Well, to-day we will see whether you can kill a fifty-fourth.

In an hour when the sun begins to sink, the hounds will be loosed in yonder reeds and since the water is behind them, the lions will come out, and then we shall see." Now I saw that the King thought me to be a liar and the blood rose to my head.
"Why wait till the sun begins to sink, O King of kings ?" I said.

"Why not enter the reeds, as is our fashion in the Land of Kush, and rouse the lions from sleep in their own lair ?" Now the King laughed outright and called in a loud voice to his courtiers, "Do ye hear this boasting Egyptian, who talks of entering the reeds and facing the lions in their lair, a thing that no man dare do where none can see to shoot?
What say ye now?
Shall we ask him to prove his words ?" Some great lord stepped forward, one who was a hunter though he looked little like it, for the scent on his hair reached me from four paces away and there was paint upon his face.
"Yes, O King," he said in a mincing voice, "let him enter and kill a lion.

But if he fail, then let a lion kill him.

There are some hungry in the palace den and it is not fit that the King's ears should be filled with empty words by foreigners from Egypt." "So be it," said the King.