His officers replied--"That it was some fancy of the mind bodying forth future events;" upon which the king, laying aside for the present any farther thought upon the subject, proceeded to examine his prisoners. He asked them--"Who, and from whence, they were?" Chariclea was silent. Theagenes replied, "That they were Grecians, and that the maiden was his sister." "All honour to Greece," said Hydaspes--"the mother of brave and beautiful mortals, for affording us such noble victims for the celebration of our triumphal sacrifices." And turning to his attendants, he said--"Why had I not a son as well as a daughter born to me in my dream, since this youth, being the maiden's brother, ought according to your observation, to have been shadowed forth to me in my vision?" He then directed his discourse to Chariclea, speaking in Greek; a language known and studied by the Gymnosophists, and kings of Ethiopia--"And you, Ο maiden," said he, "why do you make no answer to my questions?"--"At the altars of the gods," replied she, "to whom we are destined as victims, you shall know who I am, and who are my parents." "And what part of the world do they inhabit?" said the king.--"They are present now," said she, "and will assuredly be present, when we are sacrificed." Again Hydaspes smiled.--"This dream-born daughter of mine," he observed, "is certainly herself dreaming, when she imagines that her parents are to be brought from the middle of Greece into Meröe. Let them be taken away and served with the usual care and abundance, to fit them for the sacrifices. But who is this standing near, and in person like an eunuch?"[21]--"He is an eunuch," replied one of the bystanders; "his name is Bagoas; he was in great favour with Oroondates." "Let him too," said the king, "follow and be kept with the Grecian pair; not as a future victim, but that he may attend upon, and watch over the virgin victim, whom it is necessary to preserve in the utmost purity for the sacrifice; and whose beauty is such, that her virtue, unguarded, may be exposed to much danger and temptation. Eunuchs are a jealous race; and fitly employed for debarring others from the enjoyments of which they are themselves deprived." He then proceeded to examine and decide the fate of the remaining prisoners, who appeared in order; distributing among his followers those who were slaves before; dismissing with liberty those who were free and noble: but he selected ten young men, and as many virgins, in the bloom of youth and beauty, whom he ordered to be preserved for the same purpose to which he had destined Theagenes and Chariclea. And having answered every complaint and application, at last he sent for Oroondates, who was brought in lying on a litter.