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Updated: May 15, 2025
"My lord!" asked Sembobitis, "have you concluded a good commercial treaty?" That day Balthasar supped with the Queen of Sheba and drank the wine of the palm-tree. "It is true, then," said Balkis as they supped together, "that Queen Guidace is not so beautiful as I?" "Queen Candace is black," replied Balthasar. Balkis looked expressively at Balthasar.
Teach me the knowledge, Sembobitis, which destroys all feeling in men and I will raise you to great honour among my people." This was the reason that Sembobitis taught the king wisdom. He taught him the power of incantation, according to the principles of Astrampsychos, Gobryas and Pazatas.
Then they bound him to a horse and led him gently to the palace of the queen. For fifteen days Balthasar lay in the agonies of delirium. He raved without ceasing of the steaming cauldron and the moss in the ravine, and he incessantly cried aloud for Balkis. At last, on the sixteenth day, he opened his eyes and saw at his bedside Sembobitis and Menkera, but he did not see the queen. "Where is she?
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."
The mage Sembobitis and Menkera the eunuch, who stood beside Abner, gave utterance to terrible cries when they saw their king lying motionless on the ground with a knife in his stomach. They raised him with great care. Sembobitis, who was highly versed in the science of medicine, saw that he still breathed. He applied a temporary bandage while Menkera wiped the foam from the king's lips.
"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.
Balthasar listened with rapture to the star. He felt himself becoming a new man. Prostrate beside him, Sembobitis and Menkera worshipped, their faces touching the stone. Queen Balkis watched Balthasar. She realised that never again would there be love for her in that heart filled with a love divine. She turned white with rage and gave orders for the caravan to return at once to the land of Sheba.
Balthasar had a simple soul, but love is a very complex emotion. From that day on the king made great progress both in magic and astrology. He studied the conjunction of the stars with extreme care, and he drew horoscopes with an accuracy equal to that of Sembobitis himself. "Sembobitis," he asked, "are you willing to answer with your head for the truth of my horoscopes?"
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