So that general departed with the two guides, looking somewhat frightened, and soon was marching up Nile at the head of five thousand swordsmen.

Now Bes looked at me and said,

“It seems that you had better be gone also, my Brother, with the archers.  Perchance the holy Tanofir will show you whither.”

“No, no,” answered Tanofir, “my guides will show him.  Look not so doubtful, Shabaka.  Did I fail you when you were in the grip of the King of kings in the East, and only your own life and that of Bes were at stake?”

“I do not know,” I answered.

“You do not know, but I know, as I think do Bes and Karema, since the one received the messages which the other sent.  Well, if I did not fail you then, shall I fail you now when Egypt is at stake?  Follow these guides I give you, and——­” here he took hold of the quiver of arrows that lay beside me on the ground, and as certainly as though he could see it with his blind eyes, touched one of them, on the shaft of which were two black and a white feather, “remember my words after you have loosed this arrow from your great black bow and noted where it strikes.”

Then I turned to Bes and asked,

“Where do we meet again?”

“I cannot say, Brother,” he answered.  “In Amada if that may be.  If not, at the Table of Osiris, or in the fields of the Grasshopper, or in the blackness which swallows all, gods and men together.”

“Does Karema come with me or bide with you?” I asked again.

“She does neither,” interrupted Tanofir, “she accompanies me to Amada, where I have need of her and she will be more safe.  Oh! fear nothing, for every hermit however poor, still carries his staff and his cup, even if it be cracked.”

Then I shook Bes by the hand and went my way, wondering if I were awake or dreaming, and the last thing I saw in that tent was the beautiful face of Karema smiling at me.  This I took to be a good omen, since I knew that it was the heart of the holy Tanofir which smiled, and that her eyes were but its mirror.

Already my thirty thousand archers were marshalling, and having made sure that there was ample store of arrows and that all their gourds were filled with water, I set myself at their head while in front of me walked the two veiled guides.  I looked upon them doubtfully, since it seemed dangerous to trust an army to unknown men who for aught I knew, might lead us into the midst of our foes.  Then I remembered that they were vouched for by the holy Tanofir, my own great-uncle whom I trusted above any man on earth, and took heart again.

How had he come into our tent, I wondered, and how, blind as he was, would he get back into Amada with Karema, if he took her?  Well, who could account for the goings or the comings of the holy Tanofir, who was more of a spirit than a man?  Perhaps it was not really he whom we had seen, but what we Egyptians called his Ka or Double which can pass to and fro at will.  Only do Kas eat?  Of this matter I knew only that offerings of food and drink are made to them in tombs.  So leaving the holy Tanofir to guard himself, I turned my mind to our own business, which was to surprise the army of the Great King.