Wilt thou tell me how many bags of
grain grow upon thy fields at a single crop?"

"Are not the number of my mules a thousand and one, and bear they not
two bags each? To gather a single harvest, each faithful animal must
make five trips each day for the period of an hundred days."

I had often estimated an average mule-load at five bushels, upon which
basis each crop would aggregate two and a half million bushels. This
seemed impossible for a single farmer, but his fields wearied the sight
to follow down the left bank of the Nasr-Nil.

"If thou wilt leave all this gold with me, I will deliver by my mules to
thy storehouses upon the plateau all the grain of my past two crops with
which my whole palace here is cumbered."

"I fear thou holdest thy grain too dearly, and that thou knowest not the
value of this gold. What is more plenteous in Kem than wheat? There be
more bags of it than the stars in heaven. But this gold I bring is more
than all the store of it upon Ptah before I came. Pray give it back
again," I said, gathering up the few pieces which had been returned to
the cushion, and glancing about among the women as if searching for the
rest. They returned them slowly, but Hotep still held his handful. After
a brief pause, I continued,--

"Hast thou not a fair crop growing which thou mightest also give me, so
that no other than Hotep shall receive any of these coins?"

"In truth, I have never ridden as far as my waving fields stretch down
the Nasr-Nil; but one cannot sell what hath not fully ripened, for who
knoweth what it may turn out to be?"

"Then I must beg thee to return my coins," I answered slowly; but,
unbuckling the other end of my belt, I poured out upon another cushion
the hundred magnificent double eagles which I was holding in reserve.
Then, taking a particularly bright one of these, I continued,--

"But as thou hast been generous and thoughtful enough to send me a
present, O Hotep, I desire to return one to thee, such as no man in Kem
ever possessed before. Will it please thee to accept this disc of gold
as large as the lesser moon that creeps across the sky? And with it go
my wishes that Hotep's crops may always be great and plentiful."

Slowly and unwillingly the women returned the eagles to the cushion,
while they stared in wonder at the heap of larger coins. Hotep filtered
the handful through his fingers to the cushion, and accepted the double
eagle with gladness. With his eyes fixed on the