ously with you, even to his
tributary countries and half his women?"

"We come from a star, O Zaphnath, where men desire many things and are
never satisfied. But of all the things thou offerest us, we wish not
one. We make no peace unless these old men be left alive. We do not know
this country or its people, wherefore we are most unfit to rule them. We
wish no slaves, but will pay a hire to one or two good men, who may do
our daily tasks. And as for women, we never choose but one, and then
only when we know her well and find her equally willing."

"Then are ye come from a most strange star indeed! But I must tell thee
that the laws of the Kemi forbid even to the Pharaoh, who hath the first
claim upon all women, to take to wife a woman such as her whose hand
thou clingest to so warmly. What findest thou in her whose dumb tongue
could never tell thy praises, and if 'twere loosened, her mind would
still be dumb and silent?"

"Who is this woman, then, whom thou sentest out to meet us? She alone
hath had no fear, and hath greeted us in a friendly and a welcome
manner. Had it not been for her, we might still have been loosening our
thunder among your soldiers, or flashing this lightning in thy face!" I
said, half drawing my long sword as I spoke.

"She is Thenocris, a poor, unfortunate maiden, dumb of tongue and mind,"
he answered. "In my country we would call her mute and senseless, but
here among the Kemi they revere such ill-starred creatures, thinking
that because they act strangely, and look not upon the world as others
do, their souls must be turned within to the contemplation of hidden and
spiritual things. They think such creatures know the secrets of the
gods, and that the gods have made them mute, or speaking only silly
things, lest those secrets be revealed. The people, therefore, give them
alms, and suppose that they are effectual in intercessions with the
gods. This girl went out at noon, as was her custom, to stand by the
gate and ask alms. A soldier saw thee seize her hand and hold it
strangely long, and he reported this to us. Whereupon these wise men
with one accord decided that ye must have come for women, and we set
about preparing a peace-offering of two thousand maidens for you in the
Park. Afterwards there came another soldier later to say that ye had
landed in the Park, pleased with our offering of the women. Then rose
yon grey-beard and argued most wisely thus: That ye, being such strange
creature