"And perhaps he has questions of his own," she said, "and I can help him answer those." A sad boyhood, she had heard his was, with his father David droning psalms in his latter days, busy at his prayers as a potter at his lathe, calling for mercy for his own soul.... And his mother, the queen, who had once been wife to Uriah the Hittite, a strange, mad old woman who walked about the palace, gibbering to herself, her face and fingers twisting, all the white beauty that had dazzled David upon the roof of the king's house turned now to an awesome gray rugosity.... A house of fear, Sheba thought, a house of silence, and she understood how Solomon could have become so wise, for wisdom comes with the quiet tongue....
Wisdom he had, according to all reporters, but the wisdom she had heard about was wisdom of the head and of the body. Had he wisdom of the heart? Did he understand why one was now quiet as a well, now turbulent as the sea? Did he understand why peace should come in a soft blue garment, and suddenly irritation rise in angry red? Did he understand what it was that dragged at the heart so, pulling it, it seemed, toward the furtherest star? And could he resolve her what she was to do with herself? Govern she must and govern wisely, but outside of that was she always to be so lonely--she who was so young and strong and beautiful? The slave girl with the fatherless baby had more than she, the queen. The housewife grinding the family corn. Each could escape into some one else, had a refuge--all but Sheba, the queen....
"I must go on."
And so her great and gorgeous train went on through the desert, crunch of camels' pads, shuffle of marching men, thud of lumbering elephants, screaming of peacocks, chattering of apes.... They passed the shimmering sands, and came to the black high rocks. They passed sluggish Nile, and came to the roaring cataracts. They came to the city of hawks and the city of Venus and the city of sacred crocodiles. They came to Thebes with its gigantic figures, each of a single stone. They came into the desert again, steering at night by the stars as mariners do. They came to the great Lake Moeris, which the Egyptians control by locks. They came to Memphis. They passed the giant labyrinth. They passed the three great pyramids. They passed the Sphinx. They came to the Great Delta. They crossed to Ais. They came to Joppa. They wended toward Jerusalem in the cool of the dawn....
III
She was in no wise impressed, somehow, by his ceremonial officers. They lacked dignity and were familiar. Nor did Solomon's great captains please her. They were not fighters; they were strategists. They played with companies as the Persians played chess with pawns. Her own men were her ideal of soldiers, copper-colored, muscled like panthers; they would crash into an opposing army like their native lightning, or they would die doggedly, their backs to the wall, their heads broken, the blood streaming into their eyes.... Nor did all the magnificence of the king's house please her.... There was too much, too quickly acquired, and jumbled, no composition. The Egyptians had more magnificent things, and grouped them better. Her eyes flickered from the hall to the pale young king on his throne. Beside him, standing, was Nathan, the principal officer, and the king's friend, a great frame of a man, fanatical. And there was silence.
"I am Balkis, Queen of Sheba," she said and threw back her veil. Solomon cast an uneasy glance at the prophet by his side.
"She is come to prove you with hard questions," Nathan spoke.
For an instant Balkis all but laughed. Behind her stood her fighting men, in exact ranks, rather contemptuous. Around the hall the men of Judah and Israel fluttered. Winked at, nudged one another. "From Abyssinia she comes, to ask him questions. See what a king we have! A great people, we!" It was so like a showman with a marvel to exhibit! "Ask him, ask him anything you like. Go on. Ask him." The cadaverous prophet! The white, young king. A swift stab of pathos went into Sheba's heart. Poor lad! Poor king! Poor mummer!
She smiled in the corner of her veil. She was supposed to ask questions, he to answer them. Well, let the mummery go on!
"O King," her voice rang out, "what is sweeter than honey?"
"The love of pious children."
"O King, what is sharper than poison?"
"The tongue."
"O King, what is the pleasantest of days?"
"The day of profit on merchandise."
"O King, what is the debt the most stubborn debtor denies not?"
"The debt is death."
"O King, what is death in life?"
"It is poverty."
"O King, what is the disease that may not be healed?"
"It is evil nature."
She was rather ashamed for herself and for him, and her great Ethiopians were puzzled. But it was so evident that the poor white king's hold on his people was this trick of wisdom. She must help him. She remembered quickly what history she knew of his folk.
"O King," she asked, "what woman was born of man alone?"
"Eve was born of Adam."
"O King, what spot of lowland is it upon which the sun shone once, but will never again shine until judgment-day?"
"The bottom of the Red Sea, which clave asunder for Moses. Then the sun shone on the bottom and will never again shine until judgment-day."
"O King, what thing was it whose first state was wood and whose last life?"
"The rod of Aaron, which became a writhing serpent."
She spread her slim copper hands, she bowed her sleek black head, as in homage.
"It was a true report that I heard in mine own land of thy acts and of thy wisdom.
"Howbeit I believed not the words, until I came and mine eyes had seen it, and behold the half was not told me; thy wisdom and prosperity exceedeth the fame which I heard.
"Happy are thy men, happy are these thy servants which stand continually before thee and that hear thy wisdom!"
And all through the king's hall went the flutter of his subjects: "Did n't I tell you? Did n't we say so? A fine king we 've got. All the way from Abyssinia she came to prove him. And he answered her everything. A great king! A fine king! Make no mistake!"
She moved toward the troubled young king with a smile.
"I would now commune with you on what is in my heart, great Solomon. Let us commune alone."
His eyes probed her. He saw her kindliness to him. A fleeting little smile answered her smile. He rose to meet her. The giant prophet caught him by the wrist.
"My son, attend unto my wisdom," he whispered fiercely....
"The lips of a strange woman drop as a honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil.
"But her end is bitter as wormwood--"
She caught his whispered words, and her proud head went up, her sloe-black eyes flashed.
"I am Balkis, Queen of Sheba."
For an instant they regarded each other with hatred in their eyes. Sheba turned.
"Men," she called to her bodyguard.
The slim brown Ethiopes tensed their statue-like pose. There was a _swish_ as the short Abyssinian swords came from the oxhide scabbards.
"But I said nothing of you, great Balkis," Nathan suddenly fawned. "I spoke only of bad women. You are a good woman, Balkis, a virtuous woman. And a virtuous woman is like a crown, great Balkis, of gold, yea of fine gold--"
"So!"
IV
They went out alone into the garden of the figs and pomegranates. The bright sun of early noon came down like a shower of gold. The doves made their faint thunder. The locust span his tiny wheel. From afar off, where the temple was a-building, came the clink of hammer on stone, the thud of ax on wood, the yo-hoing, the grunts, the curses of the workmen as they hoisted a beam into place.... And Solomon was shy as a girl....
"You are wondering why I came," Balkis said. "Will you sit down with me?" They sat under a great cedar-tree. The pigeons thundered. The bees droned among the apricots. The lizard flashed upon the wall. "I wonder myself.... But you can tell me, Solomon. You are so wise."
"Am I?" There was a little note of bitterness in his voice.
"Are n't you?"
"I don't know," he said. "I--I don't know."
"But all the questions that are put, you answer them. All the matters of judgment you pass on. Of course you are wise, Solomon."
"It is easy, Balkis, very easy, that sort of wisdom, for Nathan, as far back as I can remember, has been dinning precepts and examples into my ears. And at times, when things are difficult, comes a little inspiration, like a little unpremeditated bar on a musician's psaltery. And the tricks of reading a riddle are no more than the mason's tricks of arranging stones. If the clouds be full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth: and if the tree fall toward the south or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be. And if that is wisdom, then I have wisdom. But I know not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child."
"Poor Solomon!"
"O Balkis, I wanted to go out with the young men, and to understand what they all understand and I do not understand: the way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; to hunt and fish with them and know the way of a ship in the midst of the sea. But I never could, Balkis, for while still a boy Nathan made of me a man, an old wise man. Woe to thee, O land, he prophesied, when thy king is a child, and thy princes eat in the morning! So I 've always been a man, Balkis, a wise old man."