“Now I wish I had remained a Cup,” she said, “and the servant of the holy Tanofir who at least taught me many secret things, instead of coming to dwell among black barbarians in the company of a dwarf who, even if he be a king, it seems has no power to protect the wife whom he has chosen.”
“Why will women always grow wroth before there is need?” asked Bes humbly. “Surely it would be time to rate me when any of these things had happened.”
“If any of them do happen, Husband, I shall say much worse things than that,” she replied, but the talk went no further, for at this moment our boat grounded and singing a wild song, many of those who waited rushed into the water to drag it to the bank.
Then Bes stood up on the prow, waving his bow and there arose a mighty shout of, “_Karoon! Karoon!_ It is he, it is he returned after many years!”
Twice they shouted thus and then, every one of them, threw themselves face downwards in the sand.
“Yes, my people,” cried Bes, “it is I, Karoon, who having been miraculously preserved from many dangers in far lands by the help of the Grasshopper in heaven, and, as my messengers will have told you, of my beloved friend, lord Shabaka the Egyptian, who has deigned to come to dwell with us for a while, have at length returned to Ethiopia that I may shed my wisdom on you like the sun and pour it on your heads like melted honey. Moreover, mindful of our laws which aforetime I defied and therefore left you, I have searched the whole world through till I found the most beautiful woman that it contained, and made her my wife. She too has deigned to come to this far country to be your queen. Advance, fair Karema, and show yourself to these my Ethiopians.”
So Karema stepped forward and stood on the prow of the boat by the side of Bes, and a strange couple they looked. The Ethiopians who had risen, considered her gravely, then one of them said,
“Karoon called her beautiful, but in truth she is almost white and very ugly.”
“At least she is a woman,” said another, “for her shape is female.”
“Yes, and he has married her,” remarked a third, “and even a king may choose his own wife sometimes. For in such matters who can judge another’s taste?”
“Cease,” said Bes in a lordly way. “If you do not think her beautiful to-night, you will to-morrow. And now let us land and rest.”