“My lord,” she said, “it is the hour my council assembles. I have not the leisure to interpret the dreams of your suffering brain. Take some repose. Farewell.” Balthasar felt himself sinking, but with a supreme effort not to betray his weakness to this wicked woman, he ran to his room where he fell in a swoon and his wound re-opened. IV For three weeks he remained unconscious and as one dead, but having on the twenty-second day recovered his senses, he seized the hand of Sembobitis, who, with Menkera, watched over him, and cried, weeping: “O, my friends, how happy you are, one to be old and the other the same as old. But no! there is no happiness on earth, everything is bad, for love is an evil and Balkis is wicked.” “Wisdom confers happiness,” replied Sembobitis. “I will try it,” said Balthasar. “But let us depart at once for Ethiopia.” And as he had lost all he loved he resolved to consecrate himself to wisdom and to become a mage. If this decision gave him no especial pleasure it at least restored to him something of tranquillity. Every evening, seated on the terrace of his palace in company with the sage Sembobitis and Menkera the eunuch, he gazed at the palm-trees standing motionless against the horizon, or watched the crocodiles by the light of the moon float down the Nile like trunks of trees. “One never wearies of admiring the beauties of Nature,” said Sembobitis. “Doubtless,” said Balthasar, “but there are other things in Nature more beautiful even than palm-trees and crocodiles.” This he said thinking of Balkis. But Sembobitis, who was old, said: “There is of course the phenomenon of the rising of the Nile which I have explained. Man is created to understand.” “He is created to love,” replied Balthasar sighing. “There are things which cannot be explained.” “And what may those be?” asked Sembobitis. “A woman’s treason,” the king replied. Balthasar, however, having decided to become a mage, had a tower built from the summit of which might be discerned many kingdoms and the infinite spaces of Heaven. The tower was constructed of brick and rose high above all other towers. It took no less than two years to build, and Balthasar expended in its construction the entire treasure of the king, his father. Every night he climbed to the top of this tower and there he studied the heavens under the guidance of the sage Sembobitis. “The constellations of the heavens disclose our destiny,” said Sembobitis. And he replied: “It must be admitted nevertheless that these signs are obscure. But while I study them I forget Balkis, and that is a great boon.” And among truths most useful to know, the mage taught that the stars are fixed like nails in the arch of the sky, and that there are five planets, namely: Bel, Merodach, and Nebo, which are male, while Sin and Mylitta are female. “Silver,” he further explained, “corresponds to Sin, which is the moon, iron to Merodach, and tin to Bel.”