"Before I go, let me give you, Solomon, called the wise, some wisdom of the heart. And you, Nathan the prophet, let me prophesy. You might have had one woman, Solomon, to love you all your life, but the day will come when you will seek my face among a thousand women, and never have me. You might have a temple that would have made the pyramids seem like outhouses, but one day your temple will be a little broken wall. And your people might have been the conquerors of Africa, but one day they will be helots in the Babylonian land. You have the wisdom of the shrewd and pious, Solomon, that can never meet the generous hand with the grateful heart." She turned and swept out of the hall. At the gates she stopped and bowed mockingly. "O King, live forever!" VIII All afternoon the east wind had been blowing, cold, bitter as aloes, and a great cloud-bank raced after the sun westward, until only a little space in the western horizon was clear where the sun went down. The voices of the land were stilled, the minute thunder of the pigeons, the whirring of crickets. Nor had the leaves of the trees their lively murmur, but stood fast and flat, like set sails. One could hardly believe that the winter was past and summer coming, for all was dreary, dreary.... Against the great red mushroom of the setting sun, the last of the homing caravan of Sheba showed. In the mind's eyes of the young king and the old prophet as they stood by the unbeauty of stone and brick and gray mortar that was the unfinished temple, they could see the angry camels, the lumbering elephants, the dancing horses, the swinging men, and the brown comeliness of the young queen's handmaidens, the straight backs of her fighting men. And the wind from the east blew through the land, blew through the heart of Solomon.... In a minute now they would disappear over the desert's edge. All seemed somehow tragical, like sailors leaving a great stricken ship, or glory passing from the land of its abiding.... "Oh, Nathan," pleaded the young king, "tell me she lied. Tell me I shall not have a thousand women and be a bitter, loose old man." "O King, you shall find a virtuous woman. And her price will be far above rubies." "Will she be as kind as Sheba was?" "She will arise while it is yet night, and give meat to her household, and a portion to her maidens.... She will consider a field and buy it: with the fruit of her hands she will plant a vineyard." "Will she be as well-favored, as beautiful as--as Sheba was?" "Favor is deceitful and beauty is vain; but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised." "I suppose so. I suppose--you are right, Nathan, but--" The last of the caravan disappeared over the edge of the desert, and as though it were accompanying them, being a friend to them, the sun disappeared, too. A great coldness and darkness and dreariness came over the land, so that Solomon looked up in surprise. There was no moon.... THE PARLIAMENT AT THEBES