Chapter V: The Wager

While the scribes were at their work I bowed before the King and prayed his leave and I and the dwarf Bes might get to ours.

“Go,” he said, “and return here within an hour. If you do not return tidings of your death shall be sent to the satrap of Egypt to be told to your wives.”

“I thank the King, but it is needless, for I have no wives, which are ill company for a hunter.”

“Strange,” he said, “since many women would be glad to name such a man their husband, at least here among us Easterns.”

Walking backwards and bowing as we went, Bes and I returned to our chariot. There we stripped off our outer garments till Bes was naked save for his waistcloth and I was clad only in a jerkin. Then I took my bow, my arrows and my knife, and Bes took two spears, one light for throwing and the other short, broad and heavy for stabbing. Thus armed we passed back before the Easterns who stared at us, and advanced to the edge of the thicket of tall reeds that was full of lions.

Here Bes took dust and threw it into the air that we might learn from which quarter the light wind blew.

“We will go against the breeze, Lord,” he said, “that I may smell the lions before they smell us.”

I nodded, and answered,

“Hearken, Bes. Well may it be that we kill no lions in this place where it is hard to shoot. Yet I would not return to be thrown to wild beasts by yonder evil king. Therefore if we fail in this or in any other way, do you kill me, if you still live.”

He rolled his eyes and grinned.

“Not so, Master. Then we will win through the reeds and lie hid in their edge till darkness comes, for in them those half-men will never dare to seek for us. Afterwards we will swim the water and disguise ourselves as jugglers and try to reach the coast, and so back to Egypt, having learned much. Never stretch out your hand to Death till he stretches out his to you, which he will do soon enough, Master.”

Again I nodded and said,

“And if a lion should kill me, Bes, what then?”

“Then, Master, I will kill that lion if I can and go report the matter to the King.”

“And if he should wish to throw you to the beasts, Bes, what then?”

“Then, first I will drag him down to the greatest of all beasts, he who waits to devour evil-doers in the Under-world, be they kings or slaves,” and he stretched out his long arms and made a motion as of clutching a man by the throat. “Oh! have no fear, Master, I can break him like a stick, and afterwards we will talk the matter over among the dead, for I shall swallow my tongue and die also. It is a good trick, Master, which I wish you would learn.”

Then he took my hand and kissed it and we entered the reeds, I, who was a hunter, feeling more happy than I had done since we set foot in the East.

Yet the quest was desperate for the reeds were tall and often I could not see more than a bow’s length in front of me. Presently, however, we found a path made perchance by game coming down to drink, or by crocodiles coming up to sleep, and followed it, I with an arrow on my string and Bes with the throwing spear in his right hand and the stabbing spear in his left, half a pace ahead of me. On we crept, Bes drawing in the air through his great nostrils as a hound might do, till suddenly he stopped and sniffed towards the north.

“I smell lion near,” he whispered, searching among the reed stems with his eyes. “I see lion,” he whispered again, and pointed, but I could see nothing save the stems of the reeds.

“Rouse him,” I whispered back, “and I will shoot as he bounds.”

Then Bes poised the spear, shook it till it quivered, and threw. There was a roar and a lioness appeared with the spear fast in her flank. I loosed the arrow but it cut into the thick reeds and stuck there.

“Forward!” whispered Bes, “for where woman is, there look for man. The lion will be near.”

We crept on, Bes stopping to cut the arrow from a reed and set it back in the quiver, for it was a good arrow made by himself. But now he shifted the broad spear to his right hand and in his left held his knife. We heard the wounded lioness roar not far away.

“She calls her man to help her,” whispered Bes, and as the words left his lips the reeds down wind began to sway, for we were smelt.

They swayed, they parted and, half seen, half hid between their stems, appeared the head of a great, black-maned lion. I drew the string and shot, this time not in vain, for I heard the arrow thud upon his hide. Then before I could set another he was on us, reared upon his hind legs and roaring. As I drew my dagger he struck at me, but I bent down and his paw went over my head. Then his weight came against me and I fell beneath him, stabbing him in the belly as I fell. I saw his mighty jaws open to crush my head. Then they shut again and through them burst a whine like that of a hurt dog.

Bes had driven his spear into the lion’s breast, so deep that the point of it came out through the back. Still he was not dead, only now it was Bes he sought. The dwarf ran at him as he reared up again, and casting his great arms about the brute’s body, wrestled with him as man with man.

Then it was, for the first time I think, that I learned all the Ethiopian’s strength. For he, a dwarf, threw that lion on its back and thrusting his big head beneath the jaws, struggled with it madly. I was up, the knife still in my hand, and oh! I too was strong. Into the throat I drove it, dragging it this way and that, and lo! the lion moaned and died and his blood gushed out over both of us. Then Bes sat up and laughed, and I too laughed, since neither of us had more than scratches and we had done what men could scarcely do.

“Do you remember, Master,” said Bes when he had finished laughing, as he wiped his brow with some damp moss, “how, once far away up the Nile you charged a mad elephant with a spear and saved me who had fallen, from being trampled to death?”

I, Shabaka, answered that I did. (And I, Allan Quatermain, observing all these things in my psychic trance in the museum of Ragnall Castle, reflected that I also remembered how a certain Hans had saved me from a certain mad elephant, to wit, Jana, not so long before, which just shows how things come round.)

“Yes,” went on Bes, “you saved me from that elephant, though it seemed death to you. And, Master, I will tell you something now. That very morning I had tried to poison you, only you would not wait to eat because the elephants were near.”

“Did you?” I asked idly. “Why?”

“Because two years before you captured me in battle with some of my people, and as I was misshapen, or for pity’s sake, spared my life and made me your slave. Well, I who had been a chief, a very great chief, Master, did not wish to remain a slave and did wish to avenge my people’s blood. Therefore I tried to poison you, and that very day you saved my life, offering for it your own.”

“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.

“It seems that this Egyptian has killed a lion,” said the King to one of his lords, him of the painted face and scented hair.

“May be please the King,” he answered, bowing, “a tail is not the whole beast and may have been taken thither, or cut from a lion lying dead already. The King knows that the Egyptians are great liars.”

So he spoke because he was jealous of the deed.

“These men look as though they had met a live one, not one that is dead,” said the King, scanning our blood-stained shapes. “Still, as you doubt it, you will wish to put the matter to the proof. Therefore, Cousin, take six men with you, enter the reeds and search. In that soft ground it will be easy to follow their footmarks.”

“It is dangerous, O King,” began the prince, for such he was, no less.

“And therefore the task will be the more to your taste, Cousin. Go now, and be swift.”

So six hunters were called and the prince went, cursing me beneath his breath as he passed us. For he was terribly afraid, and with reason. Suddenly Bes ceased from his antics and prostrating himself, cried,

“A boon, O King. This noble lord throws doubt upon my master’s word. Suffer that I may lead him to where the lion lies dead, since otherwise wandering in those reeds the great King’s cousin might come to harm and the great King be grieved.”

“I have many cousins,” said the King. “Still go if you wish, Dwarf.”

So Bes ran after the prince and catching him up, tapped him on the shoulder with the lion’s tail to point out the way. Then they vanished into the reeds and I went to the chariot to wash off the blood from my body and clothes. As I fastened my robe I heard a sound of roaring, then one scream, after which all grew still. Now I drew near to the reeds and stood between them and the King’s camp.

Presently on their edge appeared Bes dancing and singing as before, but this time he held a lion’s tail in either hand. After him came the six hunters dragging between them the body of the lion we had killed. They staggered with it towards the King, and I followed.

“I see the dwarf,” he said. “I see the dead lion and I see the hunters. But where is my cousin? Make report, O Bes.”

“O King of kings,” replied Bes, “the mighty prince your cousin lies flat yonder beneath the body of that lion’s wife. She sprang upon him and killed him, and I sprang upon her and killed her with my spear. Here is her tail, O King of kings.”

“Is this true?” he asked of the hunters.

“It is true, O King,” answered their captain. “The lioness, which was wounded, leapt upon the prince, choosing him although he was behind us all. Then this dwarf leapt upon the lioness, being behind the prince and nearest to him, and drove his spear through her shoulders to her heart. So we brought the first lion as the King commanded us, since we could carry no more.”

The face of the King grew red with rage.

“Seven of my people and one black dwarf!” he exclaimed. “Yet the lioness kills my cousin and the dwarf kills the lioness. Such is the tale that will go to Egypt concerning the hunters of the King of the world. Seize those men, Guards, and let them be fed to the wild beasts in the palace dens.”

At once the unfortunates were seized and led away. Then the King called Bes to him, and taking the gold chain he wore about his neck, threw it over his head, thereby, though I knew nothing of it at the time, conferring upon him some noble rank. Next he called to me and said,

“It would seem that you are skilled in the use of the bow and in the hunting of lions, Egyptian. Therefore I will honour you, for this afternoon your chariot shall drive with my chariot, and we will hunt side by side. Moreover, I will lay you a wager as to which of us will kill the most lions, for know, Shabaka, that I also am skilled in the use of the bow, more skilled than any among the millions of my subjects.”

“Then, O King, it is of little use for me to match myself against you, seeing that I have met men who can shoot better than I do, or, since in the East all must speak nothing but the truth, not being liars as the dead prince said we Egyptians are, one man.”

“Who was that man, Shabaka?”

“The Prince Peroa, O King.”

The King frowned as though the name displeased him, then answered,

“Am I not greater than this Peroa and cannot I therefore shoot better?”

“Doubtless, O King of kings, and therefore how can I who shoot worse than Peroa, match myself against you?”

“For which reason I will give you odds, Shabaka. Behold this rope of rose-hued pearls I wear. They are unequalled in the whole world, for twenty years the merchants sought them in the days of my father; half of them would buy a satrapy. I wager them”--here the listening nobles gasped and the fat eunuch, Houman, held up his hands in horror.

“Against what, O King?”

“Your slave Bes, to whom I have taken a fancy.”

Now I trembled and Bes rolled his yellow eyes.

“Your pardon, O King of kings,” I said, “but it is not enough. I am a hunter and to such, priceless pearls are of little use. But to me that dwarf is of much use in my hunting.”

“So be it, Shabaka, then I will add to the wager. If you win, together with the pearls I will give you the dwarf’s weight in solid gold.”

“The King is bountiful,” I answered, “but it is not enough, for even if I win against one who can shoot better than Peroa, which is impossible, what should I do with so much gold? Surely for the sake of it I should be murdered or ever I saw the coasts of Egypt.”

“What shall I add then?” asked the King. “The most beauteous maiden in the House of Women?”

I shook my head. “Not so, O King, for then I must marry who would remain single.”

“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.”