e we rested.

"We worship the Grasshopper, Master, because he jumps with men's spirits
from one life to another, or from this world to the next, yes, right
through the blue sky. And he is better than your Egyptian gods because
they leave you to find your own way there, and then eat you alive, that
is if you have tried to poison people, as of course we have all done.
But, Master, we are fresh again now, so let us be going, for the hour
will soon be finished. Also when she has eaten the spear handle, that
lioness may return."

"Yes," I said; "let us go and report to the King of kings that we have
killed a lion."

"Master, it is not enough. Even common kings believe little that they
do not see, wherefore it is certain that a King of kings will believe
nothing and still more certain that he will not come here to look. So as
we cannot carry the lion, we must take a bit of it," and straightway he
cut off the end of the brute's tail.

Following the crocodile path, presently we reached the edge of the reeds
opposite to the camp where the King now sat in state beneath a purple
pavilion that had been reared, eating a meal, with his courtiers
standing at a distance and looking very hungry.

Out of the reeds bounded Bes, naked and bloody, waving the lion's tail
and singing some wild Ethiopian chant, while I, also bloody and half
naked, for the lion's claws had torn my jerkin off me, followed with bow
unstrung.

The King looked up and saw us.

"What! Do you live, Egyptian?" he asked. "Of a surety I thought that by
now you would be dead."

"It was the lion that died, O King," I answered, pointing to Bes who,
having ceased from his song, was jumping about carrying the beast's tail
in his mouth as a dog carries a bone.

"It seems that this Egyptian has killed a lion," said the King to one of
his lords, him of the painted face and scented hair.

"May be please the King," he answered, bowing, "a tail is not the whole
beast and may have been taken thither, or cut from a lion lying dead
already. The King knows that the Egyptians are great liars."

So he spoke because he was jealous of the deed.

"These men look as though they had met a live one, not one that is
dead," said the King, scanning our blood-stained shapes. "Still, as
you doubt it, you will wish to put the matter to the proof. Therefore,
Cousin, take six men with you, enter the reeds and search. In that soft
ground it will be easy to follow their footmarks."

"It