ut I made no answer who followed Bes out of the tent, leaving her to
talk the matter over with my mother. Here I found a crowd of his people
waiting to convey him to sleep and watching, saw them place him in
another tent round which they ranged themselves, playing upon musical
instruments. After this someone came and led me to my own place where
was a good bed in which I lay down to sleep. This however I could not do
for a long while because of my own laughter and the noise of the drums
and horns that were soothing Bes to his rest. For now I understood why
he had preferred to be a slave in Egypt rather than a king in Ethiopia.

In the morning I rose before the dawn and went out to the river-bank to
bathe. While I was making ready to wash myself, who should appear but
Bes, followed, but at a distance, by a number of his people.

"Never have I spent such a night, Master," he said, "at least not since
you took me prisoner years ago, since by law I may not stop those horns
and musical instruments. Now, however, also according to the law of the
Ethiopians, I am my own lord until the sun rises. So I have come here
to gather some of those blue lilies which she loves as a present for
Karema, because I fear that she is angry and must be appeased."

"Certainly she is very angry," I said, "or at least was so when I left
her last night. Oh! Bes, why did you let your people tell her that she
was ugly?"

"How can I help it, Master? Have you not always heard that the
Ethiopians are chiefly famous for one thing, namely that they speak
nothing but the truth. To them she, being different, seems to be ugly.
Therefore when they say that she is ugly, they speak the truth."

"If so, it is a truth that she does not like, Bes, as I have no doubt
she will tell you by and by. Do they think me ugly also?"

"Yes, they do, Master; but they think also that you look like a man who
can draw a bow and use a sword, and that goes far with the Ethiopians.
Of your mother they say nothing because she is old and they venerate the
aged whom the Grasshopper is waiting to carry away."

Now I began to laugh again and went with Bes to gather the lilies. These
grew at the end of a mass of reeds woven together by the pressure of the
current and floating on the water. Bes lay down upon his stomach while
his people watched from a distance on the bank amazed into silence, and
stretched out his long arms to reach the blue lotus flowers. Suddenly
the reeds gave wa