“Yes, O King,” he said in a mincing voice, “let him enter and kill a lion. But if he fail, then let a lion kill him. There are some hungry in the palace den and it is not fit that the King’s ears should be filled with empty words by foreigners from Egypt.”
“So be it,” said the King. “Egyptian, you have brought it on your own head. Prove that you can do what you say and I will give you great honour. Fail, and to the lions with him who lies of lions. Still,” he added, “it is not right that you should go alone. Choose therefore one of these lords to keep you company; he who would put you to the test, if you will.”
Now I looked at the scented noble who turned pale beneath his paint. Then I looked at the fat eunuch, Houman, who opened his mouth and gasped like a fish, and when I had looked, I shook my head and said as though to myself,
“Not so, no woman and no eunuch shall be my companion on this quest,” whereat the King and all the rest laughed out loud. “The dwarf and I will go alone.”
“The dwarf!” said the King. “Can he hunt lions also?”
“No, O King, but perchance he can smell them, for otherwise how shall I find them in that thicket within an hour?”
“Perchance they can smell him. How is the ape-man named?” asked the King.
“Bes, O King, after the god of the Egyptians whom he resembles.”
“Dare you accompany your master on this hunt, O Bes?” inquired the King.
Then Bes looked up, rolling his yellow eyes, and answered in his thick and guttural voice,
“I am my master’s slave and dare I refuse to accompany him? If I did he might kill me, as the King of kings kills his slaves. It is better to die with honour by the teeth of a lion, than with dishonour beneath the whip of a master. So at least we think in Ethiopia.”
“Well spoken, dwarf Bes!” exclaimed the King. “So would I have all men think throughout the East. Let the words of this Ethiop be written down and copies of them sent to the satraps of all the provinces that they may be read to the peoples of the earth. I the King have decreed it.”
CHAPTER V. THE WAGER
While the scribes were at their work I bowed before the King and prayed his leave and I and the dwarf Bes might get to ours.
“Go,” he said, “and return here within an hour. If you do not return tidings of your death shall be sent to the satrap of Egypt to be told to your wives.”
“I thank the King, but it is needless, for I have no wives, which are ill company for a hunter.”
“Strange,” he said, “since many women would be glad to name such a man their husband, at least here among us Easterns.”
Walking backwards and bowing as we went, Bes and I returned to our chariot. There we stripped off our outer garments till Bes was naked save for his waistcloth and I was clad only in a jerkin. Then I took my bow, my arrows and my knife, and Bes took two spears, one light for throwing and the other short, broad and heavy for stabbing. Thus armed we passed back before the Easterns who stared at us, and advanced to the edge of the thicket of tall reeds that was full of lions.
Here Bes took dust and threw it into the air that we might learn from which quarter the light wind blew.
“We will go against the breeze, Lord,” he said, “that I may smell the lions before they smell us.”
I nodded, and answered,
“Hearken, Bes. Well may it be that we kill no lions in this place where it is hard to shoot. Yet I would not return to be thrown to wild beasts by yonder evil king. Therefore if we fail in this or in any other way, do you kill me, if you still live.”
He rolled his eyes and grinned.
“Not so, Master. Then we will win through the reeds and lie hid in their edge till darkness comes, for in them those half-men will never dare to seek for us. Afterwards we will swim the water and disguise ourselves as jugglers and try to reach the coast, and so back to Egypt, having learned much. Never stretch out your hand to Death till he stretches out his to you, which he will do soon enough, Master.”
Again I nodded and said,
“And if a lion should kill me, Bes, what then?”
“Then, Master, I will kill that lion if I can and go report the matter to the King.”
“And if he should wish to throw you to the beasts, Bes, what then?”
“Then, first I will drag him down to the greatest of all beasts, he who waits to devour evil-doers in the Under-world, be they kings or slaves,” and he stretched out his long arms and made a motion as of clutching a man by the throat. “Oh! have no fear, Master, I can break him like a stick, and afterwards we will talk the matter over among the dead, for I shall swallow my tongue and die also. It is a good trick, Master, which I wish you would learn.”
Then he took my hand and kissed it and we entered the reeds, I, who was a hunter, feeling more happy than I had done since we set foot in the East.
Yet the quest was desperate for the reeds were tall and often I could not see more than a bow’s length in front of me. Presently, however, we found a path made perchance by game coming down to drink, or by crocodiles coming up to sleep, and followed it, I with an arrow on my string and Bes with the throwing spear in his right hand and the stabbing spear in his left, half a pace ahead of me. On we crept, Bes drawing in the air through his great nostrils as a hound might do, till suddenly he stopped and sniffed towards the north.
“I smell lion near,” he whispered, searching among the reed stems with his eyes. “I see lion,” he whispered again, and pointed, but I could see nothing save the stems of the reeds.
“Rouse him,” I whispered back, “and I will shoot as he bounds.”
Then Bes poised the spear, shook it till it quivered, and threw. There was a roar and a lioness appeared with the spear fast in her flank. I loosed the arrow but it cut into the thick reeds and stuck there.
“Forward!” whispered Bes, “for where woman is, there look for man. The lion will be near.”
We crept on, Bes stopping to cut the arrow from a reed and set it back in the quiver, for it was a good arrow made by himself. But now he shifted the broad spear to his right hand and in his left held his knife. We heard the wounded lioness roar not far away.
“She calls her man to help her,” whispered Bes, and as the words left his lips the reeds down wind began to sway, for we were smelt.
They swayed, they parted and, half seen, half hid between their stems, appeared the head of a great, black-maned lion. I drew the string and shot, this time not in vain, for I heard the arrow thud upon his hide. Then before I could set another he was on us, reared upon his hind legs and roaring. As I drew my dagger he struck at me, but I bent down and his paw went over my head. Then his weight came against me and I fell beneath him, stabbing him in the belly as I fell. I saw his mighty jaws open to crush my head. Then they shut again and through them burst a whine like that of a hurt dog.
Bes had driven his spear into the lion’s breast, so deep that the point of it came out through the back. Still he was not dead, only now it was Bes he sought. The dwarf ran at him as he reared up again, and casting his great arms about the brute’s body, wrestled with him as man with man.
Then it was, for the first time I think, that I learned all the Ethiopian’s strength. For he, a dwarf, threw that lion on its back and thrusting his big head beneath the jaws, struggled with it madly. I was up, the knife still in my hand, and oh! I too was strong. Into the throat I drove it, dragging it this way and that, and lo! the lion moaned and died and his blood gushed out over both of us. Then Bes sat up and laughed, and I too laughed, since neither of us had more than scratches and we had done what men could scarcely do.
“Do you remember, Master,” said Bes when he had finished laughing, as he wiped his brow with some damp moss, “how, once far away up the Nile you charged a mad elephant with a spear and saved me who had fallen, from being trampled to death?”