At length I made up my mind.  By nature I was a hunter as much as a soldier; I would beg from Bes a band of brave men whom I knew, lovers of adventure who sought new things, and with them strike down south, following the path of the elephants to wherever the gods might lead us.  Doubtless in the end it would be to death, but what matter when there is nothing for which one cares to live?

While I was brooding over these plans Karema read my mind, perhaps because it was her own, perhaps by help of her strange arts, which I do not know.  At least one day when I was sitting alone looking at the city beneath from one of the palace window-places, she came to me looking very beautiful and very mystic in the white robes she always loved to wear, and said,

“My lord Shabaka, you tire of this land of honey and sweetness and soft airs and flowers and gold and crystal and black people who grin and chatter and are not pleasant to be near, is it not so?”

“Yes, Queen,” I answered.

“Do not call me queen, my lord Shabaka, for I weary of that name, as we both do of the rest.  Call me Karema the Arab, or Karema the Cup, which you will, but by the name of Thoth, god of learning, do not call me queen.”

“Karema then,” I said.  “Well, how do you know that I tire of all this, Karema?”

“How could you do otherwise who are not a barbarian and who have Egypt in your heart, and Egypt’s fate and——­” here she looked me straight in the eye’s, “Egypt’s Lady.  Besides, I measure you by myself.”

“You at least should be happy, Karema, who are great and rich and beloved, and the wife of a King who is one of the best of men, and the mother of children.”

“Yes, Shabaka, I should be but I am not, for who can live on sweetmeats only, especially when they like what is sour?  See now how strangely we are made.  When I was a girl, the daughter of an Arab chief, well bred and well taught as it chanced, I tired of the hard life of the desert and the narrow minds about me, I who longed for wisdom and to know great men.  Then I became the Cup of the holy Tanofir and wisdom was all about me, strange wisdom from another world, rough, sharp wisdom from Tanofir, and the quiet wisdom of the dead among whom I dwelt.  I wearied of that also, Shabaka.  I was beautiful and knew it and I longed to shine in a Court, to be admired among men, to be envied of women, to rule.  My husband came my way.  He was clever with a great heart.  He was your friend and therefore I was sure that he must be loyal and true.  He was, or might be, a king, as I knew, though he thought that I did not.  I married him and the holy Tanofir laughed but he did not say me nay, and I became a queen.  And now I wish sometimes that I were dead, or back holding the cup of the holy Tanofir with the wisdom of the heavens flowing round me and the soft darkness of the tombs about me.  It seems that in this world we never can be content, Shabaka.”