“I think it was because I wanted the tusks of the elephant, Bes.”

“Perhaps, Master, only you will remember that this elephant was a young cow and had no tusks worth anything.  Still had it carried tusks, it might have been so, since one white tusk is worth many black dwarfs.  Well, to-day I have paid you back.  I say it lest you should forget that had it not been for me, that lion would have eaten you.”

“Yes, Bes, you have paid me back and I thank you.”

“Master, hitherto I always thought you one who worshipped Maat, goddess of Truth.  Now I see that you worship the god of Lies, whoever he may be, that god who dwells in the breasts of women and most men, but has no name.  For, Master, it was you who saved me from the lion and not I you, since you cut its throat at the last.  So that debt of mine is still to pay and by the great Grasshopper which we worship in my country, who is much better than all the gods of the Egyptians put together, I swear that I will pay it soon, or mayhap ten thousand years hence.  At the last it shall be paid.”

“Why do you worship a grasshopper and why is he better than the gods of the Egyptians?” I asked carelessly, for I was tired and his talk amused me while we rested.

“We worship the Grasshopper, Master, because he jumps with men’s spirits from one life to another, or from this world to the next, yes, right through the blue sky.  And he is better than your Egyptian gods because they leave you to find your own way there, and then eat you alive, that is if you have tried to poison people, as of course we have all done.  But, Master, we are fresh again now, so let us be going, for the hour will soon be finished.  Also when she has eaten the spear handle, that lioness may return.”

“Yes,” I said; “let us go and report to the King of kings that we have killed a lion.”

“Master, it is not enough.  Even common kings believe little that they do not see, wherefore it is certain that a King of kings will believe nothing and still more certain that he will not come here to look.  So as we cannot carry the lion, we must take a bit of it,” and straightway he cut off the end of the brute’s tail.

Following the crocodile path, presently we reached the edge of the reeds opposite to the camp where the King now sat in state beneath a purple pavilion that had been reared, eating a meal, with his courtiers standing at a distance and looking very hungry.

Out of the reeds bounded Bes, naked and bloody, waving the lion’s tail and singing some wild Ethiopian chant, while I, also bloody and half naked, for the lion’s claws had torn my jerkin off me, followed with bow unstrung.

The King looked up and saw us.

“What!  Do you live, Egyptian?” he asked.  “Of a surety I thought that by now you would be dead.”

“It was the lion that died, O King,” I answered, pointing to Bes who, having ceased from his song, was jumping about carrying the beast’s tail in his mouth as a dog carries a bone.