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."
In the middle of Nisanu, in the twenty-first year of Xerxes' reign, a raft grounded gently at the ferry landing, on the south side of the Nile near Meroê. The raft bore ten human beings: Myron, Bessas, the latter's two wives, three Pygmies, and three Arabs.
They were a wild and dangerous-looking lot. All were either naked or clad only in breechclouts of hide. Those not barefoot wore sandals of woven grass. Headbands of hide confined their long tangled hair. The whites were bronzed by the sun until they were not much lighter of skin than the Pygmies. All were lean and hard-looking, and they appeared a good deal older than when they had set out. Myron's beard and brows had turned to silver.
The after part of the raft had been fitted out as a shelter for the okapi. Throughout the three months' river journey from Boron, the beast had lounged on a bed of papyrus reed, under a thatched canopy, and chewed its cud. The women had petted and fussed over it until it became as tame as a puppy.
When the raft was securely beached, Myron and Bessas donned cuirasses and helmets and strapped on swords and daggers. After months of arduous travel, their weapons were almost the only possessions they still retained besides the heavy bronzen box. Even Bessas' little silver whistle had gone, as a gift to the chief of the Syrbotae.
With a word of warning to those who stayed on guard, the two set their sandaled feet on the steep path up to the plain on which Meroê stood. They walked slowly towards the Soba Gate, wrinkling their leathery brows against the glare of the high bright sun.
As they neared the gate, Bessas put out a hand. Myron followed his companion's gaze towards a row of dark objects mounted on the wall beside the gate. Then the twain strode rapidly forward until they squinted up at a row of heads on spikes. A couple of big brown vultures flapped off, hissing.