"Strange that we heard no gossip of this revolt," said Bessas.
"Not so strange," said Myron. "You jounced us across endless deserts, avoiding towns and seldom stopping long enough to exchange six words with the local people."
Uni: "But what befell you two on this night of noble carnage?"
Bessas resumed: "We won back to the barracks, where we gathered our Arabs and Pygmies and barricaded a section of the building. We were prepared to fight if need be, for we could not get our camels out of the stables to flee. Luckily I had friends amongst the Immortals, who kept their excited troopers in order. Artaxerxes had nought against us; and the Daduchids, what of Bagabyxas' wound and the lump on Zopyrus' pate, had other things to think of than making more mischief for us. So here we are."
Uni asked the Bactrian: "What are your plans, my son?"
"I shall wend my way to Thadamora, to buy camels from Shaykh Alman. Thence I go to my Fifty-League Oasis to take up the headship of my clan—if the Banu Khalaf have not risen in my absence and chosen another shaykh. I must also return Dzaka and his comrades—who are, I fear, somewhat disillusioned with civilization—to their ancestral jungle.
"Thereafter I shall carry on Zayd's work of building up the desert trade routes south of Egypt. As we have the camel and no other traders in those parts do, we should make a good thing of it."
"Provided," said Uni, "that these competitors whom you will ruin do not combine to make trouble for you."
"True; and also provided that I can restrain my Arabs' love of pillage and murder. It shows how one learns. A few years past I should have happily joined my sand thieves in their forays. But now I have come to see that true wealth is not the loot of a raid, nor even the trove of a treasure like that of Takarta—from which the king's tax gatherers will speedily separate you if they catch you. It is, rather, a network of established trade routes and connections and satisfied customers, which if carefully fostered will yield a profit for aye."
He uttered a deep, rumbling laugh. "Two years ago I had contemned such thoughts as base commercialism, and averred that the only gentlemanly trades were fighting, piracy, and horse breeding. Now, by Mithra, I am as crassly mercenary as any Tyrian!"
Myron asked: "How about your estate in Bactria?"
"To the afterworld with that! I have an estate—my clan of Arabian cutthroats—and why should I give that up to grasp at a shadow? Didn't some Greek storyteller compose a fable about a dog with a bone, who saw his image in the water?" Bessas shook his head. "It is sinful to say so, but ever since I learnt of my mother's death I see things more clearly."
"What of your future, Myron?" asked Uni.
"My plans are as follows: Alpha, I shall deposit my share of the treasure of Takarta in your temple for safekeeping. Beta, I shall buy a couple of horses or mules to take me to the city of my birth."
"Will you not need a slave to fetch and carry?" asked Uni.
"Bessas has already given me Norax."
"Who," said Bessas, "will no doubt soon cajole our tenderhearted Myron into freeing him."
"Gamma, I shall betake me to Miletos, purchase a house, settle down, and try to locate some of the friends of my youth, if any now reside in those parts. Delta, I shall write two books, for which I have already selected the titles. One shall be called Aithiopika, telling of my observations in Africa. The other shall be Peri tês morphes tês oikoumenês or 'About the Shape of the Earth.' You shall yet hear of my fame as a discoverer. As for epsilon—we shall see. Perhaps I shall try my luck in the West, where I hear that Pythagoras of Samos established a whole brotherhood of philosophers."
Uni said: "Why not stay in Shushan to write your books?"
"Remain in this brick kiln of a town throughout the summer's heat? My dear Uni, the only comfortable place in the city is the deepest dungeon beneath the citadel, and its appointments leave much to be desired in other respects. But I shall be back here from time to time to draw upon my deposit."
Bessas said: "Why not come back to Egypt with me? I could use you in my new business, for you are shrewder at bargaining and quicker at reckoning than I shall ever be."
"Thank you, old boy, but my writings are the more compelling task. Besides, I have had my fill of travel, and I'm getting a trifle old for such exertions. I have had my adventure. I have seen the Mountains of the Moon and fought the great black man-ape, and I have returned hale and whole. But let us not carry this antique pitcher to the well too often."
"Well, any time you are in Upper Egypt, there'll be a place for you in the tents of the Banu Khalaf. By Ishtar's navel, dawn brightens the sky! We have talked the whole night through. Now I must go."
Uni yawned. "Had you not better snatch some sleep?"
"Not III can doze on a camel's back."
"Take care that you fall not off in your sleep, for it is a long way down."
"Fear not—"
A knock on Uni's door resounded, followed by shouts of "Ya Shaykh! Yalla!"
"There are my sand thieves now," said Bessas. "Excuse me; I must awaken my brown imps." Bessas left the room.
Uni looked at Myron. "I still think you need a wife."
"The same old Uni, ever trying to marry me off! When I am doing so well without one, why change?"
"I wonder that you did not wed the Macedonian girl."
"I thought of it;' in fact I believed at one time that I was in love with her. But she had little to say of interest. Nor would she have brought me either property or standing, which to a Greek are the principal reasons for marrying.
"Moreover, she was less than half my age; so it would have been the mournful tale of old Bagabyxas and his young princess Amytis over again. If I could find some good-natured widow, now—but for the present, my true love is Gaia, goddess of the earth, whose lovely shape I must make known to all mankind."
They went to the door to bid farewell to the Bactrian and his Arabs. Bessas adjusted his kaffiyya, touched noses with Uni, seized Myron in a hug that almost cracked the Hellene's ribs, and kissed his friend soundly. Then he threw a leg over the back of his kneeling camel.
"The gods befriend you!" he cried.
Belike the friend whom for an hour we leave,
Is gone forever, sadly though we grieve;
Whilst him to whom we bid farewell for aye,
We may yet meet again, by Fate's reprieve!
After a last look at his old tutor, he bellowed, "Yâ ahî!" His camel rose by jerks, stern first; so did those bearing the Pygmies. With a rattle of gear and a flutter of head shawls, the company jounced away at a trot towards the bridge across the Khavaspa. The rising sun, striking slantwise down the narrow street, splashed the robes of the men and the rumps of the camels with crimson.
Author's Note
For the name of this novel, I am indebted to Willy Ley, who let me use the title of Chapter 9 of his book The Lungfish, the Dodo, and the Unicorn. Here you can read about the sirrush and the speculations that its discovery stirred up after Koldewey excavated the Ishtar Gate around 1900. My story is based partly upon Koldewey's surmise that the priests of Marduk used to pass off some reptile (probably a monitor lizard) on their credulous worshipers as a young sirrush.
The novel is also based upon the story of Sataspes, as told by Herodotus (IV, 43), and upon the fact that, of the twenty-three groups of tribute bearers sculptured on each of the two retaining walls of the Apadana at Persepolis, the last group of each set shows three unmistakable African Pygmies. One carries a pot, one an elephant's tusk, while the third leads an okapi. Although this relief has been known for decades, not until recently was its true nature realized. Even Olmstead's monumental History of the Persian Empire (1948) describes the animal depicted as "a curiously foreshortened giraffe."