“There is no need, you might sell her to your friend, Peroa.  A satrapy?”

“Not so, O King, for then I must govern it, which would keep me from my hunting, until it pleased the King to take my head.”

“By the name of the holy ones I worship what then do you ask added to the pearls and the pure gold?”

Now I tried to bethink me of something that the King could not grant, since I had no wish for this match which my heart warned me would end in trouble.  As no thought came to me I looked at Bes and saw that he was rolling his eyes towards the six doomed hunters who were being led away, also in pretence of driving off a fly, pointing to them with one of the lion tails.  Then I remembered that a decree once uttered by the King of the East could not be altered, and saw a road of escape.

“O King,” I said, “together with the pearls and the gold I ask that the lives of those six hunters be added to the wager, to be spared if by chance I should win.”

“Why?” asked the King amazed.

“Because they are brave men, O King, and I would not see the bones of such cracked by tame beasts in a cage.”

“Is my judgment registered?” asked the King.

“Not yet, O King,” answered the head scribe.

“Then it has no weight and can be suspended without the breaking of the law.  Shabaka, thus stands our wager.  If I kill more lions than you do this day, or, should but two be slain, I kill the first, or should none be slain, I plant more arrows in their bodies, I take your slave, Bes the dwarf, to be my slave.  But should you have the better of me in any of these ways, then I give to you this girdle of rose pearls and the weight of the dwarf Bes in gold and the six hunters free of harm, to do with what you will.  Let it be recorded, and to the hunt.”

Soon Bes and I were in our chariot which by command took place in line with that of the King, but at a distance of some thirty steps.  Bending over the dwarf who drove, I spoke with him, saying,

“Our luck is ill to-day, Bes, seeing that before the end of it we may well be parted.”

“Not so, Master, our luck is good to-day seeing that before the end of it you will be the richer by the finest pearls in the whole world, by my weight in pure gold (and Master, I am twice as heavy as the king thought and will stuff myself with twenty pounds of meat before the weighing, if I have the chance, or at least with water, though in this hot place that will not last for long), and by six picked huntsmen, brave men as you thought, who will serve to escort us and our treasure to the coast.”

“First I must win the match, Bes.”