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.