He then looked down on the prostrate girl, and said imperiously: "Rise!" Mandane rose, trembling with fear.

Her fresh young face was pale as death, and her red lips were blue from terror.
"Tell all you know about yesterday evening; but remember, a lie and your death are one and the same." The girl's knees trembled so violently that she could hardly stand, and her fear entirely took away the power of speaking.
"I have not much patience," exclaimed Cambyses.

Mandane started, grew paler still, but could not speak.

Then Phanes came forward and asked the angry king to allow him to examine the girl, as he felt sure that fear alone had closed her lips and that a kind word would open them.
Cambyses allowed this, and the Athenian's words proved true; no sooner had he assured Mandane of the good-will of all present, laid his hand on her head and spoken kindly to her, than the source of her tears was unlocked, she wept freely, the spell which had seemed to chain her tongue, vanished, and she began to tell her story, interrupted only by low sobs.

She hid nothing, confessed that Boges had given her his sanction and assistance to the meeting with Gaumata, and ended by saying: "I know that I have forfeited my life, and am the worst and most ungrateful creature in the world; but none of all this would have happened, if Oropastes had allowed his brother to marry me." The serious audience, even the king himself, could not resist a smile at the longing tone in which these words were spoken and the fresh burst of sobs which succeeded them.
And this smile saved her life.