xchange for his camel-hair turban and the coarse cloth girt
about his loins. Be quick and I will dress myself."

And she ran out of the banqueting-hall joyfully clapping her hands one
against the other.

Balthasar took off his linen tunic embroidered with gold and girded
himself with the skirt of the beggar. It gave him the look of a real
slave. The queen soon reappeared dressed in the blue seamless garment of
the women who work in the fields.

"Come!" she said.

And she dragged Balthasar along the narrow corridors towards a little
door which opened on the fields.

II.

The night was dark, and in the darkness of the night Balkis looked very
small.

She led Balthasar to one of the taverns where wastrels and street
porters foregathered along with prostitutes. The two sat down at a table
and saw through the foul air by the light of a fetid lamp, unclean human
brutes attack each other with fists and knives for a woman or a cup
of fermented liquor, while others with clenched fists snored under
the tables. The tavern-keeper, lying on a pile of sacking, watched the
drunken brawlers with a prudent eye. Balkis, having seen some salt fish
hanging from the rafters of the ceiling, said to her companion:

"I much wish to eat one of these fish with pounded onions."

Balthasar gave the order. When she had eaten he discovered that he had
forgotten to bring money. It gave him no concern, for he thought that
he could slip out with her without paying the reckoning. But the
tavern-keeper barred their way, calling them a vile slave and a
worthless she-ass. Balthasar struck him to the ground with a blow of
his fist. Whereupon some of the drinkers drew their knives and flung
themselves on the two strangers. But the black man, seizing an enormous
pestle used to pound Egyptian onions, knocked down two of his assailants
and forced the others back. And all the while he was conscious of the
warmth of Balkis' body as she cowered close against him; it was this
which made him invincible.

The tavern-keeper's friends, not daring to approach again, flung at
him from the end of the pot-house jars of oil, pewter vessels, burning
lamps, and even the huge bronze cauldron in which a whole sheep was
stewing. This cauldron fell with a horrible crash on Balthasar's
head and split his skull. For a moment he stood as if dazed, and then
summoning all his strength he flung the cauldron back with such force
that its weight was increased tenfold.