“The truth is, Brother,” he said, for so he called me now, “that all peoples in the world do not offer petitions to what they see and have been taught to revere, but to something beyond of which to them it is a sign.  But why the Ethiopians should have chosen a grasshopper as a symbol of God who is everywhere, is more than I can tell.  Still they have done so for thousands of years.”

When I came to my mother’s bedside she was wandering and I saw that she could not live long.  In a little while, however, her mind cleared so that she knew me and tears of joy ran down her pale cheeks because I had returned before she died.  She reminded me that she had always said that she would find a grave in Ethiopia, and asked to be buried and not kept above ground in crystal, as was the custom there.  Then she said that she had been dreaming of my father and of me; also that she did not think that I need fret myself overmuch about Amada, since she was sure that before long I should kiss her on the lips.

I asked if she meant that I should marry her and that we should be happy and fortunate.  She replied that she supposed that I should marry her, but of the rest would say nothing.  Indeed her face grew troubled, as though some thought hurt her, and leaving the matter of Amada she bade Karema bring me the rose-hued pearls, blessed me, prayed for our reunion in the halls of Osiris, and straightway died.

So I caused her to be embalmed after the Egyptian fashion and enclosed in a coffin of crystal with a scarab on her heart that Karema had discovered somewhere in the city, for always she was searching for things that reminded her of Egypt, whereof many were to be found brought from time to time by travellers or strangers.  Then with such ceremony as we could without the services of the priests of Osiris, Karema and I buried her in a tomb that Bes had caused to be made near to the steps of the temple of the Grasshopper, while Bes and his nobles watched from a distance.

And so farewell to my beloved mother, the lady Tiu.

After she was gone I grew very sad and lonely.  While she lived I had a home, but now I was an exile, a stranger in a strange land with no one of my own people to talk to except Karema, with whom, as there were gossips even in Ethiopia, I thought it well not to talk too much.  There was Bes it was true, but now he was a great king and the time of kings is not their own.  Moreover Bes was Bes and an Ethiopian and I was I and an Egyptian, and therefore notwithstanding our love and brotherhood, we could never be like men of the same blood and country.

I grew weary of Ethiopia with its useless gold and damp eternal green and heat, and longed for the sand and the keen desert air.  Bes noted it and offered me wives, but I shrank from these black women however buxom and kindly, and wished for no offspring of their race whom afterwards I could never leave.  To Egypt I had sworn not to return unless one voice called me and it remained silent.  What then was I to do, being no longer content to discipline and command an army that I might not lead into battle?