wore the crown of Ethiopia, having journeyed all about the world and
collected much knowledge."

"Perhaps, Bes, those who rule in your place may not wish to give it up
to you. Perhaps they will kill you."

"Have no fear, Master; as I have told you, the Ethiopians are a
faithful people. Moreover they know that such a deed would bring the
curse of the Grasshopper on them, since then the locusts would appear
and eat up all their land, and when they were starving their enemies
would attack them. Lastly they are a very tall folk and simple-minded
and would not wish to miss the chance of being ruled over by the
wisest dwarf in all the world, if only because it would be something
new to them, Master."

Again I laughed thinking that Bes was jesting according to his
fashion. But when that night, chancing to go round the corner of the
house, I came upon him with a circlet of feathers round his head and
his big bow in his hand, addressing three great black men who knelt
before him as though he were a god, I changed my mind. As I withdrew
he caught sight of me and said,

"I pray you, my lord Shabaka, stay one moment." Then he spoke to the
three men in his own language, translating sentence by sentence to me
what he said to them. Briefly it was this:--

"Say to the Lords and Councillors of the Ancient Kingdom that I, the
Karoon" (for such it seemed was his title) "have a friend named the
lord Shabaka, he whom you see before you, who again and again has
saved my life, nursing me in his arms as a mother nurses her babe, and