Hydaspes not readily comprehending what she meant, replied:--"Forgive me, my child, if I have asked a question concerning this young man which it seems to hurt your maiden modesty to answer. Go into the tent to your mother, cause her more rejoicing now, than you caused her pain when she gave you birth; add to her present enjoyment, by relating every particular about yourself. Meanwhile, we will proceed with the sacrifice, selecting, if possible, a victim worthy to be offered with this youth instead of you." Chariclea was nearly shrieking at mention of sacrificing the young man; hardly could she for ultimate advantage, check her frenzied feelings, so as to wind her way covertly towards the end she had in view. "Sire," said she, "perhaps there needs not to seek out another maiden, since the people remitted in my person the sacrifice of any female victim? But if they insist that a pair of either sex should be sacrified, see if it be not necessary for you to find out another youth, as well as another maiden; or, if that be not done, whether I must not still be offered." "The gods forbid!" replied Hydaspes; "but why should you say this?" "Because," said she, "the gods have decreed that he is to live with me, or die with me." "I commend your humanity," replied the king, "in that having so hardly escaped yourself, you are desirous of saving a foreigner, a Greek, a fellow-prisoner, and of the same age, with whom, from a communion in misfortunes, you must have contracted some degree of familiarity and friendship: but he cannot be exempted from the sacrifice; religion will not permit our country's custom to be in everything curtailed, neither would the people suffer it, who have with difficulty been persuaded by the goodness of the deities to spare you." "Ο king!" said Chariclea, "for perhaps I may not presume to call you father, since the mercy of the gods has saved my body, let me implore their and your clemency to preserve my soul:[14] they know with how much justice I call him so, since they have so closely interwoven the web of my destiny with his. But if his fate is irretrievably determined; as if a foreigner he must necessarily suffer, I ask only one favour---Let me with my own hand perform the sacrifice; let me grasp the sword--even like a precious treasure--and signalize my fortitude before the Ethiopians."