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redoubled eagerness, being conducted by certain loyal Persian 

 nobles, who detested the perfidy of Bessus, along a private road, till 

 he came suddenly within sight of the rebels, who, ignorant of his 

 approach, were leisurely pursuing their march, and in much dis- 

 order. Though Alexander had with him but an inconsiderable 

 body of troops, compared with those of the enemy, yet the terror of 

 his name and the consciousness of guilt had such a powerful effect 

 upon them, that they immediately betook themselves to precipitate 

 flight. Bessus and his treacherous accomplice, Nabarzanes, who, 

 with Darius, were advanced considerably before the main. body of 

 the army, on being informed of their situation, anxiously solicited 

 their royal prisoner to quit the chariot which conveyed him, and 

 continue on horseback his progress into Bactria ; but the indignant 

 monarch refused any longer to be the dupe of their artifices, and 

 declared himself determined rather to confide his life in the hands 

 of a generous enemy than to perfidious friends. On this, the en- 

 raged parricides pierced him through with darts, and left him, 

 covered with wounds. They also killed the driver, and struck their 

 spears into the horses that drew the chariot. Those animals, being 

 in agony and without a guide, wandered a few furlongs out of the 

 road to a stream of water, to which Polystratus, a Macedonian, 

 wearied and heated in the pursuit, accidentally came to quench his 

 thirst. The groans of a dying man that seemed to issue from the 

 carriage awakened his curiosity ; and, on removing the covering, he 

 beheld Darius pierced with darts, and " weltering in his blood/' The 

 dying prince had sufficient strength left to demand some Avater,, 

 which a Persian captive, who attended the Macedonian, understood, 

 and which was given him by Polystratus in his helmet ; the Persian, 

 who, at a distance, had witnessed the cruel conduct of Bessus, 

 at the same time acquainting him with the rank and tragical 

 catastrophe of the personage whom he thus benevolently relieved. 



