“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.”
“By the name of the holy ones I worship what then do you ask added to the pearls and the pure gold?”
Now I tried to bethink me of something that the King could not grant, since I had no wish for this match which my heart warned me would end in trouble. As no thought came to me I looked at Bes and saw that he was rolling his eyes towards the six doomed hunters who were being led away, also in pretence of driving off a fly, pointing to them with one of the lion tails. Then I remembered that a decree once uttered by the King of the East could not be altered, and saw a road of escape.
“O King,” I said, “together with the pearls and the gold I ask that the lives of those six hunters be added to the wager, to be spared if by chance I should win.”
“Why?” asked the King amazed.
“Because they are brave men, O King, and I would not see the bones of such cracked by tame beasts in a cage.”