were none to fly, Master. That tribe was a brotherhood which had
abjured women. Look on me now. I am misshapen, hideous, am I not? Born
thus, it is said, because before my birth my mother was frightened by
a dwarf. Yet the law of the Ethiopians is that their kings must marry
within a year of their crowning. Therefore I chose a woman to be the
queen whom I had long desired in secret. She scorned me, vowing that not
for all the thrones of all the world would she be mated to a monster,
and that if it were done by force she would kill herself, a saying that
went abroad throughout the land. I said that she had spoken well and
sent her in safety from the country, after which I too laid down my
crown and departed with some who loved me, to form a brotherhood of
women-haters further down the Nile, beyond the borders of Ethiopia.
There the Egyptian force of which you were in command, attacked us
unprepared, and you made me your slave. That is all."

"But why did you do this, Bes, seeing that maidens are many and all
would not have thought thus?"

"Because I wished for that one only, Master; also I feared lest I should
become the father of a breed of twisted dwarfs. So I who was a king am
now a slave, and yet, who knows which way the Grasshopper will jump? One
day from a slave I may again grow into a king. And now let us seek that
wherein kings are as slaves and slaves as kings--sleep."

So we lay down and slept, I thanking the gods that my bed was not yonder
in the boat upon the great river.

When I woke refreshed, though after all I had gone through on the
yesterday my brain still swam a little, the light was pouring through
the carved work of the shuttered windows. By it I saw Bes seated on the
floor engaged in doing something to his bow, which, as I have said, had
been restored to us with our other weapons, and asked him sleepily what
it was.

"Master," he said, "yonder King demanded your bow and therefore a bow
must be sent to him. But there is no need for it to be that with which
you shot the lions, which, too, you value above anything you have,
seeing that it came down to you from your forefather who was a Pharaoh
of Egypt, and has been your companion from boyhood ever since you were
strong enough to draw it. As you may remember I copied that bow out of a
somewhat lighter wood, which I could bend with ease, and it is the copy
that we will give to the King. Only first I must set your string upon
it, for that may have b