is our trouble, O Head
Queen, and we are most extremely troubled on account of that trouble,
for it was a troublesome trouble, unlike any trouble we have known.'

Then Balkis the Most Beautiful Queen--Suleiman-bin-Daoud's Very Best
Beloved--Queen that was of Sheba and Sable and the Rivers of the Gold
of the South--from the Desert of Zinn to the Towers of Zimbabwe--Balkis,
almost as wise as the Most Wise Suleiman-bin-Daoud himself, said, 'It
is nothing, O Queens! A Butterfly has made complaint against his
wife because she quarrelled with him, and it has pleased our Lord
Suleiman-bin-Daoud to teach her a lesson in low-speaking and humbleness,
for that is counted a virtue among the wives of the butterflies.'

Then up and spoke an Egyptian Queen--the daughter of a Pharoah--and she
said, 'Our Palace cannot be plucked up by the roots like a leek for the
sake of a little insect. No! Suleiman-bin-Daoud must be dead, and what
we heard and saw was the earth thundering and darkening at the news.'

Then Balkis beckoned that bold Queen without looking at her, and said to
her and to the others, 'Come and see.'

They came down the marble steps, one hundred abreast, and beneath his
camphor-tree, still weak with laughing, they saw the Most Wise King
Suleiman-bin-Daoud rocking back and forth with a Butterfly on either
hand, and they heard him say, 'O wife of my brother in the air, remember
after this, to please your husband in all things, lest he be provoked to
stamp his foot yet again; for he has said that he is used to this magic,
and he is most eminently a great magician--one who steals away the very
Palace of Suleirnan-bin-Daoud himself. Go in peace, little folk!' And he
kissed them on the wings, and they flew away.

Then all the Queens except Balkis--the Most Beautiful and Splendid
Balkis, who stood apart smiling--fell flat on their faces, for they
said, 'If these things are done when a Butterfly is displeased with
his wife, what shall be done to us who have vexed our King with our
loud-speaking and open quarrelling through many days?'

Then they put their veils over their heads, and they put their hands
over their mouths, and they tiptoed back to the Palace most mousy-quiet.

Then Balkis--The Most Beautiful and Excellent Balkis--went forward
through the red lilies into the shade of the camphor-tree and laid
her hand upon Suleiman-bin-Daoud's shoulder and said, 'O my Lord and
Treasure of my Soul, rejoice, for we have taught th