Kavis, as soon as he joined us, said: "You had better keep double watches and scout the land ahead of you. The hill tribes of Gandaria are fierce and independent folk. They like not strangers who pass through their land with fire and sword."
This seemed good advice. Something about the mere sight of Gandaria makes one look for trouble. It is dry, rocky, and mountainous to a terrifying degree. We have stony hills in Hellas, but compared to the Gandarian mountains they are mere piles of pebbles. These mountains are carved into fantastic shapes, making one think of legendary giants turned to stone but likely to turn back any time and crush one like an insect.
There is little sign of life other than dry bushes and a few scrubby trees in the gullies, lizards scuttling over the stones, and birds of prey wheeling against the deep blue sky. Betimes a hare darts across the road, or a man with keen sight espies a troop of wild goats or sheep on a crag. The native huts of stone and mud so blend with the landscape that one sees them not until one is almost upon them. The traveler in Gandaria, however, soon learns that, however empty the landscape looks, somewhere a pair of sharp black eyes is glaring from behind a rock, and a dirty brown hand is whetting a knife.
I told Vardanas to take his Dahas and ride ahead, searching up side roads and valleys and bringing back tidings at each stage of our journey. They raced off happily in a whirl of dust, for the Dahas had recovered their spirits on getting back to an arid country.
My health improved also, oddly enough because of our cook's incompetence. I was no longer tempted to overeat, as I had been by Hyovis' delicious repasts. Had I not feared loss of dignity before my men, I should have taken over the cook's task, which I could have performed far better than he.
The stony roads of Gandaria reduced our speed by half. Had we gone more swiftly, we should have worn down our horses' hooves faster than they grew. To spare the animals, instead of alternately walking and cantering them as we had been doing, we alternately rode at a walk and led the horses on foot. I held hoof inspection twice a day and dreamt of walking on red-hot sword blades at night.
The elephant, also, disliked the sharp stones. He minced along, grumbling, and refused to be hastened. We had our first real trouble with him on the second day out of Peukala. It befell in this way.
Although the Kophen River runs from Kaboura to Peukala, it makes a far-flung loop to the north ere it reaches the latter place. Therefore travelers, instead of following the Kophen all the way, go by a smaller stream, the Chaibara. This river, which pierces the mountains by a deep narrow pass, had been a brown torrent when I rode through the pass in the early spring with Hephaistion's division. Now, however, its bed was dry.
One enters the pass eighty furlongs from Peukala. For over two hundred furlongs the road winds through the pass. In places the going is easy enough, but elsewhere the road is hewn from the sides of precipices. In such straits there is not room for two horsemen to pass each other.
When we came to a place where the narrow road overlooked a steep drop, Aias pressed himself against the cliff wall and huddled there, squealing with terror. Kanadas coaxed him and Siladites prodded him with his goad. Both shouted "Malmal!" but to no avail. Aias, misliking cliffs, refused to malmal for all they could do.
After a quarter hour's trying had failed to budge the brute, Kanadas said: "Must push him, Troop Leader. You help."
I told off two strong camp servants and led them, teetering on the edge of the precipice, past Aias' legs. Kanadas, the servants, and I put our shoulders against Aias' hind legs. We grunted and heaved, but might as well have pushed against a pair of ancient oaks.
I thrust back my helmet to wipe the sweat from my brow. Thyestes squeezed past the elephant's legs to say: "Ea, Leon! A trader with a string of asses and a party of Gandarians afoot have halted foment our column. Fain would they know when yon great stirk will move so they can pass us."
I spread my hands. "He'll move when somebody thinks of a way of moving him."
"By Zeus, I can do that!" said Thyestes. He poked the elephant's haunch with his javelin, shouting: "Get up, son of a strumpet!" Aias screamed angrily and shook his head, so that poor Siladites had much ado to keep his perch on the creature's neck. Kanadas yelled:
"You stop that! If you hurt him, he kill you someday!"
Thyestes stopped. He was brave enough, but Kanadas was twice his size and bore a huge two-handed Indian sword with a blade thirteen palms long, which could take off a head as easily as lopping a daisy.
Vardanas, who now joined us also, said: "If the elephant keeps on rubbing against the bank, he will start a slide of loose rock. Then we shall really be in a strait."
"Papai! What is your idea, then?" I asked Kanadas.
"If we put hay on road ahead of him, he get hungry and come forward to cat," he said.
"How long will it take for him to get hungry enough?"
"Two, maybe three days."
"Herakles! We cannot wait so long, man. This fornicating beast blocks the road like the stopper in a bottle."
I sat down with my feet dangling over the cliff and tried to think what Xenophon would have done. In a way he had things easy. He had only ten thousand men to lead, not a moody monster like Aias.
Kavis, too, came back from the front of the column. He said: "Hipparch, a lord of the Andakans waits up front with his chariot for us to pass on."
I gestured at the elephant. "Can you make him move? None of us seems able to."
"Could we hitch ropes to him and all pull at once?"
"And where shall we get so much rope? It would take enough rope to rig a ship."
"True," he said. "That is a flaw in the plan."
Voices and the tinkle of bells drew my regard back along the road to India. Around the nearest bend came a string of camels. When a score were in sight, the leader stopped, and the others jammed up behind with moaning and gurgling cries. A trousered Gandarian hastened up and spoke to Kanadas. After some words had passed back and forth, Kanadas roared an epithet and reached for his sword.
"Hold!" I cried. "What is it, Kanadas?"
"He say, make fire under elephant! Bad, wicked thing to say!"
The caravan leader smiled doubtfully and spoke in Persian: "No harm meant. But you halt my seventy-three camels. Must I then go back to Peukala?"
"He did but jest," I said to the still fuming Kanadas. "After all, you have not thought of a better way to shift this mountain of meat."
"If this melon head does not mean bad things, he should not say them," growled Kanadas.
"Melons!" I cried. I jumped to my feet and kissed Kanadas, which startled him. "You have solved our problem. Has anybody a melon? Elisas! A melon!"
The sutler sadly went back to his provision cart and got one of the remaining melons out of our stores. "I was saving it for—" he began.
I cut him off and returned to Aias, silently thanking Apollon that we did not have to send a man all the way back to Peukala for melons while traffic piled up for leagues on either side of the Chaibara Pass.
"Come, Mahankal!" I said, holding out the melon. (The king might give the elephant a new name, but teaching the beast to answer to it was another matter.) As Aias reached for the melon, I backed beyond the length of his trunk. "Come, laddie; come, body; that's my goodman! Malmal!"
Aias shuffled forward with tiny steps, scraping against the cliff-side and bringing down small showers of earth and stones. As he came, I backed, calling over my shoulder for the rest of the column to move on and clear the way. For the next few furlongs the party moved in this uncouth fashion.
Then the road widened. Aias caught up to me in one long stride. Trying to augment my speed backwards, I caught my heel on a stone and fell on my back. The next thing I knew, the elephant was right over me. I cried out and shut my eyes, expecting to be squashed as flat as a sheet of papyrus. When something wet struck my face, I thought I was on my way to join the shades in Hades.