“Or that he will be married,” I suggested.

“Just so, Master, seeing that such prophecies end in becoming truths because we make them true, feeling that we must.  Thus, now I must marry yonder Karema if she will marry me for fear lest I should prove the holy Tanofir to be what he called me—­a liar.”

I laughed and then asked Bes if he had taken note of what the seeress said of our flight south and our return thence with a great army of black men armed with bows.

“Yes, Master,” he answered gravely, “and I think this army can be none other than that of the Ethiopians of whom by right I am the King.  This very night I send messengers to tell those who rule in my place that I still live and am changing my mind on the matter of marriage.  Also that if I do change it I may return to them, the wisest man who ever wore the crown of Ethiopia, having journeyed all about the world and collected much knowledge.”

“Perhaps, Bes, those who rule in your place may not wish to give it up to you.  Perhaps they will kill you.”

“Have no fear, Master; as I have told you, the Ethiopians are a faithful people.  Moreover they know that such a deed would bring the curse of the Grasshopper on them, since then the locusts would appear and eat up all their land, and when they were starving their enemies would attack them.  Lastly they are a very tall folk and simple-minded and would not wish to miss the chance of being ruled over by the wisest dwarf in all the world, if only because it would be something new to them, Master.”

Again I laughed thinking that Bes was jesting according to his fashion.  But when that night, chancing to go round the corner of the house, I came upon him with a circlet of feathers round his head and his big bow in his hand, addressing three great black men who knelt before him as though he were a god, I changed my mind.  As I withdrew he caught sight of me and said,

“I pray you, my lord Shabaka, stay one moment.”  Then he spoke to the three men in his own language, translating sentence by sentence to me what he said to them.  Briefly it was this:—­

“Say to the Lords and Councillors of the Ancient Kingdom that I, the Karoon” (for such it seemed was his title) “have a friend named the lord Shabaka, he whom you see before you, who again and again has saved my life, nursing me in his arms as a mother nurses her babe, and who is, after me, the bravest and the wisest man in all the world.  Say to them that if indeed I double myself by marriage and return having fulfilled the law, I will beg this mighty prince to accompany me, and that if he consents that will be the most joyful day which the Ethiopians have seen for a thousand years, since he will teach them wisdom and lead their armies in great and glorious battles.  Let the priests of the Grasshopper pray therefore that he may consent to do so.  Now salute the mighty lord Shabaka who can send one arrow through