We forded the Arachotos and wound through the foothills of the Indian Caucasus. The next town of any size, Garis, was six hundred furlongs from Kandacha. I hoped to reach it in four or five days.
The morning of the third day we were halted for hours while a woman gave birth. When mother and child were seen to be doing well, I urged a greater speed to make up for lost time.
"You never cross desert thus," grumbled Dastiger in Persian. "You and your animals will all fall dead. Should go slowly, with many rests."
"Resting is what you are best fitted for," I said. "Beat more speed into that mule. Get up!"
"Always hurry, hurry, hurry. Outlanders crazy."
Towards evening I saw a walled village ahead on the banks of a wee river. "What is that?" I asked.
"Garis by name," said Dastiger.
I stared. "That does not look like Garis as I remember it, and I am sure the Haitoumans is bigger. Nor have we come any twenty-five leagues from Kandacha."
"You forget: Everything seems smaller second time, and journey goes quicker."
I called to Vardanas: "Will you ride on and see if this fellow be right?"
Vardanas and the Dahas galloped off, the wind whipping their dust plumes away. When they came back, the Persian said: "I cannot make out their dialect."
As we neared the town, Dastiger urged his mule ahead and got there first. When I came up, he was surrounded by laughing villagers, who seemed to know him.
I picked out one of the wiser-looking and said slowly in Persian: "Is this Garis?"
"Yes, yes, Garis by name," he said.
"Is that the Haitoumans yonder?"
"Yes, yes, yes."
"You see," said Dastiger. "You go so fast you get there before you think. Now we take long rest before marching again."
"Perhaps you have a woman friend here, eh?" I said.
Dastiger gave a shrill laugh and held his hands before his face. Then he dashed off to keep his tryst with more alacrity than he had shown since joining us.
I made arrangements for feeding Aias, then sat down to dinner, watching the sun go down behind the spurs. I was biting into a pomegranate and spitting the seeds when the beat of hooves and a hail in Persian made me look around.
A postman rode in from the west and pulled up at our camp. I got up and traded greetings with the lean, weather-beaten rider.
"Auramasda thouvam daushta bia," he said, which means "May God befriend you." Then he said: "Outanas son of Pakouras by name am I. I ought not to stop, but never before have I seen an elephant. The temptation was too great."
I replied: "Your motto may not suffer you to stop for snow, rain, heat, or darkness, but it says nought about elephants. Get down and share a bite with us."
"One must eat, even on the king's business." He sprang down from his horse, laid his mailbags on the ground, and sat cross-legged beside them. I yelled to the cook and rejoined the circle. Outanas plied us with questions.
"Gossip is our stock in trade," he said. "If we get lost in a blizzard, any peasant will take us in for the news we bring of great events. Now tell me, pray, whither you are bound with this great beast, and why?"
I answered him as frankly as I thought prudent.
"Then," said Outanas, "there is nought to this tale that has been going the rounds in the West, that Alexander has perished in the monster-haunted jungles of India?"
"He was much alive when we left Nikaia two months ago," I said. "I have spoken to many postmen and officials along the way, and none of those had any such tale to tell."
Vardanas said: "Unlike certain other nations, we Persians know how to keep our mouths shut when so commanded."
"Even so," I said, "something would surely have reached us. Nay, I think you must needs put this story down as a baseless rumor."
"I know how they arise," said Outanas. "Somebody hears someone else say: 'Alexander must be dead, else Harpalos dare not do the things he does.' Then the one who overhears goes to his friend and says: 'I have it straight from the market place that Alexander is dead.'"
I heard Outanas with but half an ear, for I became aware that Dastiger the guide stood just behind me. That gave me a thought.
"Tell me," I said, "is this Garis?"
"Garis!" cried the postman. "Mithras preserve me, no! This is Parin by name. Garis is a good ten leagues further."
I rose and faced Dastiger. "So, vagabond-—"
The guide sprang nimbly forward and snatched up my sword, sheath, and baldric, which I had laid on the ground while eating, and ran. I ran after him. Behind me the camp burst into commotion. Dastiger ran past the village and up the valley, parallel to the stream bed. As the sound of hooves came to my ears, he swerved away from the stream, across a field of standing crops, towards the nearest spur of hills. I pounded after.
The sound of hooves drew nearer. A Sakan arrow whistled past Dastiger's head. The guide looked back, ran a few steps up the slope, and vanished.
Confounded, I stopped. Madouas, the Daha who had shot the shaft, cantered past me to where our quarry had disappeared. I hastened up, puffing. Several others arrived from the camp.
Madouas pointed to a hole in the ground with a rim of stones around the top. It looked as though Dastiger had jumped down a well.
"An outlandish thing to do," I said, peering into the depths. "I see him not."
A Thessalian thrust a javelin down as far as he could reach. He said: "'Tis but four or five cubits deep, Troop Leader. I'm feeling bottom."
"Then whither has the thieving waf gone?" I cried. "Unless he be a witch and has turned himself into a crayfish!"
"Nay, he is no Hyrkanian wizard," said Vardanas. "He went through the tunnel. Look there!"
Though it was too dark to see clearly, I made out two openings on opposite sides of the well at the bottom.
"This is a karis," he continued. "It brings water from the hills to the plain without losing it to the air on the way. We sink a line of wells, like this. We dig a tunnel joining them at their bottoms. This tunnel comes to the surface at the head of a set of irrigation ditches, like those yonder. So Dastiger can slip through the tunnel, climb another well shaft, and make his escape."
"Lend me a sword," I said. "I'm going after him."
"It will get you nothing," said Vardanas.
I borrowed a sword nevertheless, lowered myself over the edge of the well, and dropped. I landed in shin-deep water with a hard sandy bottom. By stooping, I could walk along the tunnel. Thinking Dastiger would have chosen the uphill direction, I plodded up the gentle slope. The darkness was almost complete except for the dim light down the well I had just quitted. When that light grew small behind me, that of another well appeared in front.
I felt my way along, now and then stopping to listen. There was no sound but the faintest gurgle of gently flowing water. Fishes nibbled at my legs.
When I had passed three wells without finding Dastiger, meseemed Vardanas was right. Behind me a mass of earth fell from the roof of the tunnel with a loud splash. Visions of being entombed dampened my fire. When I reached the next well without success, I beat a retreat.
Back at the camp, I took a sword out of our store of spare weapons. Though the best we had, it was a crude, cheap blade, so notched as to be almost like a saw. As I began to grind a proper edge on it, Vardanas, observing my look of disgust, said:
"I grieve for your loss, best one. The worst is that you will have to charge yourself for the new blade."
"What?"
"Said you not at the beginning that every soldier who lost a weapon, otherwise than in battle, should have the cost of replacing it taken out of his pay?"
I glared at Vardanas, but Thyestes and some of the troopers had heard and burst into laughter. So I had to debit myself on the troop's payroll account. This, I thought, was carrying honesty to a foolish extreme. As I sat honing the blade, another thought struck me.