A few miles west of Hebron, near a cross-road, Voldi saw a rider approaching who stirred his interest, for the beautiful bay mare he rode—far too good for the unkempt, loutish fellow astride—bore a striking resemblance to Fara's Saidi. Slowing to a walk, as the distance between them lessened, Voldi's suspicions were confirmed. The stocky, shaggy fellow with the ragged tunic and the uncombed beard couldn't have afforded a mount of such value. His dark brown skin identified him as an Idumean, which was not to his credit. He was riding bareback. The disgraceful old bridle was a patchwork of straps and hempen cords, no fit equipment for a thoroughbred.
As they neared each other, the shifty-eyed Idumean, now aware that he was being carefully scrutinized, dug his heels savagely into the filly's ribs, apparently determined to pass quickly. Voldi instantly wheeled Darik across the road, blocking Saidi to an abrupt stop.
'What do you mean by that?' yelled the lout in the thick guttural of half-civilized Idumea.
'How did you come by this filly?' demanded Voldi.
'Who wants to know?' retorted the Idumean.
'I do, fellow!' shouted Voldi. 'She belongs to a friend of mine. . . . Here, Saidi!' He held out his hand. Saidi's nostrils fluttered. She tipped up her ears and took an inquiring step forward, her rider jerking the reins to restrain her.
'This mare belongs to me!' growled the enraged Idumean. 'I bought her many months ago! Hands off that bridle now—or it will be the worse for you!'
'No; the mare has been stolen! She does not belong to you. I see you have disposed of the saddle and bridle. Perhaps you can tell me what became of the young Arabian who owns her.'
'What are you going to do about it, youngster?' sneered the Idumean, uncoiling a well-worn bull-whip. 'Will you let me pass—or won't you?'
'Not until you answer my question!' said Voldi.
The Idumean replied by drawing back his arm and lashing hard at Voldi's face with the long whip. Voldi had defensively thrown up an arm, but the thong bit sharply into his neck. Again the whip descended, raising a welt across the gelding's withers. He reared—and backed away.
Neither the Arabian nor the Idumean seemed anxious to dismount and fight on the public highway. Already two market-carts had drawn up to view the altercation. A camel-train was bearing down on them from the west. Apparently apprehensive of trouble, the Idumean now wheeled the filly about, lashing cruelly at her flanks. Tearing loose from Voldi's grip, she bolted.
At the crossing, her rider tugged her to the left, on to an unfrequented road, little more than a lane, with Voldi in pursuit at full gallop. Both horses were experienced racers. More than half a mile had been covered before Darik was abreast of Saidi. The country road had narrowed now, with dense thickets on either side. As Darik drew into the lead by a neck, the horses so close together that their shoulders grazed, Voldi, turning about, saw the Idumean leaning far forward with an upraised dagger poised for a stab in his back. He met the threat by striking the burly fellow full in the face with his riding-whip.
Urging his horse, he shouldered Saidi into the briars where—after a brief struggle to free herself—she stopped and stood quivering. The Idumean made no effort to go further. He dismounted now, as did Voldi. It was plain that he would be a very unsportsman-like antagonist, as he had already proved.
They threw off their coats, drew their daggers, and faced each other only a little way apart. The Idumean gingerly fingered the red welt on his cheek—and grinned.
'I am glad you followed, youngster,' he snarled. 'This is a safer place for what I intend to do to you.' Crouching, like an angry bull, he began advancing, weaving slowly to and fro, slipping his ragged sandals forward with short, calculated steps. Voldi remained standing erect, making no effort to assume a defensive posture.
The stocky Idumean straightened and folded his arms, with an expression of bewilderment.
'Are you going to stand there—and let me kill you—without raising a finger? I thought you Arabians were fighters!'
Voldi seemed not to hear the taunt. He was staring, wide-eyed, down the road, past the Idumean's shoulder.
'Look!' he shouted in amazement.
His swarthy foe instantly jerked his head about to see what might be coming down on him from behind, and Voldi leaped on him, firmly clutching the wrist of his dagger-hand. The Idumean drew back his free arm and struck hard, sinking his big fist into the needlesharp point of the Arabian's dagger.
Now he had twisted his right hand loose, and raising his weapon, drove it toward Voldi's heart, but the dexterous Arabian dagger parried the thrust with a blade that opened a long, deep gash in the Idumean's forearm. The blood was dripping from the fingers of both his hands. Again he struck, desperately, but his arm was too badly injured to deliver an effective blow. Voldi caught at the bleeding wrist and twisted the dagger out of his hand. Then he clutched the weary Idumean's beard, jerked his head back, and pressed the flat of his blade against the bared throat.
'Where did you get that filly?' shouted Voldi. 'Answer me quickly—or I'll kill you!'
The Idumean gritted his teeth and tried to tug loose, smearing his beard with his dripping hands. The Arabian's dagger-point moved slightly, pricking the dirty neck.
With that, the battle was over. The big fellow's knees buckled and he slumped to the ground, where he lay noisily sick. Voldi opened one of his saddle-bags, tore up a towel, and bound it tightly above the spurting wound in the Idumean's arm.
'I have no interest in saving your life, horse-thief,' he said, as he tied the bandage, 'but I don't want you to die until you have told me where this filly was when you stole her.'
Weakly the Idumean confessed. It was a strange story, so strange that it could hardly have been invented. But why would Fara be a member of a great crowd—in a pasture-field beside the Jordan—assembled to hear an itinerant prophet? It didn't sound like anything that Fara would be likely to do!
No, mumbled the nauseated Idumean, he hadn't seen the man who owned the mare. He had followed the crowd; and at nightfall had found the filly tethered quite a little way apart from the other animals. No, he had seen nothing of a silver-mounted bridle or saddle. He had waited until the camp was asleep and had led the mare away, after a struggle with her that threatened discovery.
'Very well,' said Voldi quietly. 'When you think you are through vomiting, we will be on our way to the spot where you found the filly.'
'I can't do it,' muttered the Idumean, 'I am too weak.'
'You should have thought of that before you tried to stab me in the back, horse-thief! Come on! Get up—or I'll slit your bandage and you can lie here and bleed to death!'
It was a tedious journey back to Hebron, and the riders drew many inquisitive stares from the people they passed on the highway. At the first public watering-trough, the Idumean was helped down to do a partial job of washing off the clotted blood. Fortunately for both of them, they encountered no patrols. East of Hebron they turned off the highway toward the north. It was late in the afternoon before they reached the pasture on the bank of the Jordan. The dead grass still showed the hard trampling of a huge multitude.
'There!' pointed the ailing horse-thief. 'That's where the mare had been staked out.'
Dismounting, Voldi walked about, surveying the landscape. What, he wondered, would Fara be likely to do when she discovered that Saidi was gone? Did she have enough gold with her to buy another horse? Doubtless; for she was on a long journey and would not have started without funds. It was beyond belief that she would proceed on foot. Her contemplated trip would be hazardous enough without that added risk. No, he decided, Fara would have acquired a mount—of some sort.
And now—what should he do with Saidi? She was not his property. He could not sell her into better hands; nor could he conveniently take her along with him. His journey involved enough danger. It would be difficult to explain a led horse this far away from home territory. After some debate with himself, he mounted and drew up facing the slumped Idumean. He patted Fara's filly on her velvet muzzle.
'Good-bye, Saidi,' he said, completely ignoring her rascally rider. 'I am sorry to leave you—but it can't be helped.'
Without a word to the bewildered Idumean, he galloped away, wondering where, when—and whether—he would overtake Fara.
* * * * * *
Having had enough excitement for one day, Voldi put back to old Hebron for the night. Early the next morning he was on his way west again, past the cross-roads where yesterday he had encountered the thieving Idumean, on through sleepy little Adoraim, whose bloody history, had he known it, might have stirred his interest. Frequently he paused to ask farmers, in their carts and at work in their fields, whether they remembered seeing a young Arabian pass that way, a little more than a fortnight ago. Not only was there no information to be had, but the surly replies indicated that their concern for travelling Arabians was lacking in enthusiasm. Indeed, they seemed very uncivil, until Voldi speculated on the probable attitude of an Arabian shepherd if asked by a well-mounted Jew whether he had seen another Jew on the road some time ago. The shepherd would have seared him with comprehensive curses involving not only the Jew himself, but his parents, his uncle, his grandfather, and his heirs and assigns for ever. A very pretty world, it was.
These occasional detainments, while brief, added up to a considerable delay in the travel-schedule he had planned, and it was late in the day when he arrived at the squalid old town of Lachish, with fifteen miles more to go before reaching Gaza. The moon was too young to be of much service for night riding. He drew up in the stableyard of the only inn, finding it almost empty—a bad sign. He had already learned that where one found plenty of room there was always an easily discoverable reason.
A couple of loutish hostlers ambled forward to meet him, but he decided to attend personally to the comfort of his horse. While intent upon his task of rubbing down the faithful gelding—an operation that involved some quiet conversation between them to which Darik contributed an occasional nod and a playful nibble—Voldi became aware of a silent onlooker standing behind him. Turning, he met the amused eyes of a quite good-looking, well-dressed man of forty, obviously a Roman. Voldi straightened and they exchanged amiable greetings.
'You ate an Arabian, I think,' said the Roman.
'Yes, sir. My name is Voldi.'
'Mine is Mencius. The caravan I am accompanying is camped up the road a mile. My horse is lame—or pretending. I had hoped to find a horseleech here, but there is none; and these stable-boys hardly know the time o' day.'
'Want me to take a look at him, sir?' asked Voldi.
'That would be very kind,' Mencius said, 'if it isn't asking too much. You Arabians seem to know everything about horses.'
'Not everything,' protested Voldi. 'But we do know that they get tired on a long journey and go lame; and the more intelligent they are, the worse they limp.'
'Right!' chuckled Mencius. 'And sometimes they forget which leg it is and give themselves away. However—my horse may be telling the truth.'
They sauntered across to the other side of the compound, where a sleek white stallion was placidly munching his forage. Voldi stood silently watching him for so long that Mencius was moved to inquire whether he should lead the horse about for inspection.
'Not yet,' said Voldi absently, studying the animal's posture. Presently the stallion raised his right forefoot and set it down gingerly. Voldi immediately approached, patted the horse's withers, ran his hand down the leg to the fetlock, and gently lifted the foot for inspection. Mencius hovered close.
'Badly shod,' said Voldi. 'The left wall of the hoof has been pared deeper than the right, throwing the pastern-joint off balance.' He called to one of the roustabouts and inquired whether there was a farrier in the neighbourhood. The oaf nodded.
'I'm afraid no farrier we're likely to find in this place will do us much good,' observed Mencius.
'That's true—but his tools may,' said Voldi. 'If we can get into his shop, I'll reset the shoe myself.'
'Do you mean to say you know how to shoe a horse?' Mencius' astonishment was so sincere that Voldi laughed. On the way to the farrier's shop he went on to explain how every Arabian boy was a horse-doctor by instinct. 'I never let a farrier touch my Darik's feet,' he said, 'and we have some skilful farriers, too.' Again Voldi laughed boyishly as he noted the puzzled expression on the Roman's face, and added, 'Our farriers are much better paid than our scribes. . . . Perhaps that's why Arabia rides more gracefully than she reads.'
Mencius smiled a little at this drollery but apparently wasn't quite sure whether he approved of the handsome young Arab's careless lack of interest in education; he had taken an instant liking to Voldi and didn't want to think of him as a shameless illiterate. Mencius—without meaning to be—was a bit of a snob when it came to the question of education.
Stripping off his tunic and handing it to Mencius—who couldn't help noting the fineness of its texture and workmanship—Voldi, with the consent of the bewildered farrier, sorted out a few rusty tools, dexterously removed and readjusted the badly balanced shoe, gripping the stallion's foreleg hard between his knees while driving the nails, to lessen the jar on the sensitive pastern-joint.
Hearing a subdued conversation—in Greek—he glanced up briefly to observe that Mencius had been joined by another urbane Roman, his junior and apparently his subordinate. Mencius was doing the talking, and it was obvious that Voldi was not expected to understand it.
'See how cleverly he does that, Pincus,' Mencius was saying. 'Loves horses; wants to spare them any unnecessary discomfort. Horses! That's all he lives for! . . . It's an odd thing about these Arabs—they're mentally keen, but they don't know anything but horses!'
Voldi was through with the nailing now; but, not wanting to disturb the Roman's disquisition on the Arabian mind, he held on to the stallion's leg, rubbing it gently—and listening.