slave."

"Then he will take an ill slave, Master, since I swear by the
Grasshopper that within a moon I will find means to kill him, and
afterwards come to join you in a land where men hunt fair."

I smiled and Bes went on,

"Now I wish I had time to teach you that trick of swallowing your own
tongue, since perhaps you will need it in this boat of which they
talk."

"Did you not say to me an hour or two ago, Bes, that we are fools to
stretch out our hands to Death until he stretches out his to us? I
will not die until I must--now."

"Why 'now,' Master, seeing that only this afternoon you bade me kill
you rather than let you be thrown to the wild beasts?" he asked
peering at me curiously.

"Do you remember the old hermit, the holy Tanofir, who dwells in a
cell over the sepulchre of the Apis bulls in the burial ground of the
desert near to Memphis, Bes?"

"The magician and prophet who is the brother of your grandfather,
Master, and the son of a king; he who brought you up before he became
a hermit? Yes, I know him well, though I have seldom been very near to
him because his eyes frighten me, as they frightened Cambyses the
Persian when Tanofir cursed him and foretold his doom after he had
stabbed the holy Apis, saying that by a wound from that same sword in