"Aye, thou hast said," Nechutes admitted, his eyes showing a sudden light. He had a voice of profound depth and resonance, that rumbled like the purring of the king's lions. "And not a moment since she swore that it was I who made her sun to move, and that Tuat itself were sweet so I were there." "O Ma[6]," the lady cried, threatening him with her fan. "Thou Defender of Truth, smite him!" Kenkenes laughed with delight. "Nay, nay, Nechutes!" he cried. "Thou dost betray thyself. Never would Ta-meri have said anything so bald. Now, when she is moved to give me a honeyed fact, she laps it with delicate intimation, layer on layer like a lotus-bud. And only under the warm interpretation of my heart will it unfold and show the gold within." Nechutes stifled a derisive groan, but the lady's color swept up over her face and made it like the dawn. "Nay, now," she protested, "wherein art thou better than Nechutes, save in the manner of telling thy calumny? But, Kenkenes," she broke off, "thou art wasted in thy narrow realm. They need thy gallant tongue at court." The young sculptor made soft eyes at her. "If I were a courtier," he objected, "I must scatter my small eloquence among many beauties that I would liefer save for one." She appropriated the compliment at once. "Thou dost not hunger after even that opportunity," she pouted. "How long hath it been since the halls of my father's house knew thy steps? A whole moon!" "I feared that I should find Nechutes there," Kenkenes explained. During this pretty joust the brows of the prospective cup-bearer had knitted blackly. The scowl was unpropitious. "Thou mayest come freely now," he growled, "The way shall be clear." The lady looked at him in mock fear. "Come, Nechutes," the sculptor implored laughingly, "be gracious. Being in highest favor, it behooves thee to be generous." But the prospective cup-bearer refused to be placated. He rumbled an order to the slaves and they shouldered the litter. Ta-meri made a pretty mouth at him, and turned again to Kenkenes. "Nay, Kenkenes," she said. "It was mine to say that the way shall be clear--but I promise it." She nodded a bright farewell to him, and they moved away. The sculptor, still smiling, continued down to the river. At the landing he engaged one of the numerous small boats awaiting a passenger, and directed the clout-wearing boatman to drop down the stream. Directly opposite his point of embarkation there were farm lands, fertile and moist, extending inland for a mile. But presently the frontier of the desert laid down a gray and yellow dead-line over which no domestic plant might strike its root and live.