ve choked each other
between those thick lips of yours. And Shabaka, tell me, have you lost
all your generalship whereof once you had plenty, in the soft air of
Ethiopia? Or is it that even the shadow of marriage makes _you_ dull?
Well, I must turn to the woman, for that is always the lot of man. Your
plan, Karema, and quickly for there is no time to lose."

Now the face of Karema grew fixed and her eyes dreamy as she spoke in a
slow, measured voice like one who knows not what she says.

"My plan is to destroy the armies of the Great King and to relieve the
city of Amada."

"A very good plan," said holy Tanofir, "but the question is, how?"

"I think," went on Karema, "that about a league above this place there
is a spot where at this season the Nile can be forded by tall men
without the wetting of their shoulders. First then, I would send five
thousand swordsmen across that ford and let them creep down on the navy
of the Great King where the sailors revel in safety, or sleep sound, and
fire the ships. The wind blows strongly from the south and the flames
will leap fast from one of them to the other. Most of their crews will
be burned and the rest can be slain by our five thousand."

"Good, very good," said the holy Tanofir, "but not enough, seeing that
on the eastern bank is gathered the host of over two hundred thousand
men. Now how will you deal with _them_, Karema?"

"I seem to see a road yonder beyond the swamp. It runs on the edge of
the desert but behind the sand-hills. I would send the archers of whom
there are more than thirty thousand, under the command of Shabaka along
that road which leads them past Amada. On its farther side are low hills
strewn with rocks. Here I would let the archers take cover and wait for
the breaking of the dawn. Then beneath them they will see the most of
the Eastern host and with such bows as ours they can sweep the plain
from the hills almost to the Nile, and having a hundred arrows to a man,
should slaughter the Easterns by the ten thousand, for when these turn
to charge a shaft should pierce through two together."

"Good again," said Tanofir. "But what of the army of the Great King
which lies upon this side of Amada?"

"I think that before the dawn, believing us so few, it will advance and
with the first light begin to thread the swamp, and therefore we must
keep five thousand archers to gall it as it comes. Still it will win
through, though with loss, and find us waiting f