<h2><SPAN name="chap07"></SPAN>CHAPTER VII.<br/>BES STEALS THE SIGNET</h2>
<p>“Oh! my Master,” gulped Bes, “I weep because I am tired, so
take no notice. The day was long and during it twice at least there has been
but the twinkling of an eyelid, but the thickness of a finger nail, but the
weight of a hair between you and death.”</p>
<p>“Yes,” I said, “and you were the eyelid, the finger nail and
the hair.”</p>
<p>“No, Master, not I, but something beyond me. The tool carves the statue
and the hand holds the tool but the spirit guides the hand. Not once only since
the sun rose has my mind been empty as a drum. Then something struck on it,
perhaps the holy Tanofir, perhaps another, and it knew what note to sound. So
it was when I cursed you in the boat. So it was when I walked back with the
eunuch, meaning to kill him on the road, and then remembered that the death of
one vile eunuch would not help you at all, whereas alive he could bring me to
the presence of the King, if I paid him, as I did out of the gold in your purse
which I carried. Moreover he earned his hire, for when the King grew dull, wine
not yet having taken a hold on him, it was he who brought me to his mind as one
who might amuse him, being so ugly and different from others, if only for a few
minutes, after the women dancers had failed to do so.”</p>
<p>“And what happened then, Bes?”</p>
<p>“Then I was fetched and did my juggling tricks with that snake I caught
and tamed, which is in my pouch now. You should not hate it any more, Master,
for it played your game well. After this the King began to talk to me and I saw
that his mind was ill at ease about you whom he knew that he had wronged. So I
told him that story of an elephant that my father killed to save a
king—it grew up in my mind like a toadstool in the night, Master, did
this story of an ungrateful king and what befell him. Then the King became
still more unquiet in his heart about you and asked the eunuch, Houman, where
you were, to which he answered that by his order you were sleeping in a boat
and might not be disturbed. So that arrow of mine missed its mark because the
King did not like to eat his own words and cause you to be brought from out the
boat, whither he had sent you. Now when everything seemed lost, some god, or
perhaps the holy Tanofir who is ever present with me to see that I have not
forgotten him, put it into the King’s mouth to begin to talk about women
and to ask me if I had ever seen any fairer than those dancers whom I met going
out as I came in. I answered that I had not noticed them much because they were
so ugly, as indeed all women had seemed to me since once upon the banks of Nile
I had looked upon one who was as Hathor herself for beauty. The King asked me
who this might be and I answered that I did not know since I had never dared to
ask the name of one whom even my master held to be as a goddess, although as
boy and girl they had been brought up together.</p>
<p>“Then the King saw his opportunity to ease his conscience and inquired of
an old councillor if there were not a law which gave the king power to alter
his decree if thereby he could satisfy his soul and acquire knowledge. The
councillor answered that there was such a law and began to give examples of its
working, till the King cut him short and said that by virtue of it he commanded
that you should be brought out of your bed in the boat and led before him to
answer a question.</p>
<p>“So you were sent for, Master, but I did not go with the messengers,
fearing lest if I did the King would forget all about the matter before you
came. Therefore I stayed and amused him with tales of hunting, till I could not
think of any more, for you were long in coming. Indeed I began to fear lest he
should declare the feast at an end. But at the last, just as he was yawning and
spoke to one of his councillors, bidding him send to the House of Women that
they might make ready to receive him there, you came, and the rest you
know.”</p>
<p>Now I looked at Bes and said,</p>
<p>“May the blessing of all the gods of all the lands be on your head, since
had it not been for you I should now lie in torment in that boat. Hearken,
friend: If ever we reach Egypt again, you will set foot on it, not as a slave
but as a free man. You will be rich also, Bes, that is, if we can take the gold
I won with us, since half of it is yours.”</p>
<p>Bes squatted down upon the floor and looked up at me with a strange smile on
his ugly face.</p>
<p>“You have given me three things, Master,” he said. “Gold,
which I do not want at present; freedom, which I do not want at present and
mayhap, never shall while you live and love me; and the title of friend. This I
do want, though why I should care to hear it from your lips I am not sure,
seeing that for a long while I have known that it was spoken in your heart.
Since you have said it, however, I will tell you something which hitherto I
have hid even from you. I have a right to that name, for if your blood is high,
O Shabaka, so is mine. Know that this poor dwarf whom you took captive and
saved long years ago was more than the petty chief which he declared himself to
be. He was and is by right the King of the Ethiopians and that throne with all
its wealth and power he could claim to-morrow if he would.”</p>
<p>“The King of the Ethiopians!” I said. “Oh! friend Bes, I pray
you to remember that we no longer stand in yonder court lying for our
lives.”</p>
<p>“I speak no lie, O Shabaka, I before you am King of the Ethiopians.
Moreover, I laid that kingship down of my own will and should I so desire, can
take it up again when I will, since the Ethiopians are faithful to their
kings.”</p>
<p>“Why?” I asked, astonished.</p>
<p>“Master, for so I will still call you who am not yet upon the land of
Egypt where you have promised me freedom, do you remember anything strange
about the people of that tribe from among whom you and the Egyptian soldiers
captured me by surprise, because they wished to drive you and your following
from their country?”</p>
<p>Now I thought and answered,</p>
<p>“Yes, one thing. I saw no women in their camp, nor any sign of children.
This I know because I gave orders that such were to be spared and it was
reported to me that there were none, so I supposed that they had fled
away.”</p>
<p>“There were none to fly, Master. That tribe was a brotherhood which had
abjured women. Look on me now. I am misshapen, hideous, am I not? Born thus, it
is said, because before my birth my mother was frightened by a dwarf. Yet the
law of the Ethiopians is that their kings must marry within a year of their
crowning. Therefore I chose a woman to be the queen whom I had long desired in
secret. She scorned me, vowing that not for all the thrones of all the world
would she be mated to a monster, and that if it were done by force she would
kill herself, a saying that went abroad throughout the land. I said that she
had spoken well and sent her in safety from the country, after which I too laid
down my crown and departed with some who loved me, to form a brotherhood of
women-haters further down the Nile, beyond the borders of Ethiopia. There the
Egyptian force of which you were in command, attacked us unprepared, and you
made me your slave. That is all.”</p>
<p>“But why did you do this, Bes, seeing that maidens are many and all would
not have thought thus?”</p>
<p>“Because I wished for that one only, Master; also I feared lest I should
become the father of a breed of twisted dwarfs. So I who was a king am now a
slave, and yet, who knows which way the Grasshopper will jump? One day from a
slave I may again grow into a king. And now let us seek that wherein kings are
as slaves and slaves as kings—sleep.”</p>
<p>So we lay down and slept, I thanking the gods that my bed was not yonder in the
boat upon the great river.</p>
<p>When I woke refreshed, though after all I had gone through on the yesterday my
brain still swam a little, the light was pouring through the carved work of the
shuttered windows. By it I saw Bes seated on the floor engaged in doing
something to his bow, which, as I have said, had been restored to us with our
other weapons, and asked him sleepily what it was.</p>
<p>“Master,” he said, “yonder King demanded your bow and
therefore a bow must be sent to him. But there is no need for it to be that
with which you shot the lions, which, too, you value above anything you have,
seeing that it came down to you from your forefather who was a Pharaoh of
Egypt, and has been your companion from boyhood ever since you were strong
enough to draw it. As you may remember I copied that bow out of a somewhat
lighter wood, which I could bend with ease, and it is the copy that we will
give to the King. Only first I must set your string upon it, for that may have
been noted; also make one or two marks that are on your bow which I am
finishing now, having begun the task with the dawn.”</p>
<p>“You are clever,” I said laughing, “and I am glad. The holy
Tanofir, looking on my bow, once had a vision. It was that an arrow loosed from
it would drink the blood of a great king and save Egypt. But what king and
when, he did not see.”</p>
<p>The dwarf nodded and answered,</p>
<p>“I have heard that tale and so have others. Therefore I play this trick
since it is better that yonder palace dweller should get the arrow than the
bow. There, it is finished to the last scratch, and none, save you and I, would
know them apart. Till we are clear of this cursed land your bow is mine,
Master, and you must find you another of the Eastern make.”</p>
<p>“Master,” I repeated after him. “Say, Bes, did I dream or did
you in truth tell me last night that you are by birth and right the king of a
great country?”</p>
<p>“I told you that, Master and it is true, no dream, since joy and
suffering mixed unseal the lips and from them comes that at times which the
heart would hide. Now I ask a favour of you, that you will speak no more of
this matter either to me or to any other, man or woman, unless I should speak
of it first. Let it be as though it were indeed a dream.”</p>
<p>“It is granted,” I said as I rose and clothed myself, not in my own
garments which had been taken from me in the palace, but in the splendid silken
robes that had been set upon me after I was loosed from the boat. When this was
done and I had washed and combed my long, curling hair, we descended to a lower
chamber and called for the woman of the house to bring us food, of which I ate
heartily. As we finished our meal we heard shouts in the street outside of,
“Make way for the servants of the King!” and looking through the
window-place, saw a great cavalcade approaching, headed by two princes on
horseback.</p>
<p>“Now I pray that yonder Tyrant has not changed his mind and that these do
not come to take me back to the boat,” I said in a low voice.</p>
<p>“Have no fear, Master,” answered Bes, “seeing that you have
touched his sceptre and drunk from his cup which he gave to you. After these
things no harm can happen to you in any land he rules. Therefore be at ease and
deal with these fellows proudly.”</p>
<p>A minute later two princes entered followed by slaves who bore many things,
among them those hide bags filled with gold that had been set beneath me in the
boat. The elder of them bowed, greeting me with the title of
“Lord,” and I bowed back to him. Then he handed me certain rolls
tied up with silk and sealed, which he said I was to deliver as the King had
commanded to the King’s Satrap in Egypt, and to the Prince Peroa. Also he
gave me other letters addressed to the King’s servants on the road and
written on tablets of clay in a writing I could not read, with all of which I
touched my forehead in the Eastern fashion.</p>
<p>After this he told me that by noon all would be ready for my journey which I
should make with the rank of the King’s Envoy, duly provisioned and
escorted by his servants, with liberty to use the royal horses from post to
post. Then he ordered the slaves to bring in the gifts which the King sent to
me, and these were many, including even suits of flexible armour that would
turn any sword-thrust or arrow.</p>
<p>I thanked him, saying that I would be ready to start by noon, and asked whether
the King wished to see me before I rode. He replied that he had so wished, but
that as he was suffering in his head from the effects of the sun, he could not.
He bade me, however, remember all that he had said to me and to be sure that
the beauteous lady Amada, of whom I had spoken, was sent to him without delay.
In that case my reward should be great; but if I failed to fulfil his commands,
then his wrath would be greater and I should perish miserably as he had
promised.</p>
<p>I bowed and made no answer, after which he and his companions opened the bags
of gold to show me that it was there, offering to weigh it again against my
servant, the dwarf, so that I could see that nothing had been taken away.</p>
<p>I replied that the King’s word was truer than any scale, whereon the bags
were tied up again and sealed. Then I produced the bow, or rather its
counterfeit, and having shown it to the princes, wrapped it and six of my own
arrows in a linen cloth, to be taken to the King, with a message that though
hard to draw it was the deadliest weapon in the world. The elder of them took
it, bowed and bade me farewell, saying that perhaps we should meet again ere
long in Egypt, if my gods gave me a safe journey. So we parted and I was glad
to see the last of them.</p>
<p>Scarcely had they gone when the six hunters whom I had won in the wager and
thereby saved from death, entered the chamber and fell upon their knees before
me, asking for orders as to making ready my gear for the journey. I inquired of
them if they were coming also, to which their spokesman replied that they were
my slaves to do what I commanded.</p>
<p>“Do you desire to come?” I inquired.</p>
<p>“O Lord Shabaka,” answered their spokesman, “we do, though
some of us must leave wives and children behind us.”</p>
<p>“Why?” I asked.</p>
<p>“For two reasons, Lord. Here we are men disgraced, though through no
fault of our own and if you were to leave us in this land, soon the anger of
the King would find us out and we should lose not only our wives and children,
but with them our lives. Whereas in another land we may get other wives and
more children, but never shall we get another life. Therefore we would leave
those dear ones to our friends, knowing that soon the women will forget and
find other husbands, and that the children will grow up to whatever fate is
appointed them, thinking of us, their fathers, as dead. Secondly we are hunters
by trade, and we have seen that you are a great hunter, one whom we shall
always be proud to serve in the chase or in war, one, too, who went out of his
path to save our lives, because he saw that we had been unjustly doomed to a
cruel death. Therefore we desire nothing better than to be your slaves, hoping
that perchance we may earn our liberty from you in days to come by our good
service.”</p>
<p>“Is that the wish of all of you?” I asked.</p>
<p>Speaking one by one, they said that it was, though tears rose in the eyes of
some of them who were married at the thought of parting from their women and
their little ones, who, it seemed might not be brought with them because they
were the people of the King and had not been named in the bet. Moreover, horses
could not be found for so many, nor could they travel fast.</p>
<p>“Come then,” I said, “and know that while you are faithful to
me, I will be good to you, men of my own trade, and perhaps in the end set you
free in a land where brave fellows are not given to be torn to pieces by wild
beasts at the word of any king. But if you fail me or betray me, then either I
will kill you, or sell you to those who deal in slaves, to work at the oar, or
in the mines till you die.”</p>
<p>“Henceforth we have no lord but you, O Shabaka,” they said, and one
after another took my hand and pressed it to their foreheads, vowing to be true
to me in all things while we lived.</p>
<p>So I bade them begone to bid farewell to those they loved and return again
within half an hour of noon, never expecting, to tell the truth, that they
would come. Indeed I did this to give them the opportunity of escaping if they
saw fit, and hiding themselves where they would. But as I have often noted, the
trade of hunting breeds honesty in the blood and at the hour appointed all of
these men appeared, one of them with a woman who carried a child in her arms,
clinging to him and weeping bitterly. When her veil slipped aside I saw that
she was young and very fair to look on.</p>
<p class="p2">
So at noon we left the city of the Great King in the charge of two of his
officers who brought me his thanks for the bow I had sent him, which he said he
should treasure above everything he possessed, a saying at which Bes rolled his
yellow eyes and grinned. We were mounted on splendid stallions from the royal
stables and clad in the shirts of mail that had been presented to us, though
when we were clear of the city we took these off because of the heat, also
because that which Bes wore chafed him, being too long for his squat shape. Our
goods together with the bags of gold were laden on sumpter horses which were
led by my six hunter slaves. Four picked soldiers brought up the rear, mighty
men from the King’s own bodyguard, and two of the royal postmen who
served us as guides. Also there were cooks and grooms with spare horses.</p>
<p>Thus we started in state and a great crowd watched us go. Our road ran by the
river which we must cross in barges lower down, so that in a few minutes we
came to that quay whither I had been led on the previous night to die. Yes,
there were the watching guards, and there floated the hateful double boat, at
the prow of which appeared the tortured face of the eunuch Houman, who rolled
his head from side to side to rid himself of the torment of the flies. He
caught sight of us and began to scream for pity and forgiveness, whereat Bes
smiled. The officers halted our cavalcade and one of them approaching me said,</p>
<p>“It is the King’s command, O Lord Shabaka, that you should look
upon this villain who traduced you to the King and afterwards dared to strike
you. If you will, enter the water and blind him, that your face may be the last
thing he sees before he passes into darkness.”</p>
<p>I shook my head, but Bes into whose mind some thought had come, whispered to
me,</p>
<p>“I wish to speak with yonder eunuch, so give me leave and fear nothing. I
will do him no hurt, only good, if I find the chance.”</p>
<p>Then I said to the officer,</p>
<p>“It is not for great lords to avenge themselves upon the fallen. Yet my
slave here was also wronged and would say a word to yonder Houman.”</p>
<p>“So be it,” said the officer, “only let him be careful not to
hurt him too sorely, lest he should die before the time and escape his
punishment.”</p>
<p>Then Bes tucked up his robes and waded into the river, flourishing a great
knife, while seeing him come, Houman began to scream with fear. He reached the
boat and bent over the eunuch, talking to him in a low voice. What he did there
I could not see because his cloak was spread out on either side of the
man’s head. Presently, however, I caught sight of the flash of a knife
and heard yells of agony followed by groans, whereat I called to him to return
and let the fellow be. For when I remembered that his fate was near to being my
own, those sounds made me sick at heart and I grew angry with Bes, though the
cruel Easterns only laughed.</p>
<p>At length he came back grinning and washing the blade of his knife in the
water. I spoke fiercely to him in my own language, and still he grinned on,
making no answer. When we were mounted again and riding away from that horrible
boat with its groaning prisoner, watching Bes whose behaviour and silence I
could not understand, I saw him sweep his hand across his great mouth and
thrust it swiftly into his bosom. After this he spoke readily enough, though in
a low voice lest someone who understood Egyptian should overhear him.</p>
<p>“You are a fool, Master,” he said, “to think that I should
wish to waste time in torturing that fat knave.”</p>
<p>“Then why did you torture him?” I asked.</p>
<p>“Because my god, the Grasshopper, when he fashioned me a dwarf, gave me a
big mouth and good teeth,” he answered, whereon I stared at him, thinking
that he had gone mad.</p>
<p>“Listen, Master. I did not hurt Houman. All I did was to cut his cords
nearly through from the under side, so that when night comes he can break them
and escape, if he has the wit. Now, Master, you may not have noticed, but I
did, that before the King doomed you to death by the boat yesterday, he took a
certain round, white seal, a cylinder with gods and signs cut on it, which hung
by a gold chain from his girdle, and gave it to Houman to be his warrant for
all he did. This seal Houman showed to the Treasurer whereon they produced the
gold that was weighed in the scales against me, and to others when he ordered
the boat to be prepared for you to lie in. Moreover he forgot to return it, for
when he himself was dragged off to the boat by direct command of the King, I
caught sight of the chain beneath his robe. Can you guess the rest?”</p>
<p>“Not quite,” I answered, for I wished to hear the tale in his own
words.</p>
<p>“Well, Master, when I was walking with Houman after he had put you in the
boat, I asked him about this seal. He showed it to me and said that he who bore
it was for the time the king of all the Empire of the East. It seems that there
is but one such seal which has descended from ancient days from king to king,
and that of it every officer, great or small, has an impress in all lands. If
the seal is produced to him, he compares it with the impress and should the two
agree, he obeys the order that is brought as though the King had given it in
person. When we reached the Court doubtless Houman would have returned the
seal, but seeing that the King was, or feigned to be drunk, waited for fear
lest it should be lost, and with it his life. Then he was seized as you saw,
and in his terror forgot all about the seal, as did the King and his
officers.”</p>
<p>“But, surely, Bes, those who took Houman to the boat would have removed
it.”</p>
<p>“Master, even the most clear-sighted do not see well at night. At any
rate my hope was that they had not done so, and that is why I waded out to
prick the eyes of Houman. Moreover, as I had hoped, so it was; there beneath
his robe I saw the chain. Then I spoke to him, saying,</p>
<p>“‘I am come to put out your eyes, as you deserve, seeing how you
have treated my master. Still I will spare you at a price. Give me the
King’s ancient white seal that opens all doors, and I will only make a
pretence of blinding you. Moreover I will cut your cords nearly through, so
that when the night comes you can break them, roll into the river and
escape.’</p>
<p>“‘Take it if you can,’ he said, ‘and use it to injure
or destroy that accursed one.’”</p>
<p>“So you took it, Bes.”</p>
<p>“Yes, Master, but not easily. Remember, it was on a chain about the
man’s neck, and I could not draw it over his head, for, like his hands,
his throat was tied by a cord, as you remember yours was.”</p>
<p>“I remember very well,” I said, “for my throat is still sore
from the rope that ran to the same staples to which my hands were
fastened.”</p>
<p>“Yes, Master, and therefore if I drew the chain off his neck, it would
still have been on the ropes. I thought of trying to cut it with the knife, but
this was not easy because it is thick, and if I had dragged it up on the blade
of the knife it would have been seen, for many eyes were watching me, Master.
Then I took another counsel. While I pretended to be putting out the eyes of
Houman, I bent down and getting the chain between my teeth I bit it through.
One tooth broke—see, but the next finished the business. I ate through
the soft gold, Master, and then sucked up the chain and the round white seal
into my mouth, and that is why I could not answer you just now, because my
cheeks were full of chain. So we have the King’s seal that all the
subject countries know and obey. It may be useful, yonder in Egypt, and at
least the gold is of value.”</p>
<p>“Clever!” I exclaimed, “very clever. But you have forgotten
something, Bes. When that knave escapes, he will tell the whole story and the
King will send after us and kill us who have stolen his royal seal.”</p>
<p>“I don’t think so, Master. First, it is not likely that Houman will
escape. He is very fat and soft and already suffers much. After a day in the
sun also he will be weak. Moreover I do not think that he can swim, for eunuchs
hate the water. So if he gets out of the boat it is probable that he will drown
in the river, since he dare not wade to the quay where the guards will be
waiting. But if he does escape by swimming across the river, he will hide for
his life’s sake and never be seen again, and if by chance he is caught,
he will say that the seal fell into the water when he was taken to the boat, or
that one of the guards had stolen it. What he will not say is that he had
bargained it away with someone who in return, cut his cords, since for that
crime he must die by worse tortures than those of the boat. Lastly we shall
ride so fast that with six hours’ start none will catch us. Or if they do
I can throw away the chain and swallow the seal.”</p>
<p>As Bes said, so it happened. The fate of Houman I never learned, and of the
theft of the seal I heard no more until a proclamation was issued to all the
kingdoms that a new one was in use. But this was not until long afterwards when
it had served my turn and that of Egypt.</p>
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