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“More beautiful than you, madam,” Balthasar cried as he fell at the feet of Balkis, “how could that possibly be!”

“Well, then, her eyes? her mouth, her colour? her throat?” the queen continued.

With his arms outstretched towards her, Balthasar cried:

“Give me but the little feather that has fallen on your neck and in return you shall have half my kingdom as well as the wise Sembobitis and Menkera the eunuch.”

But she rose and fled with a ripple of dear laughter.

When the mage and the eunuch returned they found their master plunged deep in thought which was not his custom.

“My lord!” asked Sembobitis, “have you concluded a good commercial treaty?”

That day Balthasar supped with the Queen of Sheba and drank the wine of the palm-tree.

“It is true, then,” said Balkis as they supped together, “that Queen Guidace is not so beautiful as I?”

“Queen Candace is black,” replied Balthasar.

Balkis looked expressively at Balthasar.

“One may be black and yet not ill-looking,” she said.

“Balkis!” cried the king.

He said no more, but seized her in his arms, and the head of the queen sank back under the pressure of his lips. But he saw that she was weeping. Thereupon he spoke to her in the low, caressing tones that nurses use to their nurslings. He called her his little blossom and his little star.

“Why do you weep?” he asked. “And what must one do to dry your tears? If you have a desire tell me and it shall be fulfilled.”

She ceased weeping, but she was sunk deep in thought He implored her a long time to tell him her desire. And at last she spoke.

“I wish to know fear.”

And as Balthasar did not seem to understand, she explained to him that for a long time past she had greatly longed to face some unknown danger, but she could not, for the men and gods of Sheba watched over her.

“And yet,” she added with a sigh, “during the night I long to feel the delicious chill of terror penetrate my flesh. To have my hair stand up on my head with horror. O! it would be such joy to be afraid!”

She twined her arms about the neck of the dusky king, and said with the voice of a pleading child:

“Night has come. Let us go through the town in disguise. Are you willing?”

He agreed. She ran to the window at once and looked though the lattice into the square below.

“A beggar is lying against the palace wall. Give him your garments and ask him in exchange for his camel-hair turban and the coarse cloth girt about his loins. Be quick and I will dress myself.”

And she ran out of the banqueting-hall joyfully clapping her hands one against the other.

Balthasar took off his linen tunic embroidered with gold and girded himself with the skirt of the beggar. It gave him the look of a real slave. The queen soon reappeared dressed in the blue seamless garment of the women who work in the fields.

“Come!” she said.

And she dragged Balthasar along the narrow corridors towards a little door which opened on the fields.

II.

The night was dark, and in the darkness of the night Balkis looked very small.

She led Balthasar to one of the taverns where wastrels and street porters foregathered along with prostitutes. The two sat down at a table and saw through the foul air by the light of a fetid lamp, unclean human brutes attack each other with fists and knives for a woman or a cup of fermented liquor, while others with clenched fists snored under the tables. The tavern-keeper, lying on a pile of sacking, watched the drunken brawlers with a prudent eye. Balkis, having seen some salt fish hanging from the rafters of the ceiling, said to her companion:

“I much wish to eat one of these fish with pounded onions.”

Balthasar gave the order. When she had eaten he discovered that he had forgotten to bring money. It gave him no concern, for he thought that he could slip out with her without paying the reckoning. But the tavern-keeper barred their way, calling them a vile slave and a worthless she-ass. Balthasar struck him to the ground with a blow of his fist. Whereupon some of the drinkers drew their knives and flung themselves on the two strangers. But the black man, seizing an enormous pestle used to pound Egyptian onions, knocked down two of his assailants and forced the others back. And all the while he was conscious of the warmth of Balkis’ body as she cowered close against him; it was this which made him invincible.