<h2><SPAN name="chap14"></SPAN>CHAPTER XIV.<br/>SHABAKA FIGHTS THE CROCODILE</h2>
<p>“Where to?” I said to Bes when we were outside the palace, for I
was so broken with grief that I scarcely knew what I did.</p>
<p>“To the house of the lady Tiu, I think, Master, since there you must make
preparations for your start on the morrow, also bid her farewell. Oh!” he
went on in a kind of rapture which afterwards I knew was feigned though at the
time I did not think about it, “Oh! how happy should you be who now are
free from all this woman-coil, with life new and fresh before you. Reflect,
Master, on the hunting we will have yonder in Ethiopia. No more cares, no more
plannings for the welfare of Egypt, no more persuading of the doubtful to take
up arms, no more desperate battle-ventures with your country’s honour on
your sword-point. And if you must see women—well, there are plenty in
Ethiopia who come and go lightly as an evening breeze laden with the odour of
flowers, and never trouble in the morning.”</p>
<p>“At any rate <i>you</i> are not free from such coils, Bes,” I said
and in the moonlight I saw his great face fall in.</p>
<p>“No, Master, I am tying them about my throat. See, such is the way of the
world, or of the gods that rule the world, I know not which. For years I have
been happy and free, I have enjoyed adventures and visited strange countries
and have gathered learning, till I think I am the wisest man upon the Nile, at
the side of one whom I loved and holding nothing at risk, except my own life
which mattered no more than that of a gnat dancing in the sun. Now all is
changed. I have a wife whom I love also, more than I can tell you,” and
he sighed, “but who still must be looked after and obeyed—yes,
obeyed. Further, soon I shall have a people and a crown to wear, and
councillors and affairs of state, and an ancient religion to support and the
Grasshopper itself knows what besides. The burden has rolled from your back to
mine, Master, making my heart which was so light, heavy, and oh! I wish it had
stopped where it was.”</p>
<p>Even then I laughed, sad as I was, for truth lived in the philosophy of Bes.</p>
<p>“Master,” he went on in a changed voice, “I have been a fool
and my folly has worked you ill. Forgive me since I acted for the best, only
until the end no one ever knows what is the best. Now here is the house and I
go to meet my wife and to make certain arrangements. By dawn perhaps you will
be ready to start to Ethiopia.”</p>
<p>“Do you really desire that I should accompany you there, Bes?”</p>
<p>“Certainly, Master. That is unless you should desire that I accompany you
somewhere else instead, by sea southward for instance. If so, I do not know
that I would refuse, since Ethiopia will not run away and there is much of the
world that I should still like to visit. Only then there is Karema to be
thought about, who expects, or, when she learns all, soon will expect, to be a
queen,” he added doubtfully.</p>
<p>“No, Bes, I am too tired to make new plans, so let us go to Ethiopia and
not disappoint Karema, who after holding a cup so long naturally would like to
try a sceptre.”</p>
<p>“I think that is wisest, Master; at any rate the holy Tanofir thinks it
wisest, and he is the voice of Fate. Oh! why do we trouble who after all, every
one of us, are nothing but pieces upon the board of Fate.”</p>
<p>Then he turned and left me and I entered the house where I found my mother
sitting, still in her festal robes, like one who waits. She looked at my face,
then asked what troubled me. I sat down on a stool at her feet and told her
everything.</p>
<p>“Much as I thought,” she said when I had finished. “These
over-learned women are strange fish to catch and hold, and too much soul is
like too much sail upon a boat when the desert wind begins to blow across the
Nile. Well, do not let us blame her or Bes, or Peroa who is already anxious for
his dynasty and would rather that Amada were a priestess than your wife, or
even the goddess Isis, who no doubt is anxious for her votaries. Let us rather
blame the Power that is behind the veil, or to it bow our heads, seeing that we
know nothing of the end for which it works. So Egypt shuts her doors on you, my
Son, and whither away? Not to the East again, I trust, for there you would soon
grow shorter by a head.”</p>
<p>“I go to Ethiopia, my Mother, where it seems that Bes is a great man and
can shelter me.”</p>
<p>“So we go to Ethiopia, do we? Well, it is a long journey for an old
woman, but I weary of Memphis where I have lived for so many years and
doubtless the sands of the south make good burial grounds.”</p>
<p>“We!” I exclaimed. “<i>We?</i>”</p>
<p>“Surely, my Son, since in losing a wife you have again found a mother and
until I die we part no more.”</p>
<p>When I heard this my eyes filled with tears. My conscience smote me also
because of late, and indeed for years past, I had thought so much of Amada and
so little of my mother. And now it was Amada who had cast me out, unjustly,
without waiting to learn the truth, because at the worst I, who worshipped her,
had saved myself from death in slow torment by speaking her name, while my
mother, forgetting all, took me to her bosom again as she had done when I was a
babe. I knew not what to say, but remembering the pearls, I drew them out and
placed them round my mother’s neck.</p>
<p>She looked at the wonderful things and smiled, then said,</p>
<p>“Such gems as these become white locks and withered breasts but ill. Yet,
my Son, I will keep them for you till you find a wife, if not Amada, then
another.”</p>
<p>“If not Amada, I shall never find a wife,” I said bitterly, whereat
she smiled.</p>
<p>Then she left me to make ready before she slept a while.</p>
<p class="p2">
Work as we would noon had passed two hours, on the following day, before we
were prepared to start, for there was much to do. Thus the house must be placed
in charge of friends and the means of travel collected. Also a messenger came
from Pharaoh praying me for his and Egypt’s sake to think again before I
left them, and an answer sent that go I must, whither the holy Tanofir would
know if at any time Pharaoh desired to learn. In reply to this came another
messenger who brought me parting gifts from Pharaoh, a chain of honour, a title
of higher nobility, a commission as his envoy to whatever land I wandered, and
so forth, which I must acknowledge. Lastly as we were leaving the house to seek
the boat which Bes had made ready on the Nile, there came yet another messenger
at the sight of whom my heart leapt, for he was priest of Isis.</p>
<p>He bowed and handed me a roll. I opened it with a trembling hand and read:</p>
<p class="letter">
“From the Prophetess of Isis whose house is at Amada, aforetime Royal
Lady of Egypt, to the Count Shabaka,<br/>
“I learn, O my Cousin, that you depart from Egypt and knowing the reason
my heart is sore. Believe me, my Cousin, I love you well, better than any who
lives upon the earth, nor will that love ever change, since the goddess who
holds my future in her hands, knows of what we are made and is not jealous of
the past. Therefore she will not be wroth at the earthly love of one who is
gathered to her heavenly arms. Her blessing and mine be on you and if we see
each other no more face to face in the world, may we meet again in the halls of
Osiris. Farewell, beloved Shabaka. Oh! why did you suffer that black master of
lies, the dwarf Bes, to persuade you to hide the truth from me?”</p>
<p>So the writing ended and below it were two stains still wet, which I knew were
caused by tears. Moreover, wrapped in a piece of silk and fastened to the
scroll was a little gold ring graven with the royal <i>uræus</i> that Amada had
always worn from childhood. Only on the previous night I had noted it on the
first finger of her right hand.</p>
<p>I took my stylus and my waxen tablets and wrote on one of them:</p>
<p class="letter">
“Had you been a man, Amada, and not a woman, I think you would have
judged me differently but, learned priestess and prophetess as you are, a woman
you remain. Perchance a time may come when once more you will turn to me in the
hour of your need; if so and I am living, I will come. Yea, if I am dead I
think that I still shall come, since nothing can really part us. Meanwhile by
day and by night I wear your ring and whenever I look on it I think of Amada
the woman whose lips have pressed my own, and forget Amada the priestess who
for her soul’s sake has been pleased to break the heart of the man who
loved her and whom she misjudged so sorely in her pride and anger.”</p>
<p>This tablet I wrapped up and sealed, using clay and her own ring to make the
seal, and gave it for delivery to the priest.</p>
<p class="p2">
At length we drew near to the river and here, gathered on the open land, I
found the most of those who had fought with me in the battle against the
Easterns, and with them a great concourse of others from the city. These
collected round me, some of them wounded and hobbling upon crutches, praying me
not to go, as did the others who foresaw sorrow to Egypt from my loss. But I
broke away from them almost in tears and with my mother hid myself beneath the
canopy of the boat. Here Bes was waiting, also his beautiful wife who, although
she seemed sad at leaving Egypt, smiled a greeting to us while the steersmen
and rowers of the boat, tall Ethiopians every one of them, rose and gave me a
General’s salute. Then, as the wind served, we hoisted the sail and
glided away up Nile, till presently the temples and palm-groves of Memphis were
lost to sight.</p>
<p class="p2">
Of that long, long journey there is no need to tell. Up the Nile we travelled
slowly, dragging the boat past the cataracts till Egypt was far behind us. In
the end, many days after we had passed the mouth of another river that was blue
in colour which flowed from the northern mountain lands down into the Nile, we
came to a place where the rapids were so long and steep that we must leave the
boat and travel overland. Drawing near to it at sunset I saw a multitude of
people gathered on the sand and beyond them a camp in which were set many
beautiful pavilions that seemed to be broidered with silk and gold, as were the
banners that floated above them whereon appeared the effigy of a grasshopper,
also done in gold with silver legs.</p>
<p>“It seems that my messengers travelled in safety,” said Bes to me,
“for know, that yonder are some of my subjects who have come here to meet
us. Now, Master, I must no longer call you master since I fear I am once more a
king. And you must no longer call me Bes, but Karoon. Moreover, forgive me, but
when you come into my presence you must bow, which I shall like less than you
do, but it is the custom of the Ethiopians. Oh! I would that you were the king
and that I were your friend, for henceforth good-bye to ease and
jollity.”</p>
<p>I laughed, but Bes did not laugh at all, only turned to his wife who already
ruled him as though he were indeed a slave, and said, “Lady Karema, make
yourself as beautiful as you can and forget that you have ever been a Cup or
anything useful, since henceforth you must be a queen, that is if you please my
people.”</p>
<p>“And what happens if I do not please them, Husband?” asked Karema
opening her fine eyes.</p>
<p>“I do not quite know, Wife. Perhaps they may refuse to accept me, at
which I shall not weep. Or perhaps they may refuse to accept you, at which of
course I should weep very much, for you see you are so very white and,
heretofore, all the queens of the Ethiopians have been black.”</p>
<p>“And if they refuse to accept me because I am white, or rather brown,
instead of black like oiled marble, what then, O Husband?”</p>
<p>“Then—oh! then I cannot say, O Wife. Perhaps they will send you
back to your own country. Or perhaps they will separate us and place you in a
temple where you will live alone in all honour. I remember that once they did
that to a white woman, making a goddess of her until she died of weariness. Or
perhaps—well, I do not know.”</p>
<p>Then Karema grew angry.</p>
<p>“Now I wish I had remained a Cup,” she said, “and the servant
of the holy Tanofir who at least taught me many secret things, instead of
coming to dwell among black barbarians in the company of a dwarf who, even if
he be a king, it seems has no power to protect the wife whom he has
chosen.”</p>
<p>“Why will women always grow wroth before there is need?” asked Bes
humbly. “Surely it would be time to rate me when any of these things had
happened.”</p>
<p>“If any of them do happen, Husband, I shall say much worse things than
that,” she replied, but the talk went no further, for at this moment our
boat grounded and singing a wild song, many of those who waited rushed into the
water to drag it to the bank.</p>
<p>Then Bes stood up on the prow, waving his bow and there arose a mighty shout
of, “<i>Karoon! Karoon!</i> It is he, it is he returned after many
years!”</p>
<p>Twice they shouted thus and then, every one of them, threw themselves face
downwards in the sand.</p>
<p>“Yes, my people,” cried Bes, “it is I, Karoon, who having
been miraculously preserved from many dangers in far lands by the help of the
Grasshopper in heaven, and, as my messengers will have told you, of my beloved
friend, lord Shabaka the Egyptian, who has deigned to come to dwell with us for
a while, have at length returned to Ethiopia that I may shed my wisdom on you
like the sun and pour it on your heads like melted honey. Moreover, mindful of
our laws which aforetime I defied and therefore left you, I have searched the
whole world through till I found the most beautiful woman that it contained,
and made her my wife. She too has deigned to come to this far country to be
your queen. Advance, fair Karema, and show yourself to these my
Ethiopians.”</p>
<p>So Karema stepped forward and stood on the prow of the boat by the side of Bes,
and a strange couple they looked. The Ethiopians who had risen, considered her
gravely, then one of them said,</p>
<p>“Karoon called her beautiful, but in truth she is almost white and very
ugly.”</p>
<p>“At least she is a woman,” said another, “for her shape is
female.”</p>
<p>“Yes, and he has married her,” remarked a third, “and even a
king may choose his own wife sometimes. For in such matters who can judge
another’s taste?”</p>
<p>“Cease,” said Bes in a lordly way. “If you do not think her
beautiful to-night, you will to-morrow. And now let us land and rest.”</p>
<p>So we landed and while I did so I took note of these Ethiopians. They were
great men, black as charcoal with thick lips, white teeth and flat noses. Their
eyes were large and the whites of them somewhat yellow, their hair curled like
wool, their beards were short and on their faces they wore a continual smile.
Of dress most of them had little, but their elders or leaders wore lion and
leopard skins and some were clad in a kind of silken tunic belted about the
middle. All were armed for war with long bows, short swords and small shields
round in shape and made from the hide of the hippopotamus or of the unicorn.
Gold was plentiful amongst them since even the humblest wore bracelets of that
metal, while about the necks of the chieftains it was wound in great torques,
also sometimes on their ankles. They wore sandals on their feet and some of
them had ostrich feathers stuck in their hair, a few also had grasshoppers
fashioned of gold bound on the top of their heads, and these I took to be the
priests. There were no women in their number.</p>
<p>As the sun was sinking we were led at once to a very beautiful tent made of
woven flax and ornamented as I have described, where we found food made ready
for us in plenty, milk in bowls and the flesh of sheep and oxen boiled and
roasted. Bes, however, was taken to a place apart, which made Karema even more
angry than she was before.</p>
<p>Scarcely had we finished eating when a herald rushed into the tent crying,
“Prostrate yourselves! Yea, be prostrated, the Grasshopper comes! Karoon
comes.”</p>
<p>Here I must say that I found that the title of Karoon meant “Great
Grasshopper,” but Karema who did not know this, asked indignantly why she
should prostrate herself to a grasshopper. Indeed she refused to do so even
when Bes entered the pavilion wonderfully attired in a gorgeous-coloured robe
of which the train was held by two huge men. So absurd did he look that my
mother and I must bow very deeply to hide our laughter while Karema said,</p>
<p>“It would be better, Husband, if you found children to carry your robe
instead of two giants. Moreover, if it is meant to copy the colours of a
grasshopper, ‘tis badly done, since grasshoppers are green and you are
gold and scarlet. Also they do not wear feathers set awry upon their
heads.”</p>
<p>Bes rolled his eyes as though in agony, then turning, bade his attendants be
gone. They obeyed, though doubtfully as though they did not like to leave him
alone with us, whereon he let down the flap of the pavilion, threw off his
gorgeous coverings and said,</p>
<p>“You must learn to understand, Wife, that our customs are different from
those of Egypt. There I was happy as a slave and you were held to be beautiful
as the Cup of the holy Tanofir, also learned. Here I am wretched as a king and
you are held to be ugly, also ignorant as a stranger. Oh! do not answer, I pray
you, but learn that all goes well. For the time you are accepted as my wife,
subject to the decision of a council of matrons, aged relatives of my family,
who will decide when we reach the City of the Grasshopper whether or not you
shall be acknowledged as the Queen of the Ethiopians. No, no, I pray you say
nothing since I must go away at once, as according to the law of the Ethiopians
the time has come for the Grasshopper to sleep, alone, Karema, as you are not
yet acknowledged as my wife. You also can sleep with the lady Tiu and for
Shabaka a tent is provided. Rest sweetly, Wife. Hark! They fetch me.”</p>
<p>“Now, if I had my way,” said Karema, “I would rest in that
boat going back to Egypt. What say you, lord Shabaka?”</p>
<p>But I made no answer who followed Bes out of the tent, leaving her to talk the
matter over with my mother. Here I found a crowd of his people waiting to
convey him to sleep and watching, saw them place him in another tent round
which they ranged themselves, playing upon musical instruments. After this
someone came and led me to my own place where was a good bed in which I lay
down to sleep. This however I could not do for a long while because of my own
laughter and the noise of the drums and horns that were soothing Bes to his
rest. For now I understood why he had preferred to be a slave in Egypt rather
than a king in Ethiopia.</p>
<p>In the morning I rose before the dawn and went out to the river-bank to bathe.
While I was making ready to wash myself, who should appear but Bes, followed,
but at a distance, by a number of his people.</p>
<p>“Never have I spent such a night, Master,” he said, “at least
not since you took me prisoner years ago, since by law I may not stop those
horns and musical instruments. Now, however, also according to the law of the
Ethiopians, I am my own lord until the sun rises. So I have come here to gather
some of those blue lilies which she loves as a present for Karema, because I
fear that she is angry and must be appeased.”</p>
<p>“Certainly she is very angry,” I said, “or at least was so
when I left her last night. Oh! Bes, why did you let your people tell her that
she was ugly?”</p>
<p>“How can I help it, Master? Have you not always heard that the Ethiopians
are chiefly famous for one thing, namely that they speak nothing but the truth.
To them she, being different, seems to be ugly. Therefore when they say that
she is ugly, they speak the truth.”</p>
<p>“If so, it is a truth that she does not like, Bes, as I have no doubt she
will tell you by and by. Do they think me ugly also?”</p>
<p>“Yes, they do, Master; but they think also that you look like a man who
can draw a bow and use a sword, and that goes far with the Ethiopians. Of your
mother they say nothing because she is old and they venerate the aged whom the
Grasshopper is waiting to carry away.”</p>
<p>Now I began to laugh again and went with Bes to gather the lilies. These grew
at the end of a mass of reeds woven together by the pressure of the current and
floating on the water. Bes lay down upon his stomach while his people watched
from a distance on the bank amazed into silence, and stretched out his long
arms to reach the blue lotus flowers. Suddenly the reeds gave way beneath him
just as he had grasped two of the flowers and was dragging at them, so that he
fell into the river.</p>
<p>Next instant I saw a swirl in the brown water and perceived a huge crocodile.
It rushed at Bes open-mouthed. Being a good swimmer he twisted his body in
order to avoid it, but I heard the great teeth close with a snap on the short
leathern garment which he wore about his middle.</p>
<p>“The devil has me! Farewell!” he cried and vanished beneath the
water.</p>
<p>Now, as I have said, I was almost stripped for bathing, but had not yet taken
off my short sword which was girded round me by a belt. In an instant I drew it
and amidst the yells of horror of the Ethiopians who had seen all from the
bank, I plunged into the river. There are few able to swim as I could and I had
the art of diving with my eyes open and remaining long beneath the surface
without drawing breath, for this I had practised from a child.</p>
<p>Immediately I saw the great reptile sinking to the mud and dragging Bes with
him to drown him there. But here the river was very deep and with a few swift
strokes I was able to get under the crocodile. Then with all my strength I
stabbed upwards, driving the sword far into the soft part of the throat.
Feeling the pain of the sharp iron the beast let go of Bes and turned on me.
How it happened I do not know but presently I found myself upon its back and
was striking at its eyes. One thrust at least went home, for the blinded brute
rose to the surface, bearing me with him, and oh! the sweetness of the air as I
breathed again.</p>
<p>Thus we appeared, I riding the crocodile like a horse and stabbing furiously,
while close by was Bes rolling his yellow eyes but helpless, for he had no
weapon. Still the devil was not dead although blood streamed from him, only mad
with pain and rage. Nor could the shouting Ethiopians help me since they had
only bows and dared not shoot lest their shafts should pierce me. The crocodile
began to sink again, snapping furiously at my legs. Then I bethought me of a
trick I had seen practised by natives on the Nile.</p>
<p>Waiting till its huge jaws were open I thrust my arm between them, grasping the
short sword in such fashion that the hilt rested on its tongue and the point
against the roof of its mouth. It tried to close its jaws and lo! the good iron
was fixed between them, holding them wide open. Then I withdrew my hand and
floated upwards with nothing worse than a cut upon the wrist from one of its
sharp fangs. I appeared upon the surface and after me the crocodile spouting
blood and wallowing in its death agonies. I remembered no more till I found
myself lying on the bank surrounded by a multitude with Bes standing over me.
Also in the shallow water was the crocodile dead, my sword still fixed between
its jaws.</p>
<p>“Are you harmed, Master” cried Bes in a voice of agony.</p>
<p>“Very little I think,” I answered, sitting up with the blood
pouring from my arm.</p>
<p>Bes thrust aside Karema who had come lightly clothed from her tent, saying,</p>
<p>“All is well, Wife. I will bring you the lilies presently.”</p>
<p>Then he flung his arms about me, kissed my hands and my brow and turning to the
crowd, shouted,</p>
<p>“Last night you were disputing as to whether this Egyptian lord should be
allowed to dwell with me in the land of Ethiopia. Which of you disputes it
now?”</p>
<p>“No one!” they answered with a roar. “He is not a man but a
god. No man could have done such a deed.”</p>
<p>“So it seems,” answered Bes quietly. “At least none of you
even tried to do it. Yet he is not a god but only that kind of man who is
called a hero. Also he is my brother, and while I reign in Ethiopia either he
shall reign at my side, or I go away with him.”</p>
<p>“It shall be so, Karoon!” they shouted with one voice. And after
this I was carried back to the tent.</p>
<p>In front of it my mother waited and kissed me proudly before them all, whereat
they shouted again.</p>
<p class="p2">
So ended this adventure of the crocodile, except that presently Bes went back
and recovered the two lilies for Karema, this time from a boat, which caused
the Ethiopians to call out that he must love her very much, though not as much
as he did me.</p>
<p>That afternoon, borne in litters, we set out for the City of the Grasshopper,
which we reached on the fourth day. As we drew near the place regiments of men
to the number of twelve thousand or more, came out to meet us, so that at last
we arrived escorted by an army who sang their songs of triumph and played upon
their musical instruments until my head ached with the noise.</p>
<p>This city was a great place whereof the houses were built of mud and thatched
with reeds. It stood upon a wide plain and in its centre rose a natural, rocky
hill upon the crest of which, fashioned of blocks of gleaming marble and roofed
with a metal that shone as gold, was the temple of the Grasshopper, a columned
building very like to those of Egypt. Round it also were other public
buildings, among them the palace of the Karoon, the whole being surrounded by
triple marble walls as a protection from attack by foes. Never had I seen
anything so beautiful as that hill with its edifices of shining white roofed
with gold or copper and gleaming in the sun.</p>
<p>Descending from my litter I walked to those of my mother and Karema, for Bes in
his majesty might not be approached, and said as much to them.</p>
<p>“Yes, Son,” answered my mother, “it is worth while to have
travelled so far to see such a sight. I shall have a fine sepulchre,
Son.”</p>
<p>“I have seen it all before,” broke in Karema.</p>
<p>“When?” I asked.</p>
<p>“I do not know. I suppose it must have been when I was the Cup of the
holy Tanofir. At least it is familiar to me. Already I weary of it, for who can
care for a land or a city where they think white people hideous and scarcely
allow a wife to go near her husband, save between midnight and dawn when they
cease from their horrible music?”</p>
<p>“It will be your part to change these customs, Karema.”</p>
<p>“Yes,” she exclaimed, “certainly that will be my part,”
after which I went back to my litter.</p>
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