He knew this part of the outer city very accurately; for the great grain
markets were here, and the farriers and the horse-doctors clustered
thick where thousands of draft animals were daily at work in times of
peace. In days gone by he had often come to have his master's ponies
cupped or otherwise medicated by these men whose science was mainly a
hoary tradition handed down from father to son, and who yet had a
wonderful if empirical knowledge of all animals and their ailments.
He had greatly loved these excursions which had sometimes consumed the
best part of a day. Violent discussions always accompanied every case
which called for treatment; for the grooms considered that their
reputations would be imperilled if they did not cavil at every
diagnosis. Although they treated the aged horse-doctors with respect,
they wished to show that they, too, had knowledge. Sallies of wit, which
attracted half the idlers in the street, made these disputations
memorable things: every one gave tongue to what was in them and the talk
was endless.
How changed it had all become! There was not a soul abroad and of all
the thousands of animals there was not a single team to be seen. Every
door was closed, every caravanserai shuttered. Commerce had been
frightened away, killed by the fear of bullets. On went the boy yawning
and feeling hungry and tired and thirsty, and increasingly alarmed by
the dead silence. There was not even a drop of water to drink--nothing.
The very street watering-troughs were dry; all the buckets had been
removed from the common wells. Not a drop of water for man or beast.
What a condition!
The more he thought of it the more consumed he was by thirst. But as a
horse in the desert infallibly makes for water, so now he made his made
his way towards certain fields. He had often noted how melons grew in
patches almost alongside the trading city, cut off from the roadway by
low mud walls. A longing for the big, luscious water-melons, which he
had not tasted that year, became so overwhelming that he could hardly
wait. He ran on, thinking only of this one thing, no longer caring
whether he was seen or not. At last he saw green ahead. There were the
fields and the fruit gardens.
A dog ran and barked furiously at him as he boldly jumped over a low mud
boundary wall, but he threw a clod of earth at it and drove it off. He
ran through some buckwheat standing almost man-high, crushing down the
growing grain and wondering whether this year they had forgotten to
plant the melons. No--here were the melon-patches, great quantities of
the succulent gourds lying ripe on the ground, each on its own little
bed of straw. With the skill of the country-boy he picked out the
biggest and ripest one there was; broke it open with two or three savage
stamps of his foot; and then sat down indifferent to everything so as to
enjoy it.
Oh, the good red fruit! He completely devoured the whole melon in less
than fifteen minutes, eating right down to the rind and not wasting a
particle. Then as he sat with his face and bared chest bathed in the
juice, he wondered whether he could attempt another. Lazily reclining on
the ground among the fragments of his feast, he debated the problem
idly as he looked at his swollen paunch. But finally he made up his mind
that he had eaten to the uttermost limit of man. Now reluctantly he rose
to his feet and determined to resume his journey.
As he scrambled over the mud wall he suddenly remembered that he might
have been seen by a watcher of crops; and for a full five minutes he
studied every inch of the ground within eye-sight. Crouching down beside
the mud wall he picked out each little watch-tower unerringly.
Communities living wholly by agriculture, and knowing nothing else,
invariably look upon their fields as something sacred. So it happened
here that all over the land, as the grain and fruit ripen, watch-towers
of matting and poles are run up by the agricultural population. With
ancient matchlocks in their hands, which they sometimes discharge to
warn off trespassers, men sit in these watching day and night. The boy
knew these things as well as he knew the shape of his hands; for they
were as much a part of his world as street lighting and railways and
other manifold inventions are in the West. Where now were the watchers
of crops?
There were apparently none. Overcome with curiosity, very deliberately
he made his way to the nearest tower; walked right under it, and peered
up. Empty! He passed a second; it was the same thing. When he found that
all were deserted and that the standing grain and ripe fruit was looking
after itself he shook his head dolefully. There was on his face the
pessimism only possible in a race of cultivators four thousand years
old.
"This is a bad business," he murmured aloud. "The end has indeed come--"
Nothing that had occurred since he had been lowered down the city wall
so depressed him. He felt completely abandoned. All the guarantees of
life and order were gone. For if it were like this within the limits of
the city administration, what must it not be in the open country.... He
thought of the many miles he had to traverse and his heart sank.
Still he walked on as quickly as he could. He had a certain goal to
attain. He meant to attain it. Frowning to himself he went quicker and
quicker.
A low broken gateway at last announced the end of the outer city and
the spot where he would pass into the open country. But the splotch of
colour he saw in the shadow of the gate halted him instantly and changed
the currents of his thoughts. He forgot all about the fear which had
driven a whole population into hiding. His own business had become
urgent again.
He stood casting about for a plan to enable him to pass this last egress
safely. He could think of nothing. He had indeed forgotten all about the
outer city gate. It had not occurred to him that there would be soldiers
here just as there were soldiers at every other vital point.
The low brick wall ahead of him was so eroded by wind and rain that he
thought how easy it would be for him to climb it. Still in the broad
daylight he dare not make the attempt with guards on the alert.
Walking very slowly, he approached the gateway until he could see who
were the men there. They were cavalry. A number of saddled ponies were
cropping the scanty grass whilst their riders lay asleep beside them.
Still some men were awake, for there were the figures in the gateway.
For a long time he watched. Nobody was passing either in or out of the
gateway: he did not know what subterfuge to adopt. Then, as he stood
there, Heaven sent him assistance. He suddenly caught sight of a small
country-boy, about his own size, with a basket of manure and a
manure-rake beside him, asleep behind some bushes. It was instantly
plain to him that the boy had followed the troopers for the droppings of
their horses. Now he made up his mind, and he approached the boy on the
point of his toes. The basket was easy enough to pick up; but the rake
was placed securely under the sleeping boy's legs--to prevent just such
a catastrophe as was about to occur. Wang the Ninth, with a skill which
a long apprenticeship had given him, very gently and insinuatingly
braced up the legs inch by inch, and then deftly and swiftly pulled away
the rake from under the luckless sleeper who stirred uneasily but did
not awake. Now with the stealth of the Indian Scout he tip-toed away. He
knew that he was fully armed with a passport--that is if the other boy
did not awake and give the alarm.
For a hundred yards or so he moved torn with anxiety. Then as no shouts
came from behind, he gained confidence. With amazing effrontery as he
approached the gateway he commenced singing lustily the "Song of the
Wine-jug," as if the fresh morning had put music into his heart.
Nonchalantly and easily, he walked up to the hobbled ponies, and
manoeuvred round their tails with his rake. Carefully he garnered up
all their droppings, singing all the time. Now with the filled basket
slung across his shoulder, he made his way into the gateway, searching
for more manure as he walked, and even stopping to speak to a soldier.
"These horses are so poorly fed that they are hardly worth my trouble,"
he remarked coarsely enough, swinging the laden basket from one shoulder
to the other.
The man cursed him for his insolence but he did not molest him. On he
went quicker now. He scrambled up a high bank and made his way into the
fields. Once hidden from sight he threw the basket and the rake where
they could not be found. Then without a thought of the wretched youth
he had robbed, and with nothing to encumber him, he began running as
hard as he could.
He was free--utterly free.