done what men could scarcely do.

"Do you remember, Master," said Bes when he had finished laughing, as he
wiped his brow with some damp moss, "how, once far away up the Nile you
charged a mad elephant with a spear and saved me who had fallen, from
being trampled to death?"

I, Shabaka, answered that I did. (And I, Allan Quatermain, observing
all these things in my psychic trance in the museum of Ragnall Castle,
reflected that I also remembered how a certain Hans had saved me from a
certain mad elephant, to wit, Jana, not so long before, which just shows
how things come round.)

"Yes," went on Bes, "you saved me from that elephant, though it seemed
death to you. And, Master, I will tell you something now. That very
morning I had tried to poison you, only you would not wait to eat
because the elephants were near."

"Did you?" I asked idly. "Why?"

"Because two years before you captured me in battle with some of my
people, and as I was misshapen, or for pity's sake, spared my life and
made me your slave. Well, I who had been a chief, a very great chief,
Master, did not wish to remain a slave and did wish to avenge my
people's blood. Therefore I tried to poison you, and that very day you
saved my life, offering for it your own."

"I think it was because I wanted the tusks of the elephant, Bes."

"Perhaps, Master, only you will remember that this elephant was a young
cow and had no tusks worth anything. Still had it carried tusks, it
might have been so, since one white tusk is worth many black dwarfs.
Well, to-day I have paid you back. I say it lest you should forget that
had it not been for me, that lion would have eaten you."

"Yes, Bes, you have paid me back and I thank you."

"Master, hitherto I always thought you one who worshipped Maat, goddess
of Truth. Now I see that you worship the god of Lies, whoever he may
be, that god who dwells in the breasts of women and most men, but has no
name. For, Master, it was _you_ who saved _me_ from the lion and not I
you, since you cut its throat at the last. So that debt of mine is still
to pay and by the great Grasshopper which we worship in my country, who
is much better than all the gods of the Egyptians put together, I swear
that I will pay it soon, or mayhap ten thousand years hence. At the last
it shall be paid."

"Why do you worship a grasshopper and why is he better than the gods of
the Egyptians?" I asked carelessly, for I was tired and his talk amused
me whil