CHAPTER X

SHABAKA PLIGHTS HIS TROTH

Bes and I went armed to the palace, walking in the middle of the road,
but now that the sun was up we met no more robbers. At the gate a
messenger summoned me alone to the presence of Peroa, who, he said,
wished to talk with me before the sitting of the Council. I went and
found him by himself.

"I hear that you were attacked last night," he said after greeting me.

I answered that I was and told him the story, adding that it was
fortunate I had left the White Seal and the pearls in safe keeping,
since without doubt the would-be thieves were Easterns who desired to
recover them.

"Ah! the pearls," he said. "One of those who handled them, who was
once a dealer in gems, says that they are without price, unmatched in
the whole world, and that never in all his life has he seen any to
equal the smallest of them."

I replied that I believed this was so. Then he asked me of the value
of the gold of which I had spoken. I told him and it was a great sum,
for gold was scarce in Egypt. His eyes gleamed for he needed wealth to
pay soldiers.