The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-01-08

race from which he sprung. The third man was old, with snow-white hair, and in his dress there was a mixture of the Lydlan costume, which showed he was not of the country of his more youthful companions. This stately yet benign old man was Croesus, the dethroned King of Lydia, once the most envied man of his time and whose name now, after the lapse of more than 20O0 years, is typical of the wealthiest of mankind. His throne and vast wealth vanished, he now resided at the court of his conquerors son, Cam byses. as his friend and counsellor, and had been made one of the ambassadors sent to bring back an Egyptian princess for his masters bride.
 Other nobles and their retainers landed from the fleet of boats which one after the other discharged their living freight at the foot of the stone steps, among them Gyges, the son of Croesus, a pale and slender youth, who had been dumb from his fourth year, but whose speech had been restored to him by the fear he felt for his father upon the dreadful day when the Persians swarmed over the walls of Sardes, the glittering Lydian cap ital. The Prince Psamtik descended the steps to meet his noble visitors, his stern, salow face striving to assume a look of pleasant welcome and the dignf- taries who followed him bent to the ground before the Persians It took eight boats in all to bring to the steps of Sais the members of the Persian embas- sy, their retainers and their baggage. It was right royal embassy as became one great king to send to another.
 The Prince Psamtill, who received in his fathers stead the envoys of the Persia monarch, was a gloomy man, completely under the domination of the priests who never had forgot that Amasis had risen to the imperial power from the position of common soldier, or at least of a military officer of inferior rank. Their hearts were back with the dethroned Hophra and his vanished dynasty and they sought to bend the new dynasty of Amasis to their will, as they could not de- stroy it.
 Amasis had welcomed the Greeks had confirmed to them their occupation of Naucratis. which stood where now stands Alexandria, and had naugurated a policy of intercourse with the other civilized na- tions of the world which was far from pleasing to those stern heirophants who guardians of the enternal secrets of Isis Egypt from the contamination of foreign ideas and foreign gods
 Of all men Prince Psamtilk hated Phanes the Athenian, commander of the royal bodyguard of Greek mercen- aries. This Phanes had been sent to Cyprus after Psamtik had made a fail ure Of an expedition and had conquered the island for Amasis. Again Psamtik knew that Phanes was possessed of a secret which Amasis had revealed to the Greek one night when the royal Pharaoh was reeling drunk to his bed. It was that the Princess Nitetis. the supposed twin sister of the Princess Tachot, was not the daughter of Amasis but of the dethroned king. Hophra. She had been born in the Ia st days of that unhappy monarch's life, while he was living a prisoner in the palace at Memphis, and born in the odiie iiouI dS ldcnOl fteS1tdtlng to kill the baby girl, yet anxious that the line of Hophra should be supposed to have pershed, Amasis had anon1,nced to the people the birth of twin daugh- ters and had brought up Nitetis as his own child, his noble queen, the Greek Ladiee, gladly consenting.
 This secret was known to only a few. The celebrated oculist, Neben- chari, son of the physician who had officiated 8 the birth of both princesses and had been privy to the deception. had been long banished to Persia be- cause, from his dead fathers papers. he had learned this secret OstensibIy he had been sent by Amasis in spirit of friendship to the Persian court that he might, with his great skill, treat the widow of the Great Cyrus, Queen Cas- sandane. who had become blind. But Nebenchari knew what the detail meant and that if he should return to Egypt death awaited him.
 The sullen Prince Psamtik resolved that Phanes must die but Amasfs pro- tected him until one day it was dis covered that Phahes had ordered one of his servants to drown litter of kittens. The priests haled him before