especially when they like what is sour? See now how strangely we
are made. When I was a girl, the daughter of an Arab chief, well bred
and well taught as it chanced, I tired of the hard life of the desert
and the narrow minds about me, I who longed for wisdom and to know great
men. Then I became the Cup of the holy Tanofir and wisdom was all about
me, strange wisdom from another world, rough, sharp wisdom from Tanofir,
and the quiet wisdom of the dead among whom I dwelt. I wearied of that
also, Shabaka. I was beautiful and knew it and I longed to shine in
a Court, to be admired among men, to be envied of women, to rule. My
husband came my way. He was clever with a great heart. He was your
friend and therefore I was sure that he must be loyal and true. He was,
or might be, a king, as I knew, though he thought that I did not. I
married him and the holy Tanofir laughed but he did not say me nay, and
I became a queen. And now I wish sometimes that I were dead, or back
holding the cup of the holy Tanofir with the wisdom of the heavens
flowing round me and the soft darkness of the tombs about me. It seems
that in this world we never can be content, Shabaka."

"No, Karema, we only think that we should be if things were otherwise
than they are. But how can I help you, Karema?"

"Least of all by going away and leaving me alone," she answered with the
tears starting to her eyes.

Looking at her, I began to think that the best thing I could do would be
to go away and at once, but as ever she read my thought, shook her head
and laughed.

"No, no, I have put on my yoke and will carry it to the end. Have I not
two black children and a husband who is a hero, a wit and a mountebank
in one, and a throne and more gold and crystal than I ever wish to see
again even in a dream, and shall I not cling to these good things? If
you went I should only be a little more unhappy than before, that is
all. Not for my sake do I ask you to stay, but for your own."

"How for my own, Karema? I have done all that I can do here. I have
built the army afresh from cook-boys to generals. Bes needs me no longer
who has you, his children and his country, and I die of weariness."

"You can stop to make use of that army you have built afresh, Shabaka."

"Against whom? There are none to fight."

"Against the Great King of the East. Listen. My gift of vision has grown
strong and clear of late. Only to-day I have seen a meeting between
Pharaoh, the holy Tan