The seven then met and gave each other tokens of good faith and spoke together; and when it was Darius' turn to declare his mind, he spoke as follows:

“I thought that I alone knew that it was the Magus who was king and that Smerdis son of Cyrus was dead; and it was for this reason that I made haste to come, that I might effect the Magus' death; but since it turns out that you know too and not only I, I think that we should act at once and not put it off.”

Otanes replied, “son of Hystaspes, you have a good father and seem likely yourself to be in no way inferior to your father; do not hurry this undertaking without thinking, but take it up more prudently; there must be more of us to try it.”

To this Darius answered: “You gentlemen who are here, if you do as Otanes says, know that you will die horribly; for someone will inform the Magus, looking to enrich himself alone.

You ought to have done it by yourselves; but since you decided to confide in others and have included me, let us either act today or else understand that if the present day passes, nobody else will betray you before I do, for I shall myself betray you to the Magus.”