e reminded her
of the night of the stream.

"In truth, my lord," said she, "I do not know to what you refer. The
wine of the palm does not agree with you. You must have dreamed."

"What," cried the unhappy king, wringing his hands, "your kisses, and
the knife which has left its mark on me, are these dreams?"

She rose; the jewels on her robe made a sound as of hail and flashed
forth lightnings.

"My lord," she said, "it is the hour my council assembles. I have not
the leisure to interpret the dreams of your suffering brain. Take some
repose. Farewell."

Balthasar felt himself sinking, but with a supreme effort not to betray
his weakness to this wicked woman, he ran to his room where he fell in a
swoon and his wound re-opened.

IV

For three weeks he remained unconscious and as one dead, but having
on the twenty-second day recovered his senses, he seized the hand of
Sembobitis, who, with Menkera, watched over him, and cried, weeping:

"O, my friends, how happy you are, one to be old and the other the same
as old. But no! there is no happiness on earth, everything is bad, for
love is an evil and Balkis is wicked."

"Wisdom confers happiness," replied Sembobitis. "I will try it," said
Balthasar. "But let us depart at once for Ethiopia." And as he had lost
all he loved he resolved to consecrate himself to wisdom and to become
a mage. If this decision gave him no especial pleasure it at least
restored to him something of tranquillity. Every evening, seated on the
terrace of his palace in company with the sage Sembobitis and Menkera
the eunuch, he gazed at the palm-trees standing motionless against the
horizon, or watched the crocodiles by the light of the moon float down
the Nile like trunks of trees.

"One never wearies of admiring the beauties of Nature," said Sembobitis.

"Doubtless," said Balthasar, "but there are other things in Nature more
beautiful even than palm-trees and crocodiles."

This he said thinking of Balkis. But Sembobitis, who was old, said:

"There is of course the phenomenon of the rising of the Nile which I
have explained. Man is created to understand."

"He is created to love," replied Balthasar sighing. "There are things
which cannot be explained."

"And what may those be?" asked Sembobitis.

"A woman's treason," the king replied.

Balthasar, however, having decided to become a mage, had a tower built
from the summit of which might be discerned many kingdoms and the
infinit