“I have recovered my foot again! I have recovered my foot!” cried the Princess, as she clapped her little hands one against the other with all the signs of playful joy. “Here is the gentleman who restored it to me.”
The races of Kemi, the races of Nahasi, all the black, bronze, and copper-colored nations, repeated in chorus:
“The Princess Hermonthis has recovered her foot!”
Even Xixouthros was visibly affected: he raised his dull eyelids, passed his fingers over his mustache, and bent upon me his look weighty with centuries.
“By Oms, the dog of Hell, and by Tmei, daughter of the Sun and of Truth, there is a brave and worthy fellow!” exclaimed Pharaoh, extending toward me his sceptre, terminated with a lotus-flower. “What do you desire for recompense?”
Strong in that audacity which is inspired by dreams, where nothing seems impossible, I asked the hand of Hermonthis: the hand seemed to me a very proper antithetic recompense for such a good foot.
Pharaoh opened wide his eyes of glass, astonished by my pleasantry and my request.
“From what country do you come, and what is your age?”
“I am a Frenchman, and I am twenty-seven years old, venerable Pharaoh.”
“Twenty-seven years old—and he wishes to espouse the Princess Hermonthis, who is thirty centuries old!” exclaimed at once all the thrones and all the circles of nations.