"There is no 'perhaps.'"
Abraham spoke with a decision that brought his jaw close up under his
nose.
"He is my master," insisted Abraham, and, smiling suddenly, he
whispered: "Mah ol' Marse Johnnie Cracken!"
"What's that?" called David.
Abraham stared at him with unseeing eyes. A mist of years drifted
between them, and now the old man came slowly out of the past and found
himself seated on the lawn in a lonely valley with great, naked
mountains piled around it.
"What did you say?" repeated David.
Abraham hastily changed the subject.
"In those days if a stranger came to the Garden of Eden he did not stay.
Aye, and in those days Abraham could have taken the strongest by the
neck and pitched him through the gates. I remember when the men came
over the mountains--long before you were born. Ten men at the gate, I
remember, and they had guns. But when my master told them to go away
they looked at him and they looked at each other, but after a while they
went away."
Abraham rocked in an ecstasy.
"No man could face my master. I remember how he sat on his horse that
day."
"It was Rustir?" asked David eagerly.
"She was the queen of horses," replied the old man indirectly, "and he
was the king of men; there are no more men like my master, and there are
no more horses like Rustir."
There was a pause, then David spoke.
"John was a good man and a strong man," he said, looking down at his own
brown hands. "And Rustir was a fine mare, but it is foolish to call her
the best."
"There was never a horse like Rustir," said the old man monotonously.
"Bah! What of Glani?"
"Yes, that is a good colt."
"A good colt! Come, Abraham! Have you ever opened your dim eyes and
really looked at him? Name one fault."
"I have said Glani is a good colt," repeated Abraham, worried.
"Come, come! You have said Rustir was better."
"Glani is a good colt, but too heavy in the forehand. Far too heavy
there."
The restraint of David snapped.
"It is false! Ephraim, Jacob, they all say that Glani is the greatest."
"They change like the masters," grumbled Abraham. "The servants change.
They flatter and the master believes. But my master had an eye--he
looked through a man like an eagle through mist. When I stood before my
master my soul was naked; a wind blew through me. But I say John was one
man; and there are no other horses like his mare Rustir. My master is
silent; other men have words as heavy as their hands."
"Peace, Abraham, peace. You shame me. The Lord was far from me, and I
spoke in anger, and I retract it."
"A word is a bullet that strikes men down, David. Let the wind blow on
your face when your heart is hot."
"I confess my sin," said David, but his jaw was set.
"Confess your sins in silence."
"It is true."
He looked at Abraham as if he would be rid of him.
"You are angry to-day, Abraham."
"The law of the Garden has been broken."
"By whom?"
"David has unbarred the gate."
"Yes, to one man."
"It is enough."
"Peace, Abraham. You are old and look awry. This one man is no danger. I
could break him in my hands--so!"
"A strong man may be hopeless against words," said the oracular old man.
"With a word he may set you on fire."
"Do you think me a tinder and dry grass? Set me on fire with a word?"
"An old man who looks awry had done it with a word. And see--again!"
There was a silence filled only by the sound of David's breathing and
the slow curling of the ripples on the beach.
"You try me sorely, Abraham."
"Good steel will bend, but not break."
"Say no more of this man. He is harmless."
"Is that a command, David?"
"No--but at least be brief."
"Then I say to you, David, that he has brought evil into the valley."
The master burst into sudden laughter that carried away his anger.
"He brought no evil, Abraham. He brought only the clothes on his back."
"The serpent brought into the first Garden only his skin and his forked
tongue."
"There was a devil in that serpent."
"Aye, and what of Benjamin?"
"Tell me your proofs, and let them be good ones, Abraham."
"I am old," said Abraham sadly, "but I am not afraid."
"I wait."
"Benjamin brought an evil image with him. It is the face of a great
suhman, and he tempted Joseph with it, and Joseph fell."
"The trinket of carved bone?" asked David.
"The face of a devil! Who was unhappy among us until Benjamin came? But
with his charm he bought Joseph, and now Joseph walks alone and thinks
unholy thoughts, and when he is spoken to he looks up first with a
snake's eye before he answers. Is not this the work of Benjamin?"
"What would you have me do? Joseph has already paid for his fault with
the pain of the whip."
"Cast out the stranger, David."