When the ninth day did not bring him, howsomever, I began to worry. Although Vardanas could usually take care of himself, no man can avoid his fate if the gods have really ordained it. Furthermore, we were falling behind our itinerary, which had been so drawn up as to enable us to voyage from Phoenicia to Hellas before the winter storms. With much more delay, we should be hitched fast in Asia through the winter.
The heat, dust, and flies annoyed the men. Having rested and done everything to ready our gear for the next leg of the journey, they became bored and got into mischief.
Two Thessalians fought over the woman of one of them. One received a knife cut and both got a flogging. A groom who had been ailing for some time died. A child was stung by a scorpion and almost died. My two remaining Dahas got together with another Saka, a Sakarauka living in Phrada, for a hemp party. Sakas drug themselves by breathing the smoke of burning hemp under a blanket, and my pair were useless for days afterwards.
To keep the demons of boredom from stirring up more trouble, I organized athletic contests: running, javelin throwing, and the like. I won the wrestling tournament myself; if the gods denied me beauty, they at least bestowed upon me a set of tolerably stout wrestling thews. The one man who might have dompted me, Kanadas of Paurava, refused to compete. When Thyestes taunted him with cowardice, he said:
"It is not that at all. I am good wrestler. It is that such close contact with men not of my own caste would defile me."
Thyestes chose this time to play a joke on his foe Kanadas. Recalling Kanadas' fear of spirits, Thyestes one night powdered himself all over with flour and put mud in his hair so it could be twisted up to make horns. Then, creeping to Kanadas' tent, he peered in and cried in a hollow voice, in his atrocious Persian:
"Me ghost of King Dareios! Because you insults gods of Persia, they sends me to destroy you!"
He screamed a wild laugh and thrust out his whitened arms. Kanadas gave a yell that must have awakened half of Phrada. He leapt up and tried to plunge through the wall of the tent he shared with Siladites. Instead, his head burst through a rotten spot of the tent wall, and he dashed off with the tent flapping about him like a cloak.
First Kanadas ran into the river, fell down, and came out covered with mud. Then he ran to the east gate of Phrada. The gate was closed, of course. But Kanadas was a mighty man, and terror lent him wings. He gave a great leap, caught the top of the gate, and swung himself over, screaming "Ghost! Ghost!"
The sentry on the wall saw a naked, mud-covered giant, with something flapping behind him like bats' wings, rush up to the east gate. There the specter seemingly spread his wings and flew to the top of the wall. The sentry uttered an even louder scream, leapt down inside, and ran to the market place shouting "Ghost!" too.
The caravaneers in the market place, awakened by the sentry, sprang up as Kanadas appeared. The moon, though past full, shed all too clear a light on the apparition. In a trice, all these men were fleeing out the west gate. Kanadas, wishing human help against his spectral pursuer, ran after them; but the faster he pursued, the faster they fled.
I got up to find Thyestes, still ghastly in his floured disguise, rolling on the ground with mirth. He told me the tale between spasms of laughter.
"Zeus rot your teeth, you fool!" I cried, and sent men to hunt for Kanadas. They found him standing bewildered in the desert, the muddy remains of the tent still draped about him.
When Kanadas found out what had happened, he said: "Lord Leon, I must kill this baseborn villain. He has always hated me and jeered at me, and my honor demands battle to death."
"I forbid it," I said. "I love you both and will not have either slain, at least until our task be accomplished."
"I do not care. Send me back to India or kill me, but I will fight him as soon as I get my sword. This journey is horrible enough without his persecuting me and making my life miserable."
"But look how much bigger you are! It would not be honorable."
"I dinna fear the great scut," said Thyestes. "I'm going for my weapons, too."
"Come back, both!" I shouted. "Skounchas! Spargapithas! Cover them with your bows!" When the Dahas had nocked their arrows, I went on: "Any fighting shall be according to my rules. Pyrron, blindfold them."
I cut two stems from the nearest tamarisk and trimmed them to sticks, each three feet long and as thick as a thumb. Pyrron put a Persian head bag backwards on each of the duelists.
"This will prevent them from seeing down past their noses," he said.
We led the warriors to a clear space, gave each a stick, and spun them round several times.
"Go to it!" I said. "Fight until one yields or until I tell you to stop."
The sight of two men, naked but for bags over their heads, stalking each other blindly in the moonlight, was one of the weirdest I have seen in a long and eventful life. Alas for heroism! We had turned them loose facing opposite ways, so no matter how they slunk, leapt, and slashed the air, they never came within ten paces of each other.
The noise of the onlookers kept them from finding each other by sound.
Betimes a spectator shouted: "Beware! He's right ahint you!" Then both would whirl, making the empty air hum beneath their strokes. When Kanadas walked into a tamarisk, the touch of a feathery branch caused him to hew madly at the tree until he realized he was striking no human foe.
Our party was helpless with mirth when Thyestes called in a muffled voice: "Kanadas!"
"Yes?"
"Are you weary of having these shameless ones make fools of us?"
"Yes. Are you?"
"Aye. I'm also fair frozen."
"I, too." The Indian's teeth chattered.
"I says, fornicate this foolishness."
"Good! I say so, too."
They cast aside their sticks and pulled off their blindfolds. Thyestes said: "Kanadas, you're the only body in this dung heap who understands honor. Don your garments and come to my tent for a drop of hot wine to warm us, and a plague on all these—"
He called us names that were new even to a man of my warlike past. Thenceforth, he and Kanadas were the best of friends, as far as Kanadas ever became friendly with anybody.
Next morning, a plume of dust appeared in the distance. Two hours later Vardanas rode in with one of the Ariaspians, who hallooed to his friends and whirled a loop of his rope about his head.
"The rest follow," said Vardanas. "I have galloped all over Arcia to find seven mangy camels."
"Where are the thousands Hippokoön promised us?"
"Driven off. After a band of Derbikan raiders seized some, the herders drove the rest out of harm's way. Luckily, I found an old camel herder who had not heard of the raid. He sent these under his son Dadarshes. But he sent them only on condition that we guard them until we sighted Phrada."
"You've earned a deep draft at any rate," I said. Anon, when he had told me the whole story over a cup of wine, I asked: "What does that Ariaspian with the rope he flourishes so grandly?"
"Know you not? We call that a kamynda. Let me show you. Where is that polluted ox?"
Vardanas got up unsteadily, for he had drunk deep. He borrowed the rope, mounted, and called to me to turn the bullock loose.
I unhitched the beast from its stake and struck it with a strap. It ran out into the desert. Vardanas cantered up beside it, whirling the loop of rope. He tossed the rope so the loop spread out and settled over the ox's head. The noose tightened as Vardanas pulled it. Soon he brought the animal to a halt, though it plunged and shook its head in trying to free itself until the rest of us ran up and caught it.
I had drunk deeply too, for I said: "Persians are not the only ones who know how to catch cattle. Wait till I fetch Golden, and I'll show you how we do it in Thessalia."