he while, till
the soldiers stared at us as though we were mad. Also the fat eunuch,
Houman, who was mounted on an ass, rode up and said,

"What, Egyptian who dared to twist the beard of the Great King, you
laugh, do you? Well, you will sing a different song in the boat to that
which you sing in the chariot. Think of my words on the eighth day from
this."

"I will think of them, Eunuch," I answered, looking at him fiercely in
the eyes, "but who knows what kind of a song you will be singing before
the eighth day from this?"

"What I do is done under the authority of the ancient and holy Seal of
Seals," he answered in a quavering voice, touching the little cylinder
of white shell which I had noted upon the person of the King, but that
now hung from a gold chain about the eunuch's neck.

Then he made the sign which Easterns use to avert evil and rode off
again, looking very frightened.

So we came to the royal city and went up to a wonderful palace. Here we
were taken from the chariot and led into a room where food and drink in
plenty were given to me as though I were an honoured guest, which caused
me to wonder. Bes also, seated on the ground at a distance, ate and
drank, for his own reasons filling himself to the throat as though he
were a wineskin, until the serving slaves mocked at him for a glutton.

When we had finished eating, slaves appeared bearing a wooden framework
from which hung a great pair of scales. Also there appeared officers of
the King's Treasury, carrying leather bags which they opened, breaking
the seals to show that the contents were pure gold coin. They set a
number of these bags on one of the scales, and then ordered Bes to seat
himself in the other. So much heavier did he prove than they expected
him to be, that they were obliged to send back to the Treasury to fetch
more bags of gold, for although Bes was so short in height, his weight
was that of a large man. One of the treasurers grumbled, saying he
should have been weighed before he had eaten and drunk. But the officer
to whom he spoke grinned and answered that it mattered little, since the
King was heir to criminals and that these bags would soon return to
the Treasury, only they would need washing first, a remark that made me
wonder.

At length, when the scales were even, the six hunters whose lives I had
won and who had been given to me as slaves, were brought in and ordered
to shoulder the bags of gold. I too was seized and my hand