”
“Does the king command that I feast against my will?”
“Yes; for if Darius is dead, Belshazzar lives, and all the asps of his guilty kind. And we need all our strength for a vengeance, the fame whereof shall last as long as Mithra’s car glows in the heavens.”
“Ah! lord, not so bitterly. I am the father, yet I can bow to Ahura’s will!”