“Are you harmed, Master” cried Bes in a voice of agony.
“Very little I think,” I answered, sitting up with the blood pouring from my arm.
Bes thrust aside Karema who had come lightly clothed from her tent, saying,
“All is well, Wife. I will bring you the lilies presently.”
Then he flung his arms about me, kissed my hands and my brow and turning to the crowd, shouted,
“Last night you were disputing as to whether this Egyptian lord should be allowed to dwell with me in the land of Ethiopia. Which of you disputes it now?”
“No one!” they answered with a roar. “He is not a man but a god. No man could have done such a deed.”
“So it seems,” answered Bes quietly. “At least none of you even tried to do it. Yet he is not a god but only that kind of man who is called a hero. Also he is my brother, and while I reign in Ethiopia either he shall reign at my side, or I go away with him.”
“It shall be so, Karoon!” they shouted with one voice. And after this I was carried back to the tent.
In front of it my mother waited and kissed me proudly before them all, whereat they shouted again.