And what happened then, Bes?"

"Then I was fetched and did my juggling tricks with that snake I caught
and tamed, which is in my pouch now. You should not hate it any more,
Master, for it played your game well. After this the King began to talk
to me and I saw that his mind was ill at ease about you whom he knew
that he had wronged. So I told him that story of an elephant that my
father killed to save a king--it grew up in my mind like a toadstool in
the night, Master, did this story of an ungrateful king and what befell
him. Then the King became still more unquiet in his heart about you and
asked the eunuch, Houman, where you were, to which he answered that by
his order you were sleeping in a boat and might not be disturbed. So
that arrow of mine missed its mark because the King did not like to eat
his own words and cause you to be brought from out the boat, whither he
had sent you. Now when everything seemed lost, some god, or perhaps
the holy Tanofir who is ever present with me to see that I have not
forgotten him, put it into the King's mouth to begin to talk about women
and to ask me if I had ever seen any fairer than those dancers whom I
met going out as I came in. I answered that I had not noticed them much
because they were so ugly, as indeed all women had seemed to me since
once upon the banks of Nile I had looked upon one who was as Hathor
herself for beauty. The King asked me who this might be and I answered
that I did not know since I had never dared to ask the name of one whom
even my master held to be as a goddess, although as boy and girl they
had been brought up together.

"Then the King saw his opportunity to ease his conscience and inquired
of an old councillor if there were not a law which gave the king power
to alter his decree if thereby he could satisfy his soul and acquire
knowledge. The councillor answered that there was such a law and began
to give examples of its working, till the King cut him short and said
that by virtue of it he commanded that you should be brought out of your
bed in the boat and led before him to answer a question.

"So you were sent for, Master, but I did not go with the messengers,
fearing lest if I did the King would forget all about the matter before
you came. Therefore I stayed and amused him with tales of hunting, till
I could not think of any more, for you were long in coming. Indeed I
began to fear lest he should declare the feast at an end. But at the
last, just