"Our first duty," said Thyestes, "is to see our throats be not cut by wild highlanders."
"What he say?" said Kanadas. "He think it no matter if my beautiful Mahankal die of sun? Just wait till I get down—"
"Oh, bugger the surly sumph!" cried Thyestes. "He'll let us be fordone to keep his pet cool—"
"Silence!" I shouted. "One more word and I'll take a fine out of your next pay. Now hear me. We must find a site both shady and defensible. You, Kanadas, shall ride beside Thyestes at the front of the column. When the twain of you agree on a place to camp, let us know."
Kanadas mounted the horse that Siladites had been riding and jogged beside Thyestes. They glared at each other, for they had been on bad terms ever since Thyestes speared the elephant in the Chaibara Pass.
The first result of my experiment was that we marched all day without stopping. Whichever pointed to a site, the other thought it worthless. Their collaboration was further hindered by the fact that they had about twenty words in common, and I refused to act as interpreter. Forbye, Thyestes followed the Greek habit of wagging his head for "yes" and tossing it for "no." As Kanadas' custom was the opposite, sign language only deepened the confusion. The rest of us roared with laughter to watch the pair struggling to carry on their feud in the face of these handicaps. It was suppertime when, weeping tears of rage, they at last agreed on a camp site.
Thereafter we learned to look for a grove or a sheltering cliff for each daytime halt. When it was a grove, Aias would spend his rest in tearing off branches and pulling them through his mouth, stripping them of leaves, till the oasis was spoilt for the next wayfarer. I had, however, enough concerns of my own, let abee taking on those of other travelers.
With practice, Kanadas' Persian became fluent, and he even picked up a few phrases of Greek. The man had a natural gift for languages, of which, however, he made little use, remaining aloof and distant. When not weeping for homesickness, he complained about the weather, the food, the road, and aught else that came to his mind.
His low-caste companion, Siladites, was the opposite: a cheerful, friendly man who could learn no foreign language, however hard he tried. He would memorize a word of a phrase and then next day weep with vexation to find he had forgotten it. Hence his communion with us was almost limited to signs.
On the twenty-fifth of Hekatombaion, we were jogging past the place where the Chavaspes flows into the Kophen from the north. Here the valley of the Kophen narrows and the mountains close in. Down the valley of the Chavaspes runs a crude road that crosses the Kophen by a ford. We were nearing this ford, and Vardanas was away scouting, when Pyrron rode up beside me and spoke. He had to speak twice to get my attention, because he had the habit of muttering and whispering to himself. This habit disconcerted his comrades until they learnt to ignore it and Pyrron, too.
"Oblige me by translating, old fellow," he said. "I would question the guide."
"Say on," I said, as Kavis came up on the other side. Pyrron said: "Have you ever heard of a book on foreign countries by a man named Herodotos?"
"No, but go on."
"He said that in Paktuika live enormous ants, as big as dogs, which, in excavating their burrows, bring gold to the surface of the earth. He asserted, further, that the Paktyans approach these burrows in the heat of the day, when the ants are underground. They scoop up the gold and flee on fast camels before the ants can devour them. Now, inquire of Kavis if this be true. I missed Paktuika on my way east, being up north with the king, and have wondered about these ants."
I told the tale to Kavis in Persian. (My Persian was becoming fluent with practice, if not correct.) He laughed and said: "My ancestors invented that story to keep the Great King from stealing our gold. There is a little gold in the streams of Paktuika, which we get by swirling the gravel with water around in a bowl. As for the so-called ants, there are some of their burrows now!"
Kavis pointed to some little black dots at the base of a nearby hill. When I looked closely, I saw these to be the holes of the mountain mouse, an animal about the size and shape of a beaver but with a short bushy tail. There is nought in the least antlike about them.
The guide went on: "The tale was put abroad in the time of the first Dareios, and the Persians believed it for twenty or thirty years. Then, in the reign of the first Artaxerxes, an agent of the Great King came upon some of our people washing gold from the streams. The sight aroused his suspicions, and he tarried long enough to settle the true nature of these 'ants.'
"When Artaxerxes learned the truth, he was wroth indeed. You see, the whole purpose of the Persian Empire was to grind the last bit of gold and silver out of poor folk like us. For years, the government had not been getting so much as they might, had they known the true state of affairs. So the Great King sent an army to take vengeance on us who had flouted him—"
I never learned the outcome, for there came an interruption. A horseman appeared, galloping towards us on the road along the Chavaspes.
This newcomer had been richly dressed in Indian garb. Now his clothes were tattered, and a bandage encircled his head. He plunged into the Kophen and cantered across the ford, throwing up fountains of spray. He stopped at the foot of the slope that separated us from the river and raised an arm, while his steed panted and blew foam.
"Are you King Alexander's men?" he shouted in bad Persian.
I said: "Yes. Who are you?"
"Sasigouptas, viceroy of Gandaria. The Assakenians have revolted and slain their governor. Some are after me." He pointed back along his tracks. "There they are!"
A group of horsemen came into sight far up the valley, riding hard. Sasigouptas continued:
"I ride for Peukala to send word to the king. You must hold these rebels. Fight to the last man!"
He raised his voice to a scream and spurred his horse. Away he went, torn cloak flapping and gravel flying.
"Imras preserve us!" said Kavis. "I will fight for you, but then you must pay me a bonus on our reckoning."
I was not much taken with the viceroy's order to stand and die while he fled to safety, though on reflection it was plain that somebody did have to carry word to Peukala. I watched the Indian grow small in the distance and disappear around a bend, while the Assakenians drew nearer. There was no sign of Vardanas and the Dahas.
My first thought was of flight, but then neither the mule carts nor the elephant could keep up with us, and they would be taken by the rebels. We faced a hard choice. I called the men to attention and said:
"Heely, lads! Rebel tribesmen are galloping down upon us. An we flee, we might get clean away, but the carts with our wives and bairns could no. An we stand, 'twill be a hard fight, as there's mae of them than of us. But we ken that Fortune helps the brave. Not only are Thessalians bonnier fighters than any mere foreigners, but also our weapons are muckle better. We have armor of bronze and leather and canvas; they have nought but the rags they wear. We have swords and spears of keen iron; they have but sharpened wooden poles. We have training and discipline; they are but rabble. Will we fight?"
The men looked at their families. One said "Fight!" and soon all were shouting: "Fight the thieving limmers! Screed them! Slay them!"
"That's my braw buckies," I said. "Arm, then, and hurry! Throw fear to the wind! Iai for Thessalia!"
The men swarmed about the carts in which they had piled their fighting gear. I saw I had erred in letting them disarm because of the heat, for their helmets and canvas corselets were all jumbled, and they wasted time scrambling for them. I feared they would have to fight half armed, thus giving our advantage in armament to the Assakenians. However, the clearness of the Gandarian air is deceptive; our foes were much farther away than they looked.