suffer that black master of lies, the dwarf Bes, to persuade you
to hide the truth from me?”
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 uræus that Amada had always worn from childhood. Only on the previous night I had noted it on the first finger of her right hand.
I took my stylus and my waxen tablets and wrote on one of them:
“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.”
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.
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.
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.
“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.”
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.”
“And what happens if I do not please them, Husband?” asked Karema opening her fine eyes.
“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.”
“And if they refuse to accept me because I am white, or rather brown, instead of black like oiled marble, what then, O Husband?”
“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.”
Then Karema grew angry.
“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.”
“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.”
“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.
Then Bes stood up on the prow, waving his bow and there arose a mighty shout of, “Karoon! Karoon! It is he, it is he returned after many years!”
Twice they shouted thus and then, every one of them, threw themselves face downwards in the sand.
“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.”
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,
“Karoon called her beautiful, but in truth she is almost white and very ugly.”
“At least she is a woman,” said another, “for her shape is female.”
“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?”
“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.”
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.