At length he came back grinning and washing the blade of his knife in the water.  I spoke fiercely to him in my own language, and still he grinned on, making no answer.  When we were mounted again and riding away from that horrible boat with its groaning prisoner, watching Bes whose behaviour and silence I could not understand, I saw him sweep his hand across his great mouth and thrust it swiftly into his bosom.  After this he spoke readily enough, though in a low voice lest someone who understood Egyptian should overhear him.

“You are a fool, Master,” he said, “to think that I should wish to waste time in torturing that fat knave.”

“Then why did you torture him?” I asked.

“Because my god, the Grasshopper, when he fashioned me a dwarf, gave me a big mouth and good teeth,” he answered, whereon I stared at him, thinking that he had gone mad.

“Listen, Master.  I did not hurt Houman.  All I did was to cut his cords nearly through from the under side, so that when night comes he can break them and escape, if he has the wit.  Now, Master, you may not have noticed, but I did, that before the King doomed you to death by the boat yesterday, he took a certain round, white seal, a cylinder with gods and signs cut on it, which hung by a gold chain from his girdle, and gave it to Houman to be his warrant for all he did.  This seal Houman showed to the Treasurer whereon they produced the gold that was weighed in the scales against me, and to others when he ordered the boat to be prepared for you to lie in.  Moreover he forgot to return it, for when he himself was dragged off to the boat by direct command of the King, I caught sight of the chain beneath his robe.  Can you guess the rest?”

“Not quite,” I answered, for I wished to hear the tale in his own words.

“Well, Master, when I was walking with Houman after he had put you in the boat, I asked him about this seal.  He showed it to me and said that he who bore it was for the time the king of all the Empire of the East.  It seems that there is but one such seal which has descended from ancient days from king to king, and that of it every officer, great or small, has an impress in all lands.  If the seal is produced to him, he compares it with the impress and should the two agree, he obeys the order that is brought as though the King had given it in person.  When we reached the Court doubtless Houman would have returned the seal, but seeing that the King was, or feigned to be drunk, waited for fear lest it should be lost, and with it his life.  Then he was seized as you saw, and in his terror forgot all about the seal, as did the King and his officers.”

“But, surely, Bes, those who took Houman to the boat would have removed it.”

“Master, even the most clear-sighted do not see well at night.  At any rate my hope was that they had not done so, and that is why I waded out to prick the eyes of Houman.  Moreover, as I had hoped, so it was; there beneath his robe I saw the chain.  Then I spoke to him, saying,