“This advice as perhaps I need not remind you, Alexander was not slow to take, for a few years later, when his father died and he became King of Macedonia, he began those conquests which have made him for ever famous. Soon nearly all the world that was then known owned his sway. In all his victories I, Bucephalus, had my share, for I carried him into every battle. No one but my dear master would I allow to mount me, and, in order that he might do this the more easily, it was my custom to kneel down upon my forefeet as soon as he was ready to bestride me—just as some little while ago I knelt down for _you_, little maidens. [Illustration] “Ah! those were happy days when we went out to conquer, and great was my joy in battle. I felt no fatigue when I carried Alexander into the fight, and no horse ever loved a master so well as I loved mine. No master on the other hand was more devoted to a steed than Alexander to his. What other horse, I pray you, has given his name to a city? Yet of me this may be said, for where at last, worn out in his service, I died, Alexander built a city where he buried me, and called it _Bucephalia_.” The beautiful creature sighed, but a moment later recovered himself. “You will wonder,” he went on, “when I am coming to the story of the noble tomb before you, and what it has to do either with me or with Alexander. This I will now relate. About the time when Alexander became King of Macedonia, there was a Persian king reigning here in this city of Halicarnassus. His name was Mausolus, and he had a beautiful wife called Artemisia, who loved him devotedly. “You, O little ones, who live in modern days in a grey city, where people go clothed in sad colours and walk in dingy streets, have no idea (except from your fairy tales) of the manner in which a Persian king and queen kept their court nearly three thousand years ago. “Ah, the beauty and luxury I have seen in those Persian palaces!” exclaimed Bucephalus, as though to himself. “The marble courtyards with their springing fountains, the jewelled thrones, the silken robes, men and women alike blazing with precious stones—and over all the glorious blue sky and the splendid sun!” He sighed again, and for a while seemed lost in thought. “Those days are gone for ever,” he went on at last. “But it was amidst such scenes, in such pomp and luxury as this, that Mausolus and his queen Artemisia dwelt in the city of Halicarnassus. Some years they lived together in great happiness, and then, to the terrible grief of his queen, King Mausolus died. In her despair and misery, Artemisia could think of no other means of distraction than that of building to the memory of her husband so beautiful a tomb that it should be famous throughout the world, and for ever preserve the name of Mausolus.