A sister also, who had followed him into Egypt, and with whom he cohabited, fell a victim to his intemperate passion. “Before this time,” Herodotus says, “the Persians never married their sisters, but he, wishing to do so, managed it thus. Knowing that he was about to act contrary to their customs, he sent for the royal judges, and asked them if there were any law permitting any one who wished to cohabit with his sister. Now the royal judges are select men among the Persians, who retain their office during life, or till convicted of some injustice; and it is they who preside in the Persian courts and interpret the laws and institutions of the nation, and all things are referred to them. So to this question of Cambyses they returned an answer that was both just and safe, saying that they could find no law permitting a brother to marry his sister; but they had indeed discovered another—that it was lawful for the king of the Persians to do whatever he liked. Thus, then, they did not break the law from fear of Cambyses; and yet, lest they should themselves perish out of regard for the law, they found another law to help him in marrying his sister.”[140] Cambyses and his judges seem to have been well suited. There is on record a better instance of courtly evasion, related by Waller. The poet went, on the day of a dissolution of parliament, to see the King, James II., at dinner. “Dr. Andrews, Bishop of Winchester, and Dr. Neal, Bishop of Durham, were standing behind his majesty’s chair, and there happened something in the conversation these prelates had with the King on which Mr. Waller did often reflect. His majesty asked the bishops, ‘My lords, cannot I take my subjects’ money when I want it, without all this formality in parliament?’ The Bishop of Durham readily answered, ‘God forbid, sire, but you should! You are the breath of our nostrils.’ Whereupon the King turned and said to the Bishop of Winchester, ‘Well, my lord, what say you?’ ‘Sire,’ replied the bishop, ‘I have no skill to judge of parliamentary cases.’ The King replied, ‘No put–offs, my lord—answer me presently.’ ‘Then, sire,’ said he, ‘I think it is lawful for you to take my brother Neal’s money, for he offers it.’”[141] It was another sister who followed Cambyses into Egypt, and perished there by his violence. She was present when he set a lion’s whelp to fight a puppy. The latter had the worst, till another of the same litter broke loose, and came to help it, when the two together beat the lion. The princess shed tears at the sight, and being questioned why she did so, replied that it was for the remembrance of Smerdis, and the thought that there was no one to avenge his death. The brute kicked her, and thereby inflicted a mortal injury.