Darius wandered onward, looking within, not without, until he was roused by stumbling against a brick parapet that marked the outer wall of the gardens. He sank upon the trunk of a fallen tree—for this strange forest had been suffered to grow nigh wild since its creation. The noise of the drinkers seemed to come to him from a great way off. Despite the fact that he had touched little wine, he felt his head becoming heavy. Bred as he was to the life of a Persian cavalryman, able to pillow upon the hardest steppe, the prince was close to falling asleep and slumbering soundly. He was drifting into semiconsciousness; the shouts, the torchlights, were alike fading away. A moment more and he might have slept till daybreak, if not searched for, when a sound of crackling underbrush startled him. “A deer!” his first thought, the hunter’s instinct foremost, and his hand felt mechanically for an absent sword. In an instant he recognized human voices—three forms approaching through the darkness. “Drinkers,” he argued; “they leave the rest to enjoy a bowl in secret.” And he arose noiselessly, as one of his training could, not desiring to interrupt such a party. Suddenly a familiar voice sounded—Belshazzar’s. “Darius? Where is he?” And the voice of Mermaza replied, “Almost I can swear he was in the party that went to the chariots for the palace.” “More likely asleep under the tables,” came from a third, clearly Avil-Marduk. “Not there,” commented the eunuch; “he was barely civil in his drinking.” “No matter if he is not here,” answered Belshazzar. “Faugh! How much longer must I juggle with this marvellous envoy? By Nergal! his only sane talk is of hunting. I grant that he is a fair archer.” “Not comparable with my lord,” flattered Mermaza. “Most headlong and unprincely,” added Avil. “Could the king have but seen him this morning rush into strife as a dog after a carcass.” “Hist!” cautioned the king; “what stirs in the thicket?” Mermaza peered into the dark. As Darius stood, he could have touched the eunuch; but he remained motionless, and Avil-Marduk reassured: “Only a harmless snake. We are more alone here than in the palace, where every wall has ears.” Belshazzar groped his way to the log Darius had just quitted and seated himself. The others dutifully remained standing. “By Samas!” began the king, as if rejoiced to feel himself free to speak, “we have thus far played the game out well. Marduk grant the sky may remain calm! What do they say in the city concerning Nabonidus, my father?” Avil laughed softly. “Let the king’s heart be enlarged. My underlings tell me the people say, ‘Though the public records still run in the good Nabonidus’s name, he is grievously stricken by the “madness-demon”; and praised be Istar who sends the noble Belshazzar to replace him!’” “If the tale spreads that Nabonidus is in sound health, shut up in Tema, what then?”