I said that she had spoken well and sent her in safety from the country, after which I too laid down my crown and departed with some who loved me, to form a brotherhood of women-haters further down the Nile, beyond the borders of Ethiopia.
There the Egyptian force of which you were in command, attacked us unprepared, and you made me your slave.

That is all." "But why did you do this, Bes, seeing that maidens are many and all would not have thought thus ?" "Because I wished for that one only, Master; also I feared lest I should become the father of a breed of twisted dwarfs.

So I who was a king am now a slave, and yet, who knows which way the Grasshopper will jump?
One day from a slave I may again grow into a king.

And now let us seek that wherein kings are as slaves and slaves as kings--sleep." So we lay down and slept, I thanking the gods that my bed was not yonder in the boat upon the great river.
When I woke refreshed, though after all I had gone through on the yesterday my brain still swam a little, the light was pouring through the carved work of the shuttered windows.

By it I saw Bes seated on the floor engaged in doing something to his bow, which, as I have said, had been restored to us with our other weapons, and asked him sleepily what it was.
"Master," he said, "yonder King demanded your bow and therefore a bow must be sent to him.