Bessas ran out from behind a thicket. When Myron reached the scene, Bessas had come up to the fugitive, tossed his bow aside, and swept out his sword.
Kothar struggled erect, balancing unsteadily on his sound leg. He, too, drew his sword. But, even as he began to bring it up to the guard position, Bessas' blade flashed golden in the light of the low sun and clanged against Kothar's sword. The short blade flew out of the Syrian's hand, turning over and over before it fell into the long grass.
Kothar swallowed. "I said the goddess Mertseger would have her revenge. This is my turn, mortal; yours will come. If you mean to slay me, get it over with."
The Syrian managed a certain dignity despite his ragged appearance. The long blue robe in which he had left Syria still covered his lanky frame, though so many pieces had been cut off the lower edge for patches that the faded and threadbare garment now failed to reach his knees. The remnant was a mass of darns and un-mended holes. His tall spiral hat had long since been lost; a strip of dirty cloth confined his tangled hair. The neat little chin beard had given way to a straggly full beard and mustache of reddish hue. A rag was rudely knotted about his left arm where Merqetek had wounded him.
Bessas smiled unpleasantly. "Slay you? Nay! I have promised myself a long talk with you, and how should I talk with a corpse? True, a necromancer could raise your ghost, but you're the only necromancer here. So how could you raise yourself?" He laughed boisterously. "Turn around."
When Kothar obeyed, Bessas grabbed the collar of his robe and yanked downward, tearing the garment half off its wearer. As the robe was peeled off to the waist, there was a flash and a tinkle. Gold and glittering jewels cascaded out of the robe, in which they had been contained by Kothar's girdle.
"Well, well!" said Bessas. "Some of the treasure of Ta-karta seems to have escaped its coffer. You must have slept too soundly, Ajang. Pick that stuff up, Myron. And what's this? The True Anthrax around our unworldly mystic's neck?"
He removed the jewel on its chain and put it into his wallet. Kothar made a sudden limping lunge for freedom, but Ajang caught him with one long bound and held him fast.
Bessas stripped Kothar down to his loincloth, pulled the arrow out of his leg, and said: "Start a fire, boys."
"Nay!" cried Kothar. "Not that, you barbarian!"
"Who spoke of burning you? Your tender flesh shall not even be singed—provided you answer my questions."
Myron gathered up the treasure and kindled a fire with flint and steel. When it was crackling briskly, Ajang threw his man down flat and sat on him. Bessas brutally grabbed one of Kothar's feet and hauled it towards the flames.
"Now," he said, "what was this plan to which you tried to persuade Merqetek?"
"That is my affair."
Bessas pulled the foot closer and closer to the fire until Kothar began to scream. "I will tell!"
"What, then?"
"There is a meeting of mystics of my order in Memphis, which I wished to attend, and—ai!" He shrieked as his foot went into the fire. A smell of charred meat arose.
"That," said Bessas, "is what will happen every time you lie. I know more than you imagine. You wished to visit King Gau for a Special purpose, did you not?"
Kothar sobbed rackingly. "I—I wished to get to Gau ahead of you. I know of his deathly fear of witches. If I could have wrought upon him for a few days, he would have seized the lot of you and burnt you as witches."
"Why did you wish us broiled?"
"You will not slay me if I tell you?"
"I Will do what I deem just; one good turn deserves another. Go on."
"I had promised a colleague to compass your destruction in the lands south of Egypt."
"For what price?"
"Ten pounds of silver, wherewith to pursue my researches."
"A good, round sum, though probably no more than your share of Takarta's treasure would have been."
"I had given my word. Besides, I got more than a quarter of the treasure anyway."
"So you did. But you had also sworn an oath to me."
"What civilized man would keep his word to a brutal barbarian like you? I hate you for the times you shouted at me and shamed me before all, berating me because I am not a blood-bespattered butcher like yourself."
"Who is this colleague for whom you acted?"
"Belkishir, high priest of Marduk of Babylon."
"By the iron hooves of Apaosha! What has the holy Belkishir against us?"
Little by little, Bessas dragged out of Kothar the tale of the embarrassment of the temple of Marduk over the matter of the sirrush. Some of the story Kothar knew from the letter that Belkishir had sent him, and the rest his sharp mind inferred. The priests had passed off a large lizard on their gullible worshippers as a baby sir-rush; they had told King Xerxes a thumping lie about having obtained this creature from the sources of the Nile; and then, to keep their deceit from coming to light, they had plotted to destroy Bessas' expedition.
"So," said Bessas, "you knew all the time we were on a quest for fish feathers! Why did you go so far and wait so long before you struck?"
"I wanted the treasure of Takarta, especially the Anthrax."
"Who sent the Arabs of the Banu Tarafa to slay us?"
"I know not—ai!—I truly know nothing of that! Believe me!"
The inquisition continued until the sun set and dusk began to gather. Bessas was able only to fill out a few more details. At last he rose and said: "That will suffice."
"What will you do to me?" whimpered Kothar, nursing his burnt foot.
"You shall see. Ajang, grab his arms. Hoist them up against this tree, so. Now hold him steady."
"Mercy! I will be your slave! I will do aught ..."
Bessas found a heavy stone. Taking Merqetek's dagger from Myron, he drove the point through both of Kothar's forearms, which Ajang held crossed above the Syrian's head and against the tree trunk. The knife pierced between ulna and radius and on into the wood. While Kothar struggled and screamed like a lost soul, Bessas hammered the hilt home with his stone.
Bessas stepped back. The Syrian stood with his back to the tree, pinned against the trunk by the dagger through his forearms. As his arms were nearly straight above his head, he had no slack for movement. Blood ran down his arms and tears ran down his sunburned face as he screamed:
"May Anath chew you to pulp, you son of a she-camel! May the eight wild boars of Aleyin gash you to death! May Terah drive you mad with his beams! May ..."
"Well," said Bessas, "if the snake can wriggle out of that and save himself in this wilderness, I'll admit he deserves to live."
"You are a hard, cruel man," said Myron. "Let me at least pull the dagger out of the tree."
"Nay, by the fiends of Varena! Would you that I kissed and forgave him, so that the villain could make others the victims of his perfidy? To be kind to the tiger is to be cruel to the lamb. Merqetek was a good lad; spend your sympathies on him." Bessas turned away, his face somber. " 'Blood-bespattered butcher,' eh? I suppose I am. But it is late to change that now."
"A man can only strive towards being the kind of man he aspires to be, while he lives." Myron shrugged. "I don't ask for die scoundrel's life. But that"—he jerked his head—"is the sort of revenge that Queen Amestris would take. It is unworthy of you."
Bessas sighed. "You are right, as usual."
He drew his bow and an arrow from their case, turned and let fly at twenty paces. Kothar, struck cleanly in the heart, jerked and hung limply.
"Now," said Bessas with forced briskness, "let's be off and make some furlongs towards home ere we stop for the night."
Back at camp, Myron and Bessas hastened to examine the treasure chest. The bolt did not seem to have been tampered with, but at last Myron said:
"I see what he did. He drove the pins out of the hinges with the point of his dagger."
When they opened the chest, it seemed to be full. Kothar had taken out the treasure, put aside what he thought he could carry, placed stones deep in the box, and piled the remaining gold and jewels on top of the stones, so that no shrinkage should be noticed.
"A clever scoundrel," muttered Bessas. "There are, alas, men who would rather gain one shekel by trickery than earn two honestly."
The moon of Tebetu was full when a squad of the Tikki-Tikki marched into the camp. On a halter of grass rope they led the okapi, a half-grown young male.
The beast was somewhat like a mule in size and shape, but longer in the legs and shorter in the body, with cloven hooves. It wore a coat of glossy purplish black, with legs a creamy white below the knee and a pattern of narrow black and white stripes on the rump. It had large ears, always turning this way and that, a long slender muzzle, and a tongue of astonishing length, with which it grasped the leaves it ate.
"They had much trouble," said Dzaka. "For several days after they trapped him, he sought to butt and kick them. But now he has become tame. We must keep him well-fed and watered and not leave him in the hot sun."
"Good boys!" said Bessas. "Let us celebrate!" Soon the Bactrian was shuffling in the circles of the Pygmy dance with all the small brown folk.
Then the encampment broke up. All the Pygmies save Dzaka, Tshabi, and Begendw6 vanished into the bush. Bessas' company started north along the Astasobas.
One night they stopped at a village of the Mbabantu. These were simple black peasants who, once their original fright and suspicion had been overcome, proved genial hosts.
The three Pygmies, however, refused to enter the village, saying that they would be killed. Myron learnt why when he talked with the Mbabantu headman. The man cried passionately:
"We hate them. I hate them. I would slay every one of those small devils!"
"Why?"
"Because they kill our goats and cattle with their poisoned arrows and eat them, as if they were wild game. Nothing we can say or do will stop them. The only good Pygmy is a dead Pygmy."
When he heard who was coming, King Gau of the Alabi went forth from his palace to meet the arrivals.
"I had to assure myself that you truly lived," he said. "The Ptoemphani told us that you had been slain and eaten by the Akulangba. I see no dragon, but you do appear to have found another strange beast. What gifts have you brought for me?"
"Give him that bronze-headed mace, Myron," said Bessas. "It is of little use to a man on foot."
The king asked: "And how did Ajang bear himself?"
"Like a true man," replied Bessas, clapping the towering Alabian guide on the back. "I count him among my trusty friends. And what of our man Shimri?"
"He lives, but you will find him much changed."
They came upon Shimri under the thatched roof of his smithy, hammering a spearhead on a stone anvil. A pair of sweating young Alabi helped him. He paused to say:
"Hail, m-mortals. The great god Dagon accepts your worship."
"Shimri!" said Myron sharply. "Don't you know us?"
"Aye. I—I know you. I knew you in my former life. B-but that was before I, Dagon, took possession of the body of the mortal Shimri ben-Hanun."
"We are on our way home. You can return to Gaza with us."
"What is Gaza to me? To a god, all places are as home. My—ah—my task is here, in t-teaching these folk the arts of civilization. Now leave me, mortals, for I have work to do."
Later, Bessas asked King Gau: "Is he always like this?"
"Sometimes he sits staring and saying nought for a day at a time. Sometimes he walks about the town, talking and laughing to himself. Betimes he starts for the river, saying he means to swim down the stream to the great sea and sport with his friends the fishes. After we had fished him out twice, just before the crocodiles got him, I set men to watch him day and night. Does he always eat enough for two?"
"That he does."
"Do you think he really is a god?"
Myron shrugged. "Who knows? The question is, shall we try to take him home with us, willy-nilly?"
"Nay," said Gau. "He wishes to remain here, and he is useful. Leave him. I believe he is a god, or at least that a god dwells in his body. That explains his prodigious appetite, as he must eat enough for himself and the god as well. We shall tenderly care for him and devoutly worship him."
"Our duty—" began Myron, but Bessas cut him off.
"The king is right," he said. "We shall have enough trouble getting this rare beast home alive without also being burdened by a zany deity."
"I don't know—"
"Well, I do. After all, who is happier than one who thinks himself a god? So why should we interfere? Now, O King, how shall we get back to Kush? I care not to face those great swampy plains again."
"They are not so swampy now, in the dry season. But the easiest way to reach Kush is by floating down the River on a raft. I will send a message to the king of the Ptoemphani, asking him to arrange with the Syrbotae to have your raft guided through the Great Swamp. King Ochalo owes me something, after the way his men behaved towards my friends. Then, provided always that their divine dog wags his tail, we shall send you on your way."
Myron worried over leaving Shimri to live out his days in this wilderness. But, with Bessas, King Gau, and Shimri himself all determined that the Judaean should stay, Myron did not see what he could do about it.
"He's the last of the three who left Philistaea with us," he said to Bessas.
The Bactrian scowled with thought. "Think you we ought to devise their kin of their fate?"
Myron pondered. "It might be better to say nothing. None of the three left 'a wife at home, and it were more merciful to let their relatives think they still prosper in distant lands. Moreover, while I don't think Kothar's family will greatly lament him, I should not relish the task of telling old Malko bar-Daniel of his son's end."