By now the Great King was far away, out of reach for most archers.  His chariot forging ahead amidst the remnant of his guards and the nobles who attended on his sacred person, travelled over a little rise where doubtless once there had been a village, long since rotted down to its parent clay.  The sunlight glinted on his shining armour and silken robe, whereof the back was toward me.

I aimed, I drew, I loosed!  Swift and far the shaft sped forward.  By Osiris! it struck him full between the shoulders, and lo! the King of kings, the Monarch of the World, lurched forward, fell on to the rail of his chariot, and rolled to the ground.  Next instant there arose a roar of, “The King is dead!  The Great King is dead! Fly, fly, fly!”

So they fled and after them thundered the pursuers slaying and slaying till they could lift their arms no more.  Oh! yes, some escaped though the men of Thebes and country folk murdered many of them and but a few ever won back to the East to tell the tale of the blotting out of the mighty army of the King of kings and of the doom dealt to him by the great black bow of Shabaka the Egyptian.

I stood there gasping, when suddenly I heard a voice at my side.  It said,

“You seem to have done very well, Brother, even better than we did yonder on the other side of the town, though some might think that fray a thing whereof to make a song.  Also that last shot of yours was worthy of a good archer, for I marked it, I marked it.  A great lord was laid low thereby.  Let us go and see who it was.”

I threw my arm round the bull neck of Bes and leaning on him, advanced to where the King lay alone save for the fallen about him.

“This man is not yet sped,” said Bes.  “Let us look upon his face,” and he turned him over, and stretched him there upon the sand with the arrow standing two spans beyond his corselet.

“Why,” said Bes, “this is a certain High one with whom we had dealings in the East!” and he laughed thickly.

Then the Great King opened his eyes and knew us and on his dying features came a look of hate.

“So you have conquered, Egyptian,” he said.  “Oh! if only I had you again in the East, whence in my folly I let you go——­”

“You would set me in your boat, would you not, whence by the wisdom of Bes I escaped.”

“More than that,” he gasped.

“I shall not serve you so,” I went on.  “I shall leave you to die as a warrior should upon a fair fought field.  But learn, tyrant and murderer, that the shaft which overthrew you came from the black bow you coveted and thought you had received, and that this hand loosed it —­not at hazard.”

“I guessed it,” he whispered.

“Know, too, King, that the lady Amada whom you also coveted, waits to be my wife; that your mighty army is destroyed, and that Egypt is free by the hands of Shabaka the Egyptian and Bes the dwarf.”