ofir and the lady Amada. They were all disturbed,
I know not at what, and the end of it was that Amada wrote in a roll
and gave the writing to messengers, who I think even now are speeding
southward--to you, Shabaka. Nay, do not look doubtfully on me, it is
true."

"Then you did well to tell me, Karema, for within a moon of this day I
should have been where perhaps no messengers would have found me. Now
I will wait and let it be your part to prepare the mind of Bes. Do you
think that he would give me an army to lead to Egypt, if there were
need?"

She nodded and answered,

"He would do so for three reasons. The first is because he loves you,
the second because he too wearies of Ethiopia and this rich, fat life of
peace, and the third, because I shall tell him that he must."

"Then why trouble to speak of the other two?" I said laughing.

So I stayed on in the City of the Grasshopper, and busied myself with
the questions of how to transport and feed a great army that must hold
the field for six months or a year; also with the setting of hundreds of
skilled men to the making of bows, arrows, swords and shields. Nor did
Bes say me no in these matters. Indeed he helped them forward by issuing
the orders as his own, wherein I saw the hand of Karema.

Three months went by and I began to think that Karema's power had been
at fault, or that her vision was one that came from her lips and not
from her heart, to keep me in Ethiopia. But again she read my mind and
smiled.

"Not so, Shabaka," she said. "Those messengers have come to trouble and
are detained by a petty tribe beyond our borders over some matter of a
woman. Ten days ago the frontier guards marched to set them free."

So again I waited and at length the messengers came, three of them
Egyptians and three men of Ethiopia who dwelt in Egypt to learn its
wisdom, reporting that as Karema had said, through the foolishness of a
servant they had been held prisoner by an Arab chief and thus delayed.
Then they delivered the writings which they had kept safe. One was from
Pharaoh to the Karoon of Ethiopia; one from the holy Tanofir to Karema;
and one from the lady Amada to myself.

With a trembling hand I broke the silk and seals and read. It ran thus:

"Shabaka, my Cousin,

"You departed from Egypt saying that never would you return unless
I, Amada the priestess, called you, and I told you that I should
never call. You said, moreover, that if you came at my c