So I went, being too tired to talk more, and slept like a crocodile in the sun, till, as it seemed to me, but a few minutes later I saw my mother standing over me with a lamp, saying that it was time to rise.  I rose, unwillingly enough, but refreshed, washed and dressed myself, by which time the sun had begun to appear.  Then I ate some food and, calling Bes, made ready to start for the palace.

“My son,” said my mother, the lady Tiu, before we parted, “while you have been sleeping I have been thinking, as is the way of the old.  Peroa, your cousin, will be glad enough to make use of you, but he does not love you over much because he is jealous of you and fears lest you should become his rival in the future.  Still he is an honest man and will keep a bargain which he once has made.  Now it seems that above everything on earth you desire Amada on whom you have set your heart since boyhood, but who has always played with you and spoken to you with her arm stretched out.  Also life is short and may come to an end any day, as you should know better than most men who have lived among dangers, and therefore it is well that a man should take what he desires, even if he finds afterwards that the rose he crushes to his breast has thorns.  For then at least he will have smelt the rose, not only have looked on and longed to smell it.  Therefore, before you hand over your gold, and place your wit and strength at the service of Peroa, make your bargain with him; namely, that if thereby you save Amada from the King’s House of Women and help to set Peroa on the throne, he shall promise her to you free of any priestly curse, you giving her as dowry the priceless rose-hued pearls that are worth a kingdom.  So you will get your rose till it withers, and if the thorns prick, do not blame me, and one day you may become a king—­or a slave, Amen knows which.”

Now I laughed and said that I would take her counsel who desired Amada and nothing else.  As for all her talk about thorns, I paid no heed to it, knowing that she loved me very much and was jealous of Amada who she thought would take her place with me.

CHAPTER X

SHABAKA PLIGHTS HIS TROTH

Bes and I went armed to the palace, walking in the middle of the road, but now that the sun was up we met no more robbers.  At the gate a messenger summoned me alone to the presence of Peroa, who, he said, wished to talk with me before the sitting of the Council.  I went and found him by himself.

“I hear that you were attacked last night,” he said after greeting me.

I answered that I was and told him the story, adding that it was fortunate I had left the White Seal and the pearls in safe keeping, since without doubt the would-be thieves were Easterns who desired to recover them.

“Ah! the pearls,” he said.  “One of those who handled them, who was once a dealer in gems, says that they are without price, unmatched in the whole world, and that never in all his life has he seen any to equal the smallest of them.”