The other raised his head and peered into the face of David, but
presently his glance wavered and turned away.
"See," said David. "After Matthew died there was no one in the Garden
who could meet my glance. But Benjamin meets my eye and I feel his
thoughts before he speaks them. He is pleasant to me, Abraham."
"The voice of the serpent was pleasant to Eve," said Abraham.
The nostrils of David quivered.
"What is it that you call the trinket?"
"A great suhman. My people feared and worshiped him in the old days. A
strong devil!"
"An idol!" said David. "What! Abraham, do you still worship sticks and
stones? Have you been taught no more than that? Do you put a mind in the
handiwork of a man?"
The head of Abraham fell.
"I am weak before you, David," he said. "I have no power to speak except
the words of my master, which I remember. Now I feel you rise against
me, and I am dust under your feet. Think of Abraham, then, as a voice in
the wind, but hear that voice. I know, but I know not why I know, or how
I know, there is evil in the valley, David. Cast it out!"
"I have broken bread and drunk milk with Benjamin. How can I drive him
out of the valley?"
"Let him stay in the valley if you can keep him out of your mind. He is
in your thoughts. He is with you like a shadow."
"He is not stronger than I," said the master.
"Evil is stronger than the greatest."
"It is cowardly to shrink from him before I know him."
"Have no fear of him--but of yourself. A wise man trembleth at his own
strength."
"Tell me, Abraham--does the seed of Rustir know men? Do they know good
and evil?"
"Yes, for Rustir knew my master."
"And has Glani ever bowed his head for any man saving for me?"
"He is a stubborn colt. Aye, he troubled me!"
"But I tell you, Abraham, he came to the hand of Benjamin!"
The old man blinked at the master.
"Then there was something in that hand," he said at last.
"There was nothing," said David in triumph. "I saw the bare palm."
"It is strange."
"You are wrong. Admit it."
"I must think, David."
"Yes," said the master kindly. "Here is my hand. Rise, and come with me
to your house."
They went slowly, slowly up the terrace, Abraham clinging to the arm of
the master.
"Also," said David, "he has come for only a little time. He will soon be
gone. Speak no more of Benjamin."
"I have already spoken almost enough," said Abraham. "You will not
forget."
_CHAPTER SIXTEEN_
Although David was smiling when he left Abraham, he was serious when he
turned from the door of the old man. He went to Connor's room, it was
empty. He summoned Zacharias.
"The men beyond the mountains are weak," said David, "and when I left
him a little time since Benjamin was sighing and sleepy. But now he is
not in his room. Where is he, Zacharias?"
"Shakra came into the patio and neighed," Zacharias answered, "and at
that Benjamin came out, rubbing his eyes. 'My friend,' said he to me,
and his voice was smooth--not like those voices--"
"Peace, Zacharias," said David. "Leave this talk of his voice and tell
me where he is gone."
"Away from the house," said the old man sullenly.
The master knitted his brows.
"You old men," he said, "are like yearlings who feel the sap running in
their legs in the spring. You talk as they run--around and around.
Continue."
Zacharias sulked as if he were on the verge of not speaking at all. But
presently his eye lighted with his story.
"Benjamin," he went on, "said to me, 'My friend, that is a noble mare.'
"'She is a good filly,' said I.
"'With a hundred and ten up,' said Benjamin, 'she would make a fast
track talk.'"
"What?" said David.
"I do not know the meaning of his words," said the old servant, "but I
have told them as he said them."
"He is full of strange terms," murmured David. "Continue."
"He went first to one side of Shakra and then to the other. He put his
hand into his coat and seemed to think. Presently he stretched out his
hand and called her. She came to him slowly."
"Wonderful!"
"That was my thought," nodded Zacharias.
"Why do you stop?" cried David.
"Because I am talking around and around, like a running yearling," said
Zacharias ironically. "However, he stood back at length and combed the
forelock of Shakra with his fingers. 'Tell me, Zacharias,' he said, 'if
this is not the sister of Glani?'"
"He guessed so much? It is strange!"
"Then he looked in her mouth and said that she was four years old."
"He is wise in horses, indeed."
"When he turned away Shakra followed him; he went to his room and came
out again, carrying the saddle with which he rode Abra. He put this on
her back and a rope around her neck. 'Will the master be angry if I ride
her?' he asked.
"I told him that she was first ridden only three months before to-day,
and that she must not be ridden more than fifty miles now in a day.
"He looked a long time at me, then said he would not ride farther than
that. Then he went galloping down the road to the south."
"Good!" said the master, and sent a long whistle from the patio; it was
pitched as shrill and small as the scream of a hawk when the hawk itself
cannot be seen in the sky.
Zacharias ran into the house, and when he came out again bringing a pad
Glani was already in the patio.
David took the pad and cinched it on the back of the stallion.
"And when Shakra began to gallop," said Zacharias, "Benjamin cried out."
"What did he say?"
"Nothing."
"Zacharias, men do not cry out without speaking."
"Nevertheless," said Zacharias, "it was like the cry of a wolf when they
hunt along the cliffs in winter and see the young horses and the cattle
in the Garden below them. It was a cry, and there was no spoken word in
it."
The master bit his lip.
"Abraham has been talking folly to you," he said; and, springing on the
back of the stallion, he raced out of the patio and on to the south road
with his long, black hair whipping straight out behind his head.
At length the southern wall rose slowly over the trees, and a deep
murmur which had begun about them as soon as they left the house, light
as the humming of bees, increasing as they went down the valley, now
became a great rushing noise. It was like a great wind in sound; one
expected the push of a gale, coming out from the trees, but there was
only the river which ran straight at the cliff, split solid rock, and
shot out of sunlight into a black cavern. Beside this gaping mouth of
rock stood Connor with Shakra beside him. Twice the master called, but
Connor could not hear.
The tumbling river would have drowned a volley of musketry. Only when
David touched his shoulder did Connor turn a gloomy face. They took
their horses across the bridge which passed over the river a little
distance from the cliff, and rode down the farther side of the valley
until the roar sank behind them. A few barriers of trees reduced it to
the humming which on windless days was picked up by echoes and reached
the house of David with a solemn murmur.
"I thought you would rest," said David, when they were come to a place
of quiet, and the horses cantered lightly over the road with that
peculiar stride, at once soft and reaching, which Connor was beginning
to see as the chief characteristic of the Eden Gray.
"I have rested more in two minutes on the back of Shakra than I could
rest in two hours on my bed."
It was like disarming a father by praise of his son.
"She has a gentle gait," smiled David.
"I tell you, man, she's a knockout!"
"A knockout?"