He rowed off, whilst I amused the Ethiopians with some of the conjuring tricks I had learnt from Hippalos. The rest of the day, the sailors spent in laboriously ferrying jars to shore in the skiff, carrying them upstream to the pool, filling them, and taking them back to the ship. Meanwhile I conversed with Bakapha, noting new words on the tablet as they came up. The tablet fascinated his men, who crowded around me, looking over my shoulders six at a time, until their pungent odor almost overcame me. I suppose they thought it was big magic.
I learnt that Bakapha was a chief from a village to the northwest. Then women were home cultivating their crops. We ended the day with a grand feast on the beach, pooling the meat of the antelope and the ship's provisions.
The next day, the Ethiopians were still there. When I came ashore, Bakapha indicated that he wanted to visit the Ourania. This was done, while I remained with his men to assure them that their chief should come to no harm. I should like to have warned him against other shipmasters who, if a naked native came trustingly aboard, would seize the man for a slave and sail off with him. But I knew too little of the language to express so complex an idea. Bakapha assured us that several other streams emptied into the sea to the north, where we could replenish our water as we had done here.
When we had refilled our water tank, we took our leave of Bakapha and his band. We last saw them waving to us from the beach. They were the nicest savages I have met.
At last, with much sweat, we rounded the towering cliffs of the Southern Horn. I got back to Alexandria in the middle of winter. When I reported to Ananias at the palace, I said:
"I got what I went for. Could you get me a room in the palace, where I can lay out my pretties in two lots for Her Majesty to choose from?"
"I think I can," said the colonel. "Don't forget that a quarter of your share I get."
"You mean, a quarter of my share after deducting what it cost me!"
"I suppose so. I'm no merchant, nor am I good at figures. I'll have a clerk from the Treasury in to check your calculations."
As it turned out, the queen could see me that afternoon. She arrived in the chamber that I had been given, with the usual guardsmen, ladies in waiting, her two Judaean officers, and a couple of other officials. Pronax and I had spread out the pearls and stones on a linen-covered table in two lots, as much alike as we could make them. One lot, for instance, had a hundred and forty-six pearls, the other a hundred and forty-seven; but the largest pearl of all was in the first lot.
The queen stared at the table for a long time, as if unable to make up her mind. Then she turned to me with a frown.
"Captain Eudoxos," she said, "I wish it understood that I do not suspect you of chicanery. Nevertheless, to make sure that no question shall remain of our complete honesty with each other, you will not, I am sure, mind if I have you searched."
I did mind, but queens are queens. "All right, I suppose so," I growled.
She stiffened at my tone. "Strip him!" she commanded the guards.
"Madam!" I said. "I have my dignity, too—"
But two hulking Celts grabbed me and began peeling off my clothes. In a trice, I stood naked before the queen. She looked me up and down with an appraising eye.
"I daresay," she said, "that when you were young, you could stroke the girls many a mighty stroke. What is that thing around your neck?"
I had tucked my statuette of Ganesha inside my tunic. I explained what the amulet was and how I had come by it.
"Why," asked Queen Kleopatra, "did you not include it in the two piles on yonder table?"
"It's not a pearl, nor yet a precious stone."
"It is still a small and valuable ornament and should therefore have been included. The fact that you tried to hide it shows that you had a guilty mind."
"I did not try to hide it, Your Majesty! I tucked this thing inside my shirt because a Hellene does not ordinarily wear such a foreign bauble, and I did not wish to be conspicuous in Alexandria."
"I don't believe you, but you can earn my forgiveness by giving it to me."
"What?"
"Don't roar at me, graybeard! If you are saucy, by Pan's prick, I'll apply the old law and strip you of everything on that table. Now, will you give me that statue?"
"I will not!" I could have bitten my tongue as soon as I said it. By groveling, I suppose I could have saved my jewels even yet. But I had taken enough injury from the Ptolemies, and at this latest extortion I was furious enough to have thrown this pudgy little Macedonian queen, with her longshoreman's vocabulary, out the palace window, bangles and all.
"You will not, eh?" she screeched, the little green eyes blazing out of her round kitten's face. "We'll see about that, you dung-eating old sodomite!" She motioned to one of the officials. "Gather all that stuff up and deposit it in the Treasury. Take Captain Eudoxos' statuette, too. As for you, you mannerless old peasant, you had better be out of my kingdom tomorrow, unless you crave another lesson in gold mining!"
While I put my clothes back on, the officials hastened to assure Her Divine Majesty that she had done exactly right. "That is the way to treat these lying men of the sea," said one. "Give them a digit and they take a furlong."
He gathered up the corners of the linen tablecloth and slung the resulting sack, containing all my loot from India, over his shoulder. The queen swept out—if a dumpy little woman can be described as "sweeping"—with all her bracelets jingling. Everybody but Ananias followed her. The Judaean remained behind, glowering.
"Why in the name of the Unspoken Name did you have to bungle it?" he growled. "I thought a man of your age and experience knew enough not to sauce royalty."
"By Bakchos' balls, Colonel," I replied, "I have had all I can take from your divine mistress, and you had better not start berating me, too. I'm sorry there are no profits to give you a quarter of, but it's harder on me than on you. Besides, my beard is no grayer than your brother's, and he seems to do all right."
Although a rather humorless man, Ananias smiled a little. "I thought she had touched a sore spot. But one cannot tell off a queen, regardless of the provocation."
"I don't think anything I could have said would have made any difference."
"How so?" he said.
"I think she was lying in wait for me, determined to find some pretext to confiscate my stock. If one thing hadn't worked, she would have tried another. The old Sausage said she was mad—literally crazy—about gems."
Ananias looked at me with some sympathy, but he only shrugged. As a practical courtier, he was not going to voice any criticism of his sovran in the palace, where somebody might be listening from a secret passage.
"What's done is done," he said at last. "But what next?"
"Well, how in Tartaros shall I get out of Egypt tomorrow? The shipping is closed down, save for a few fishermen who won't go out of sight of their home port."
"Let me think," said Ananias. "Is that boy going back to Kyzikos with you?"
"Yes. He's a cousin."
"I can lend you a couple of horses from my stable. They're not the noblest steeds in the world, but home they should get you. One can carry you; the other, the boy and your baggage."
'That's good of you. But how shall I ever return the animals to you?"
Ananias waved a hand. "The next time one of your ships sails to Alexandria, tell the captain to pay me for the beasts. They cost about two hundred drachmai for the pair; that's close enough."
"That is extremely kind and generous of you."
He shrugged again. "As your go-between, I feel somewhat responsible for you."