An Elephant for Aristotle

Book Six BABYLONIA

"By the gods and goddesses!" I exclaimed. After a moment of stunned silence, I nodded to Nirouphar and said: "Greetings, lady!" Then I turned upon Vardanas and said in Greek: "Herakles! Man, are you out of your mind?"

"What mean you, Leon?" said he, bristling. "If your men can drag a train of concubines all over Asia, why cannot I travel with my own sister, a virtuous and respectable maiden?"

"Gods! Dinna you see that sic a plan will fair ruin our expedition? We have no facilities for highborn ladies, and this running away from home will cause us untold trouble. It may bring disaster dire upon us. Take the lass back to Sousa; I'll not have her hung around our necks like an anchor stone."

"It is you who are mad, Leon. She will cause us no trouble—"

"Take her back, I say!" I shouted. "That's a command!"

"I will not."

"And who commands this hipparchia, my fine callant?"

"You do. You can dismiss me from your service. In that case, I will seek what employment I can find. But under no conditions will I return my sister to Sousa."

"What for no?"

"In our last quarrel we broke all filial ties. My father struck Nirouphar and would have beaten her had I not held him off by force.

She swore she would never look upon him again, and I promised her I would not compel her to do so."

I almost burst out, consigning him and his pestilential sister to Arimanes and telling them to get out of my sight. Howsomever, caution held my tongue in check whilst I pondered the matter. Not only was Vardanas dear to me as a friend, but I had found him of priceless help in translating dialects, charming officials, scouting to find the best route, commanding the Dahas, and plying his mighty bow and deadly mace against our ill-wishers. Without him, our expedition had come to grief ten times over.

As bullying would plainly do no good, I resorted to reason. "Hearken, my dear friend. I have nought against the lass, who'd be a splendid ornament to any household. But suppose your father write the king or one of his governors, saying we've kidnaped his affianced bride and demanding punishment? Our mission were placed in peril, for I gather he's a man of influence."

"Fear not; he does not carry so much weight as he likes to pretend. And as officers of the king we are not without influence ourselves. I will say it is a private family quarrel, in which no outsider may meddle. Nought will come of Father's protests, if he make them."

"But even if you be right on that score, where shall she sleep? We have no lordly pavilions to assure her due comfort and privacy."

"That is simple. I will give her my tent and move in with you."

"Auramasdas save me from Persian generosity! I'd be blither of it if you did it the other way round; if—ah—"

He laughed. "You mean if I kept my tent and commanded her to occupy yours, you slavering satyr!"

He translated the jest into Persian, whereat Nirouphar laughed heartily, too. Persians, men and women alike, while far more modest than we about their persons, and no more incontinent, are extremely free with their speech. I have heard well-bred Persian ladies tell jokes that would shame a Corinthian bawd.

I made one more effort to regain the reins of our affairs. "But what shall she do for service? You brought no lady's maid with you, unless you can buy one in Babylon."

"I fear I shall never have enough money for that. Kerketas the Kolchian can do her heavier personal work, and mayhap I can hire one of the soldier's women to wash and tend her garments."

With a sigh of dismay and foreboding, I said: "So be it, then. But I take no responsibility for the dame or for any disaster that befall us on her account."

"I understand," he said.

Around the campfire that evening, I broached the subject to Vardanas again. Not that I had much hope of turning this headstrong chariot team from their course, once they had taken the bits in their teeth. Howsomever, every furlong's added distance from Sousa would make the maiden's return less likely. Therefore, this was my last chance.

"Vardanas," I said, "have you thought deeply on the upshot of this adventure of your sister, as regards your own future?"

"What mean you?"

"Will not your wrathful sire disinherit you, or whatever they do in Persia to offspring who flout them?"

"I suppose he might. I had not considered."

"A good family property," I went on, "is not lightly to be cast aside. With it one always has a place to go if all else fail. If you're moneyless, the family can send silver to fetch you home. If you're taken prisoner or seized by pirates or slavers, they'll redeem you. Many a good body has ended up chained to a galley bench or sweating in a mine for want of property to ward him."

"Mithras! I never thought of that." Vardanas sighed. "Perhaps I shall make it up someday with my father, who really loves us in his crabbed way. But I see not how or when this will come to pass."

"And what will you do with your sister meanwhile? She should have long since been safely wed."

"I do not know that, either. Mayhap I shall have to marry her myself, for want of well-born Arian men to give her to."

"Pheu! Another of your horrid Persian ideas. What will you do after we reach Athens? Your term of service ends there, unless you make arrangements to re-enlist."

Vardanas stared at the embers. "Auramasdas preserve me! Never have I planned so far ahead."

"Begin now, or you'll find yourself in Hellas ere you reach the next turn in the road."

"I suppose my bonus will support us for a while. Then perhaps I could enlist with some king or viceroy as a mercenary."

"If we get to Athens with our bonuses intact. I cast our accounts yesterday, and the results overjoyed me not."

"How so? Has somebody been stealing from the money chest?"

"I think not; the seal was intact. But we're running further and further behind schedule, so the whole cost of the journey is proving more than we thought. Also, everything I buy for the hipparchia seems to cost more than expected. Elisas says he does not understand these rising prices either."

"Are you sure the Syrian is not causing the sellers to charge extra and return part of the difference to him on the sly?"

"Again, I think not. We've been through that and understand each other. He may have a reasonable commission on purchases, but I keep a close watch upon him."

Vardanas shrugged. "I have never understood money. Ask Beliddinos. Babylonians know more about money than any other folk."

I put my problem to Beliddinos, who was quizzing the Dahas as to whether it was true that in their land the sun never shone. Quoth he:

"Simple it is when you understand it, my son; clear it becomes with explanation. Ever since the great Kyros set up the Persian Empire, to wring all gold and silver from their subjects has been the policy of the Persian kings. And what became of this wealth? Was it spent on public works to ease the lot of their subjects? Nay; it was piled up in bags of coin and bars of metal in Sousa and Hagmatana and Parsa, or made into statues. So, as precious metal became scarcer in the empire, business ran slower, for every man clutched what coins he had, not knowing when he would get his fingers on more."

I said: "That Gandarian guide, Kavis, said somewhat the same, though I did not expect an unlettered barbarian to understand these matters."

"Now," continued Beliddinos, "this vast treasure your Alexander seizes, and in an orgy of profusion spends it: leading armies to India, and paying his soldiers lavish bonuses, and ordering vast public works. Like the Tigris in spring, the stream of money in the empire rises. Now every man spends his money quickly, lest its value shrink whilst it lie in his wallet. So business thrives, and prices rise, and traders bless the name of Alexander."

"What will happen when he has spent all the Persian treasure?" I asked.

"By the four teats of Ishtar, that am I also curious to see! No doubt he will have to do as other kings: from his subjects' purses to rape more money to run his government and pay his soldiers. Then, perhaps, less deafening will sound the chorus of blessings!"

"You do not seem to think well of the way the Persians ran the empire," said Vardanas with an edge in his voice.

"They were men; therefore full of sin and folly were they. Before the Persians, ruled the Medes, and before the Medes, ruled the Babylonians and Assyrians, but I do not say they did any better. After the Persians have come the Hellenes, and we shall see how they fare. Through its cycle of empire runs each race, as ordain the stars. Who knows? Perhaps, after the Hellenes, some folk yet unheard-of may to the rule of the world arise."

We descended by gentle slopes through gaps in the low hills betwixt Sousiana and Babylonia. At our camping places Beliddinos performed a mighty exorcism to keep at bay the demons which, he said, lurked in the waste.

"It may be," he said, "that they be neither so common nor so fell as the reports of the vulgar make them out, but well it is on the safe side to be."

At first Vardanas sought to compel his sister to ride in the carts with the soldiers' women. But Nirouphar had other ideas. She preferred to ride horseback with the officers, and ride she did. For one thing, she was an excellent rider; for another, her trousered Persian woman's garb (which differs but little from that of the men) was well suited to equitation.

When Nirouphar dismounted for the midday meal, Vardanas forbade the grooms to give her a leg up when she went to mount. That halted her not; she simply vaulted upon her beast man-fashion and soon was jogging amongst us again.

"Shameless hussy!" exclaimed Vardanas. "How shall I preserve your innocence and purity if you persist in mixing with this crowd of strange, rough men? I am half minded to spank you."

"Try it, brother dear," she said.

He swung Rakous about as if to seize her bridle, but Nirouphar wheeled her mare and slipped to Pyrron's other side. Twice more Vardanas made as if to catch her, but she dodged out of his reach like a skillful player of stick-and-ball. The rest of us roared with laughter, giving poor Vardanas no support. Pyrron believed in greater freedom for women; Beliddinos had the prudence to keep out of others' disputes; while I, still deeming myself wronged by the Persian, took a grim satisfaction in his difficulties.

"Vardanas!" she said. "As you say, I am an ignorant girl who has led a sheltered life. But if I am to face the wide world, I must know about it for the safety of my honor. And how better to learn than from such traveled men of the world as you and your friends?"

"Oh, I give up! Ride the elephant if you like, but do not shame me before all."

"Now, that is an interesting thought!" She called up to Kanadas: "O mighty Indian, may I ride your beautiful beast?"

Presently she was swaying in the booth atop the elephant, like an Indian princess. Howsomever, when the novelty wore off, she clambered down and resumed her seat on horseback where she could more easily talk with the rest of us. For a while she quizzed Pyrron on the grammar of the Greek language, which she was making earnest efforts to master. When she wearied of this, she ranged her horse beside mine.

"O Rheon," she said, "tell me why you look so solemn and downcast! In Sousa you were gay and happy. What is your trouble?"

"You may well ask, madam, being my chief trouble yourself."

"I? Why, what do you mean?"

"Your brother consulted me not ere bringing you along. It was not only a surprise but also a most unwelcome one."

"Mithras! What have I done that is so dreadful?"

"It is not what you have done but what your father is likely to do, such as stirring up the king's officials against us. Troubles! I thought we had undergone every kind an ingenious and hostile Fate could devise, but when I saw you I knew that Fate's quiver was not yet empty. Moreover, a swiftly moving hipparchia like ours, on urgent business, is no place for a delicately reared lady. You will tire from our pounding pace, or sicken from our coarse food, or become bored and commit some womanish folly that will bring disaster upon us. Or the mere sight of your beauty will tempt some lewd lord or officer to attack us to gain you as a prize."

During my tirade, she had stiffened her lips to keep back the tears. Now she drew herself up and said: "My good Troop Leader, it were well if you came to know me before accusing me of weakness and folly."

"My dear Lady Nirouphar, as I explained to your brother, I have nought against you personally. But a hundred years' acquaintance with you would not alter the fact that you are a woman, and moreover a lady, which makes matters worse."

"You confuse me with one of your sheltered Greek milch cows who never see the outsides of their fathers' houses ere they wed. As you have seen, I can ride with the best, and at need I can fend for myself in other ways, too. However, I will keep out of your way and cause you as little bother as I can."

She betook herself to Beliddinos and thereafter used me with the same cold courtesy that had obtained between Vardanas and me at the start of our journey in India.

The road wound snakelike across the Babylonian plain, for the surface of this plain is cut up by coiling streams and pocked with lakes and marshes. Swarms of wildfowl flew overhead. In the distance, besides herds of antelope and wild asses, we sometimes saw ostriches. The Dahas went off in chase of them until I forbade it. While it cannot fly, the ostrich outruns a burdened horse with ease, and my lads never got within bowshot. Lions and leopards abounded in the thickets, but we had had our lesson and suffered no more losses from these beasts of prey.

As the plain grew flatter and the watercourses larger, fields of sprouting grain became thicker. Here the Babylonians, mostly small dark folk, till their fabulously fertile soil.

A little group of horsemen with lances appeared in the distance, keeping us in sight but never coming close. They followed us all day. When they appeared the next day, I pointed them out to Beliddinos.

"Be wary," he said. "Perhaps a band of Kossian robbers are they." Then he returned to the theological argument in which he was engrossed. "If you like, I will concede that, as our various religions on one supreme deity agree, you could say that Auramasdas and Brach-man and Zeus are but other names for Mardoukos. But it does not follow that the rituals are so effective, or the beliefs so true, or the morals so pure, of those who worship this god as Auramasdas, and so forth, as they are of those who revere him as Mardoukos."

"But all priesthoods say their doctrines are the truest," said Vardanas. "Thus our Magians say their doctrines come straight from the prophet Zarathoushtras, inspired by the good God."

"Come now," said Beliddinos. "Zarathoushtras may have been a good man, but he lived only a few centuries ago, whereas the holy traditions of Babylonia go back thousands of years. As our doctrines are the oldest, they must be the purest, because they have lasted the longest."

"I do not see how that follows. Rather they are more likely to have become corrupted in all that time."

"But everyone knows that the men of ancient times were closer to the gods and hence wiser than we!"

"I am not even sure of that," said Vardanas. "Time was when men made weapons of bronze, not knowing how to smelt iron. You cannot say knowledge had not advanced in that respect."

"The knowledge of how to slay each other more swiftly is no true advance in civilization."

"Well then, aside from the contradictory assertions of competing priesthoods, how shall we choose amongst the doctrines of the various religions? If they have things in common, they also disagree on many things. The myths of the Hellenes, for instance, say nothing about the evil spirit Arimanes, rival to Auramasdas for the rule of the universe."

"Maybe truth different to different men," said Kanadas. "Men see different parts of it, like story of blind men feeling elephant."

"That is like some of Pyrron's theories," said Vardanas. "It is a shame he cannot speak Persian, for he loves a disputation."

"What is his belief?" said Beliddinos.

"Why, he is actually an atheist! And such a good man in most ways, too."

"Like the Judaeans?"

"What are Judaeans?" I asked.

Beliddinos said: "A warlike, godless Syrian tribe whom for rebellion King Naboukodreusor deported. Many were settled in Babylonia, where still they dwell."

"Have they no gods at all?" I asked.

"Not quite. They have a bloodthirsty little tribal god called laves.

But all other gods they impiously deny and contemn. They deem it sinful to make statues of gods, even of their own fierce laves."

"It does seem absurd," said Vardanas. "I am told the Judaeans' religion makes them haughty and forbidding, so they will not eat or treat with other men."

Kanadas clucked over the iniquities of the Judaeans, whereupon Vardanas burst into coarse laughter. "Behold him who speaks!" he cried. The Indian had the grace to look shamefaced.

"Not so hostile are all Judaeans," said Beliddinos. "Many are men of sense and virtue, and some have even come over to Mardoukos. But hard to deal with are their priesthood. I fear their intolerant doctrines are subversive of good order and morality. For, while we may argue points of doctrine amongst ourselves in an intellectual way, the sinful mass of men need impressive religions, with many gods, exciting myths, and beautiful images and ceremonies, to make them act virtuously. But the priesthoods must respect one another and not strive to undermine one another's creeds or divert one another's revenues. This insolent Judaean claim to a monopoly of all religion has in it the seeds of bloody upheavals and persecutions."

The plain was now broken only by occasional low mounds. Sometimes we saw none for leagues at a time, and again several were in sight at once. I gave them no thought until one morning Beliddinos was missing at marching time. I found him and his servants scratching at the surface of a nearby mound. When I taxed him with the delay, he smiled a vague, otherworldly smile and held up a slab of brick covered with bird-track writings. "What is that?" I said.

"An ancient letter. It is of no value; the writer wants to know when the addressee will pay him for the five sheep as he promised. But it shows that here, too, stood a town in ancient times."

"Mean you this knoll was once a town?"

"So are they all." Beliddinos gestured round the horizon. "Folk build a town, and their houses crumble in the rains, and they cast them down and build new ones on the rubbish. Higher and higher rises the town, its own hill building, like the hills of Sousa." Beliddinos dropped the tablet, dusted his hands, and came back with me to the camp. "Were not my priestly duties so heavy, fain would I spend my life digging up the history of my people. In the mounds of Babylon is more history than in all the other books and inscriptions in the world."

"I envy your wisdom," I said, "but, while ancient history is a fine study, I find the modern world all I can keep up with." I cast a glance of perplexity towards Nirouphar, who, using her poor brother as interpreter, was trying to talk of cultural matters with Pyrron.

It became a nuisance, though, when Beliddinos began to run off from the hipparchia at every stop, to grub in a mound. Once he came back waving a brick and crying: "Soumerian!"

"What is that?" I asked.

"The kings of Soumer ruled this land just after the Flood. A few can still read their writing, though we know almost nothing about them."

Pyrron, when this was explained, quoted:

Beliddinos tenderly wrapped the tablet in a cloth and stowed it in a saddlebag. Meseemed he had two souls in one body. One was that of a shrewd, farsighted, self-possessed temple official, who took his sacred revenues seriously but not his theology. The other was that of an unworldly seeker after pure knowledge, whose true deity was not Mardoukos but Kleito, the muse of history.

That afternoon, the concubine of Trooper Machaon went into labor. We camped at once to await the birth. The pains went on for hours. The woman was still groaning and screaming after the stars had come out. The women clustered about, whispering big-eyed among themselves, muttering charms and fetching amulets. Word got around that this would be a hard birth if it came off at all.

Then Nirouphar and Pyrron went into Machaon's tent. The shrieks continued for another hour, then died out. Then came the thin first cry of an infant. The men broke into cheers and clapped Machaon on the back.

Later still, Nirouphar and Pyrron came out. I went up to them as they were washing their hands.

"I think all's well, old boy," said Pyrron. "It was a difficult birth, as we anticipated. When Nirouphar's strength proved insufficient, I was compelled to lend my own clumsy hands. And incidentally, our Persian beauty can make a living any time as a midwife. I, of course, have had experience from assisting my sister, but Nirouphar knows her way around the birth canal, too."

"It was nought," said Nirouphar. "Many a time and oft have I helped the women of our serfs with their deliveries. These troopers' women are as big boobies as our peasantry. To hear them, one would think that birth was wholly a matter of magical spells and not a natural event at all."

"Good, good for both of you," I said. "I've cooked your dinners myself, mistrusting our cook to do you justice. You must be starved."

Nirouphar gave me a sharp look. "So you do think of others' feelings sometimes, Troop Leader?"

I answered her sally not. But later, after she had eaten, I took her aside.

"Lady Nirouphar," I said, "I owe you an apology for thinking you a useless burden. You have earned your passage by today's work, for a successful delivery cheers the men while a death casts them down and leads them to find evil omens in every shadow. Pray accept the thanks of one who has not always used you with due courtesy."

"Very well. Let there be a truce between us at least. But I would have done the same in any case."

I saw that she had not really forgiven me, so I tried another approach. "Forbye, I need your help."

"So?"

"To keep the men well in hand, a hipparch needs to know what they are saying when he is not about. Thyestes and I thought Klonios would serve this purpose when we made him a double-pay man. Klonios is a fine old fellow, but he has been a common trooper too long to think like an officer."

"Well?"

"I see that you gossip a deal with the women. That is natural, but you can make your gossip serve the king's purposes. Most of the men tell everything to their women, and the women pass it around. Now, if you would—"

"So, you would have me tattle on your men because you cannot govern them yourself?"

"Madam, without such a source of news, no officer knows when his men are planning mutiny or desertion. They do not send a delegation to warn him; witness the plots against the divine Alexander himself."

"I would not blame the men for resenting your strictness."

"Forsooth, I am strict, but I try to be just. And we owe our lives to that strictness. Had I not pounded their battle drill into them, we had been lost when the Asagartians or the Houzans attacked us. Remember, these are not gentlemen, but ignorant, superstitious, lustful loons, good soldiers though they be. Remember also that your and your brother's safety are bound up with the hipparchia's discipline."

"I will keep my ears open. But look not for me to come running to you with every petty complaint I hear them utter."

Next morn I was brought out of my tent before dawn by a yell from the sentry: "Horse thieves!"

A group of Kossians had crept up and were cutting out two of our horses. They got their halters loose, mounted their own animals, and were starting to lead our beasts away when my lads ran out after them, naked or nearly so and waving swords and javelins. It looked bad, because the rest of our horses were not bridled. By the time they were, the thieves would be out of sight.

I was shouting commands and watching one of the Dahas string his bow when more yells made me turn. The horse theft had been but a feint. A dozen more Kossians rushed out from behind some nearby date palms while we were all watching the pursuit. They darted into the camp and began to snatch up whatever they could find and run back towards the palms, where their fellows held horses ready.

Those not already chasing the horse thieves rushed upon these new invaders. Kossian arrows whistled about our ears. I went after one robber making off with a saddlebag. The bag was so heavy that, even though the thief was better built for running than I, I gained upon him. As I came up he dropped the bag, but too late. Turning to see how close I was, he stumbled. Before he could recover, I sworded him well. Then I dragged the bag back to camp.

A single arrow from Madouas, the Daha who had been so prompt with his bow, had picked off the man leading our horses. Thereupon the other thieves fled, leaving two of their number dead.

A Thessalian was struck in the arm by a Kossian arrow, but the wound soon mended. Vardanas' Kolchian slave, however, had unwittingly gotten in the way of a Kossian, who stabbed him in the belly. The hurt did not seem grave, and we did what we could for the man.

In their haste, the thieves had seized all sorts of things like blankets and loaves of bread, but much of the loot they dropped in their flight. The only costly articles they got were a good helmet and an iron cooking pot.

The loot I recovered turned out to be the bag holding Beliddinos' written bricks. When he saw what was in it, Thyestes burst into a guffaw.

"You should have let the limmer get away, Leon!" he said. " 'Twere a waur doom nor death itself, after dragging yon monstrous burden far over the plain, to open it and find nought but bricks within!"

Beliddinos looked sharply at my officer. Although the priest denied knowledge of Greek, I suspected him of knowing more than he pretended. He said:

"Mardoukos bless you, Hipparch. Though these tablets seem worthless to some, I would not sell them for seven talents of silver. Should you need help in these parts, do not hesitate to call upon the Temple of Mardoukos."

We made good our damages as best we could and went on. Vardanas' slave, however, soon worsened and three days later died of a wasting fever. When we had buried him, Vardanas complained:

"This is terrible, Leon! Without my slave, I must care for my own gear like any baseborn pauper! And I shall never save enough from my pay to buy another."

I answered: "Cheer up, buckie! We have a saying in Thessalia:

Seven days out of Sousa, we came to the Tigris River. For three days we followed its northern bank. Then we crossed by a bridge of boats. Aias, however, had to wade, for the villagers who kept up the bridge assured us that the elephant's weight would sink it. The brown water rose swirling to Aias' belly, but he made the passage without ill hap The road continued west, parting from the Tigris. I like not the Babylonian plain, despite its fabulous fertility. The air is too hazy to see the horizon, and the land is cut up by canal banks, standing like earthen walls running in all directions and shutting off the view. The watercourses are also planted with endless rows of date palms. All this, after the immense clear views of Persia, gave me a closed-in feeling. Betimes I rode the elephant instead of my horse to see farther.

Nirouphar kept trying to pump all Pyrron's knowledge out of the poor man, despite the barrier of language. Although she could now speak a few simple sentences of Greek, her knowledge was quite inadequate for philosophical discourse. She essayed to enlist me as an interpreter, but after a morning's struggle I said:

"You are a charming young woman, Lady Nirouphar, but I cannot control my horse, command the hipparchia, round up stragglers, watch out for foes, compute our expenses, replenish the elephant's store of food, and translate Pyrron's philosophy into Persian all at once, especially as much of it I cannot understand myself. You must needs find another victim."

The only other man who was competent to interpret was Vardanas. Howsomever, when Nirouphar besought her brother to do so, he discovered that he had to take the Dahas on lengthy scouting rides to ward us from robbers and keep us from going astray in the maze of canals.

So Nirouphar's converse with Pyrron was reduced to simple language lessons. When her mind became weary with these, she ofttimes clambered up to sit with me in the booth on Aias' back, to ply me with questions about our adventures in the East and life in my homeland. The formal and distant manner in which she had been treating me inevitably mellowed. Had she been Greek, I might have been shocked by her unladylike forwardness, but in a foreigner it only added to her exotic charm.

"O Hipparch," she said, "my great ambition is to read and write Greek proficiently. When I was little I picked up a smattering of Greek from Dorymachos whilst he tutored my brothers. But I forgot nearly all of it, save the alpha-beta, for lack of practice until you came. Have I ever shown you my library?"

"Your library, Nirouphar?"

"You will not laugh?"

"By Zeus the king, I swear I will not!"

"Here it is." From her wallet she brought out a small roll of papyrus, a fragment torn from a larger book. With the greatest labor she began to read in Greek, syllable by syllable:

Only the memory of my promise kept me from laughing at her pronunciation. I knew the text to be the closing part of Book Two of the Iliad, which some call the "Catalogue of Ships." It was the dullest and most difficult section of the epic she could have chosen. Still, she was vastly proud of such reading skill as she had.

"If Fate allow," I said, "someday you shall have a complete Iliad. I will read it over with you and explain the hard parts."

Thereafter we were friends, if not intimate ones. She reported the women's gossip to me without reserve. Soon I felt for her something more than friendship, admiration, and the simple animal lust which the sight of a comely lass arouses in any healthy youth, Athenians excepted.

I was, I feared, falling in love. In view of Vardanas' attitude towards non-Arian suitors, I knew not what to do about my passion. Vardanas would not entertain a suit for honorable marriage, and to ask Nirouphar to become my concubine would affront both Persians. It might even jeopardize our mission. So, for the time being, I kept a tense and uneasy silence.

As everybody knows, falling in love is something which a sensible man avoids. The man of sense relieves his lusts with light women, weds a girl of good family and ample dowry chosen by his parents, and goes through life without succumbing to the pleasant madness of love. At least, so our parents teach us. But, despite these wholesome moral precepts, most men seem to fall in love sooner or later and become prey to the follies which that state entails. Perhaps the precepts need revision to make them fit the nature of men more closely.

I was not the only one to feel thus. A warm affection sprang up between Nirouphar and the elephant. The lass was always fussing over him and bringing him dainties, until he paid more heed to her than to any of the men.

"O fickle monster!" said Vardanas. "We wear the soles from our shoes and the seats from our trews, fetching this creature from India. We save it from a hundred deaths by starvation, thirst, and the weapons of evildoers. And then the ungrateful animal jilts us for a flutter-witted jade!"

Beliddinos, as I have stated, had two sides to his character: that of a zealous seeker after historical knowledge, and that of a shrewd and worldly temple official. As we neared Babylon, however, he displayed another aspect: his official character as head of the chief cult of the world's greatest city. Day by day he became more solemnly unctuous and dignified. He addressed us all as "my son," called upon Mardoukos and his other grim Babylonian gods to witness every statement, and scattered blessings, exorcisms, and other sacred formulae like rain.

Only rarely, now, could one catch the flicker of amusement that used to pass over his lean, ascetic face during a solemn pronouncement of divine intent or cosmic doom. By the time we reached Babylon, those who had not known him in his holiday mood would never have thought him other than as the holiest, loftiest, purest pontiff in the world, devoted to the glory of his dour divinities.

And so, at the beginning of Gamelion, we came to Babylon. First the villages clustered more thickly, and we passed fair estates and villas.

"Most of these were built by noble Babylonians," said Beliddinos. "But, because of their sins, great Mardoukos allowed the Persian kings from their owners to take them and to their Persian supporters to give them."

Then we reached the outer or suburban wall of the city. This is a low brick wall three hundred furlongs around. It is merely to keep Arab raiders and other robbers out of the suburbs, not to provide a strong defense.

We passed through this wall and marched league upon league through an ever-thickening pattern of villages and wheat fields. Some people ran at the sight of the elephant. When it was seen that we meant no harm, hundreds of naked brown children swarmed after us, yelling, chasing one another, and begging.

Then the main walls loomed over the lines of date palms like a chain of mountains. Pyrron, with Vardanas acting as translator, was arguing the shape of the earth with Beliddinos. He said that it was round, the Babylonian that it was flat. Pyrron dropped his learned reasoning to whistle at the sight of the walls.

"Zeus on Olympos!" he said.

If he, who had seen Babylon before, was so struck by the sight, you can imagine the effect of this colossal if worn and shabby old city on me who had never seen it. I had missed it on my way east because my troop was sent straight from Opis to Hagmatana.

The main wall of Babylon is about thirty cubits high and so wide that two four-horse chariots can pass one another between the towers. These towers bestride the wall every hundred cubits and are nearly twice as high as the wall itself. I was told that the wall is eighty furlongs in circumference (with gaps where the Euphrates flows through the city) so a prudent man does not set out for a stroll around the city on the wall after dinner, as he may in most cities. Yet diligent scrutiny showed that the brickwork was crumbling in many places. Brickers moved about the wall, repairing it, but it would take an army of them to keep ahead of the decay.

The guards waved us through the east gate. As far as my eye could see stretched rows of houses. Here and there the ground rose to a low hill crowned with palaces or temples. It was as if some god had picked up all the cities in the world and set them down together in a clump.

"How finds a man his way about so vast a place?" I asked Beliddinos.

"Not difficult is it when streets are straight," he said. The main streets are indeed nearly straight and cross at right angles, as in Peiraieus.

"If you like," the priest continued, "I will show you the way to my temple. Perhaps we can quarter you on the sacred precincts."

"Many thanks," I said. "That were a princely kindness!"

As we rode, the traffic waxed denser. Never have I seen such a throng of moving people, save when refugees flee an invasion.

"Is aught amiss in the city, that such masses swarm the streets?" I said.

"No. This is the hour when men go home from work. Like this every morn and even it is."

We came to the inner city wall, smaller than the main wall but still a decent defense. Inside the inner wall we passed a huge open space piled with broken brick.

"What is that?" I said.

"Those are the remains of the great Tower of Babylon, or as we called it the zikoras of Mardoukos. It stood yonder." Beliddinos pointed ahead of us. "Three hundred cubits it rose above the plain. From its top one could see from Sippara in the north to Nippor in the south; from its lofty peak the will of the gods as revealed in the stars we studied."

"What happened to it?"

"In the years following our trouble with the first Xerxes, the tower was neglected. Unfilled were cracks; stolen from the casing were bricks. By the time Alexander came, into a vast heap of rubble it had crumbled. Orders to rebuild it he gave. So his men have hauled the bricks of the old tower over here and dumped them, but they have not yet begun work on the new."

As we went on along the Street of Mardoukos, as this avenue is called, traffic got thicker and thicker. At the crossing of two broad avenues, a packed mass of travelers halted us. Slowly we edged up to the crossing. I was about to lead the hipparchia across when a Babylonian civic watchman, with a bronzen helm on his head and a stone-headed club suspended from his belt, stepped into the center of the crossing. He blew a blast on the ram's horn. Then he flung out his arms with palms turned outwards, as if to halt us and those coming towards us from the opposite direction.

"What is this?" I said, starting to guide Golden across.

"Stop!" cried Beliddinos, catching my mantle. "He is a—how would you say it—a commander of traffic. Everybody below the rank of king, general, or governor must obey his commands."

I halted. Amazingly, all traffic east and west through the crossing halted too, obedient to the guard's gestures. Now he turned so as to face east and made beckoning motions with both arms. At once the traffic between north and south began to flow. I sat impatiently while horses, mules, asses, camels, oxcarts, wains, chariots, litters, a flock of goats, and hundreds of folk afoot, bearded men and veiled women, poured past in front of me.

"How long does this take?" I asked. "Must we stand here till nightfall?"

"Nay; the traffic man will soon beckon us. In a city of such size we cannot let traffic manage itself, lest the streets be hopelessly blocked and confusion reign."

The watchman stepped out again, halted the flow between north and south, and beckoned us onward. Seeing that I commanded the hipparchia, he gave me a salute with his club as I passed. I waved to him and rode on.

After a jog to the left, we reached the Street of Adados, a broad avenue leading westward to the Euphrates River. Before it reached the river it passed between two sacred places. On the left stood the temple of Mardoukos, which the Babylonians call Esagila, or the Lofty-headed Temple. On the right was a great temple compound where aforetime rose the Tower of Babylon, which was called Etemenanki, the Cornerstone of the Universe.

Beliddinos guided us to the left, into the grounds of the temple. Amidst the groves stood a small temple, very old-looking. Dragons in enameled relief paraded around its worn brick walls; gilded ornaments on its cornices gleamed in the setting sun. To one side were signs of construction, where a space had been cleared and the raising of walls begun. The new building, as planned, was larger than the old, and together they made a shape like a thick letter gamma.

"There," said Beliddinos, "the new temple of Mardoukos stood ere Xerxes razed it and raped away the great golden statue of the god. Since then we have used the old temple, but with your king's help and the favor of the gods we hope to restore the new. You understand, by 'new' I mean a mere two hundred and fifty years old."

Priests and temple servants came running to greet their master. Those of higher degree kissed his hands, while the lowlier ones bowed to the ground. There was much formal blessing and invocation of the gods, for the Babylonians are a ceremonious folk. A group whom I took to be Beliddinos' family swarmed out of a walled enclosure to greet him also, albeit less formally. At last Beliddinos said: "Come, Hipparch."

He led us across the avenue to the grounds of the tower. The site where once the tower rose is a broad bare dusty place, like a parade ground, surrounded by low buildings arranged in a hollow square. In these buildings the lesser priests and attendants dwell, and pilgrims from other parts of the country stay. Here room was found for us and our beasts. Scented soap fit for kings and high priests was given us to wash with.

Evening—which, as says the Poetess, brings together all that the light-giving dawn has scattered—fell softly. Priests and pilgrims clustered about us, showering us with questions about the elephant. What did he eat? Was it true that elephants lived a thousand years? Had he any joints in his legs?

Weary though we were, it was late at night when the sweet sound of hymns, wafting from Esagila, lulled us to sleep.

Thenceforth we saw little of Beliddinos, who was swallowed up by his duties, as a hero of Babylonian myth, named Ionas, was swallowed up by a whale. Though still cordial when he saw us, he was no longer intimate, but brisk, suave, and dignified, as one must be to put great designs into effect without revealing one's inner self. The morning after we arrived, Beliddinos presented to me a man whose name, he said, was Peithagoras of Amphipolis, a student of divinatory science at the temple of Mardoukos.

"He will show you about and guide you to the offices of the government," he said.

"Rejoice, Hipparch," said Peithagoras, a Hellene who had taken to Babylonian ways. He curled his beard, used perfume, wore a long robe with sleeves, and carried a walking stick with the top carven in the shape of an eagle. At the same time he affected the most extreme Attic dialect, as to remind his hearer that Amphipolis was an Athenian colony.

"My dear old thing," he said, "there's no use going to the offices today. All the chaps are at some beastly conference. Let me send my slave to make you an appointment with my brother's secretary."

"Your brother?"

"General Apollodoros. Perhaps the general himself could give you a moment, though he's frightfully busy, you know. Meanwhile let's look about the temple. Their divinatory methods are centuries ahead of ours. I'm a student of these things, you know. Who's that simply divine young Persian with you?"

"Vardanas of Sousa."

"Fetch him along; fetch him along. And any others who want to come."

I called out my officers and Nirouphar and Pyrron and made them known to Peithagoras, who led us about the temple compounds with his tongue wagging like a poplar leaf in the breeze.

"Now here, darlings," he said, "is the hepatoscopy room. They call that chap fiddling with the sheep's guts a machos." He spoke in hesitant Syrian to the blood-smeared diviner, who answered.

"The liver-gate is long on the right side and short on the left," said Peithagoras. "That means our arms will be successful. Now in here is the astrological library. All those stacks of bricks are reports on the aspects of the heavenly bodies. The astrologers claim their records go back to the Flood, thirty-four thousand years ago. Let's see—ah—here's one. Reign of—ah—Naboupalesar. I can't really read these ghastly little scratches yet, though I'm learning. Isn't it wonderful, darlings, that by taking a few sights on the planets and a little calculating, you can tell your state of health and wealth and welfare a month or a year or a decade from now? It never fails, if you remember to take every aspect into account."

He rattled on like that for hours. I recalled that Beliddinos, who ought to know about such matters if anyone did, was much more skeptical about the prophetic powers of astrology, but I forbore to contend the matter.

Peithagoras showed us other sights, like the golden statue of Mardoukos, glowing softly in the dim light of the old temple. This statue was not the one that Xerxes stole, but the one he left behind. It showed the god, long-bearded and stern, seated upon a golden throne. Coiled about his feet, also worked in glowing gold, was a lizardlike dragon, called a sirous by the Babylonians. This beast was also depicted on the outer walls of the temple and on the knob of Beliddinos' walking stick. The air was heavy-laden with incense, and somewhere out of sight a chorus was practicing a hymn with a wailing up-and-down tune. Peithagoras said:

"These blighters say the statue weighs eight hundred talents of solid gold, but I think if we bored into it we should find a wooden core with a thin golden covering. Don't try it, though; my priestly friends wouldn't like it. Now let's go outside, O best ones. This incense gives me a perfectly foul headache."

He took us out on the river wall, so we could look up and down the Euphrates as far as the hazy air permitted. North of this spot, the river makes a sharp bend, passing around the citadel. Thence it flows slowly southward past the sacred enclosures.

Below us, long lines of wharves and quays spread out to north and south along this bustling waterway. There were great sluggish barges piled with produce and moved by poling. There were sharp-nosed little sailing vessels with overhanging bows and sloping masts. There were timber rafts, heaped with brushwood for fuel, drifting down from the Assyrian mountains.

Strangest were bowl-shaped vessels of stitched hides, perfectly round, floating downstream piled with melons and other cargo, each with a hobbled ass reposing on its side atop the load. The boatman keeps this curious vessel in midstream by an occasional stroke with a square-bladed paddle until he reaches his proper wharf. Then, with much splashing and spinning, he forces the bowl-boat to shore. When he has unloaded, the boatman sells the wooden framework of the boat along with his cargo, rolls up the leathern covering, ties it upon the ass, and sets out upstream again.

Whilst others took in the view, I cast a glance over my people. It cost me a pang to see Nirouphar shamelessly clutching Pyrron's arm. Peithagoras sidled up to Vardanas and spoke low in his ear. The Persian turned a dark face upon him and spoke a curt "No!"

"Don't be nasty about it, darling," said Peithagoras. "I can get prettier boys than you any time. Not every blighter gets a chance to befriend one so well connected as I."

He left Vardanas and went to work on Kanadas. Presently I heard the Indian growl something in his native tongue and spit into the river.

"By the twelve postures of Kyrene!" said Peithagoras. "What crowd of barbarians have I fallen into? But come, old things, it's time for lunch. Perhaps a drop of wine will soften your hearts."

The afternoon I spent on the business of the hipparchia: writing the king, counting our money, and conferring with Thyestes and Elisas. According to our figures, if we were very thrifty and traveled swiftly, we could reach the Syrian coast with the soldiers' discharge bonuses intact but hardly anything to spare. It would be hard to last out the sea voyage from Syria to Athens without spending any money, as the voyage would be long and slow with many stops.

"There's no doubt," said I, "that we must present our money order to Harpalos for more funds."

"Aye, buckie," said Thyestes. "If the king's own treasurer willna honor it, who will?"

"Think you I should call the men together to explain our plight?"

"Na, you mauna. 'Tis only the thought of those lovely bonuses that keeps the lads under rein. By Zeus, let them think the silver's not likely to last, and they'll plunder the cotters or desert. As it is, 'twill be a prodigy gin we lose not one or two in this fornicating great city, by desertion, murder, or some sic way."

"Tell them to go in pairs on leave and wear their swords at all times," I said, "and gif I find they've started any trouble with the Babylonians, I'll make them wish they'd never left Thessalia."

A pity it is that I did not take my own advice.

Two days later I rode forth on Aias, with Peithagoras, to attend General Apollodoros' secretary. First we crossed a great bridge with boat-shaped stone piers that carries the Street of Adados across the Euphrates. Then, at Peithagoras' direction, I turned north and followed a winding course up the right bank.

Peithagoras, as excited as a child over his elephant ride, babbled unceasingly. He pointed out the canals and overflow basins with which the Babylonians try to tame their mighty river. The wharves swarmed with merchants, shouting and waving their hands as they chaffered. The Babylonians gathered in gabbling crowds to see the elephant as he lumbered past, but we proudly pretended not to notice them.

We followed the bend of the Euphrates where it flows around three sides of the citadel. At the southeast corner of the citadel we turned north on a wide avenue paved with great slabs of stone. On each side rose a brick wall. Along the base of these walls strode long lines of life-sized lions, depicted in low relief in bright enameled brick, some white with yellow manes and some yellow with red manes. There were also a number of brick posts several feet high along both sides of the street, separating the walkers along the sides from the beasts of burden in the middle. I have never seen such shrewd and splendid street construction in a Hellenic city.

"This is Enemy Street," said Peithagoras. "It has a long Babylonian name meaning 'The Street Whereon May No Enemy Ever Tread,' but it's called 'Enemy Street' for short. They carry Mardoukos along this way when he visits Ishtar in the spring festival. You should be here in Elephabolion; the Babylonians put on a perfect whiz of a parade."

Enemy Street was a furlong in length. At the far end rose the largest gate in the world. Two colossal brick towers loomed over it, and round them stood smaller fortifications.

"The celebrated Ishtar Gate," said Peithagoras. "And there are the equally famous Hanging Gardens." He pointed to a mass of greenery looming over the wall of the citadel, to the left of the Ishtar Gate. "I say, have the driver stop this creature. Here's where we go in."

We clambered down and marched in through a double door in the wall of the citadel. This door, dwarfed by the Ishtar Gate though large by most standards, was set in a doorframe that was painted bright red to scare away the demons.

Inside was a pair of anterooms. In one, Greek guards lounged; in the other, taxpayers stood in line to give their money to clerks, who entered the payments in ledgers and wrote out receipts. Then we came to a big open court swarming with people, and round about it the entrances to more offices. The air was full of Greek, Persian, Syrian, and other tongues.

I will not tell how I was passed from clerk to clerk and from secretary to secretary until I was dizzy; the details are now hazy. Harpalos, I learnt, was still in Tarsos and had not yet sent word that he was making his winter trip to Babylon. Menes I should find at Alexandreia-by-Issos, where he was building a new city for Alexander.

Half the folk I saw seemed to be idling or gossiping, whilst the other half worked frantically to clear their tables of mountains of documents. At length I was passed up to General Apollodoros himself, Peithagoras' brother, a man of much my own size and shape but older. Peithagoras told him of my mission.

"Good for you!" bellowed Apollodoros, and clapped me on the back. "India to Athens on an elephant, eh? By the God! You could write a book about it. Now what's all this about fodder and stuff?"

He gave the necessary orders. As I was bidding him farewell, another Hellene passed the door of the chamber. Apollodoros shouted:

"Ē! Agathon!"

The man, a native of Pydna in Methone, turned out to be the commandant of the citadel. He questioned me about India until I protested: "I could talk all day about my journey, gentlemen, but I must get back to my hipparchia. The elephant will be getting hungry."

Peithagoras said: "Why not invite the hipparch to tomorrow's feast, brother dear? Then you could question him to your heart's content."

"It pleases," said Apollodoros. "Tomorrow at sundown in the Hanging Gardens. How about the other officers of your troop? Who are they?"

I listed them. He invited Thyestes, Vardanas, Pyrron, and Kanadas.

"Shall I get boys or girls for any of these people?" said Apollodoros. "How about you, for instance?"

I did not want to go into tedious explanations to the effect that, albeit I preferred girls, there was now only one lass I wanted. Vardanas, too, would prefer a girl, and so would Thyestes. Pyrron and Kanadas would be just as happy without companions.

"Have two good, bouncing wenches for Troop Closer Vardanas and Flank Guard Thyestes," I said. "That's all."

When we came out on Enemy Street again, we found Siladites in a dispute with a Babylonian watchman. The argument lost no vim from the fact that neither could understand the other.

Peithagoras spoke Syrian to the guard, who waved his club and jabbered. Peithagoras said to me: "Oh, dash it all! It seems we've broken some of their beastly traffic laws."

"How now?" said I. "We've not driven Aias in a drunken or reckless manner."

"No, but it's forbidden to stand a beast or vehicle on Enemy Street. The sign says so."

"What sign?"

"This." Peithagoras pointed with his stick to the nearest of the brick posts. I saw, now that I looked closely, that the column was inscribed with writings in the Syrian and Babylonian languages.

"How am I supposed to read that stuff?" I said. "What says it?"

Peithagoras peered at the post and conferred with the guardsman. "Let's see-ah, that's it. It says: ROYAL ROAD. LET NO MAN LESSEN IT, ON PENALTY OF LAW. BY COMMAND OF BOUPARES, GOVERNOR, FOR DAREIOS, KING OF KINGS. This blighter also claims that crowds gathered to see the elephant and blocked traffic."

"What should I do now? Slay myself?"

"I'll manage it, darling." Peithagoras spoke low to the guard and passed him a coin. The guard smiled, saluted, and went his way.

I was trying on the new shirt that Vardanas persuaded me to buy when he came to me and said: "Leon, I am in a strait."

"What?" I said.

"You say General Apollodoros will have a woman for me at the feast. But now Nirouphar insists that I escort her thither."

"I suppose you refused; no Hellene would take his sister to such an affair."

"No, I did not refuse. We are not so bigoted in Persia. Besides, you know not my sister. She has a mind of her own and a burning curiosity."

"Well, what then is the problem?"

"Kanadas and Pyrron have declined the general's invitation, and I really do not think I can manage two women at once."

"And you a polygamous Persian? Shame on you!"

"It is not so much a matter of numbers as the fact that Nirouphar and I have quarreled. We are on strained terms."

"What about?"

"I gave her twenty-five drachmai to buy us some things we needed, and, do you know, the abandoned wench spent every drachma on a Babylonian gown? It is not only a foreign fashion, but an indecent one, being so thin that she might as well be naked. She has no more sense about money than a rabbit."

"Hearken to the god of thrift and prudence! But I see the solution to your problem. I will escort your sister fair, leaving you free to cope with your Babylonian wench."

"Splendid! I knew I could count on you," he said.

With my gear newly polished, I awaited with pounding heart for the sight of Nirouphar in her transparent Babylonian gown. Alas! She appeared in her regular Persian coat and trousers, for Vardanas had given the gown to Elisas with orders to sell it for what he could get.

We rode Aias to the citadel. Warned by my experience of the day before, we sent the beast back with Siladites, with orders to return for us in three hours. We entered the courtyard that I had seen the previous day, passed through doors into another court, and turned right into an alley between two rows of houses. Others streamed into this alley with us, men and women in the varied garb of many nations. After fifty paces, the corridor opened out. There stood one of the world's great wonders, the fabulous Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

These gardens, so-called, are really an enormous building at the northeast corner of the citadel, so constructed that it looks more like a hillock covered with greenery than a work of mortal man. The ground floor of this building is open on three sides and surrounded by a wide border of trees and shrubs. Stout stone pillars and arched vaults of brickwork support a massive roof, bedight around its edge with gilded dragons, lions, and other creatures.

Atop the roof, in a thick layer of soil, stands a grove of trees and shrubs, many of them rare and exotic. I learned that Harpalos the treasurer, when he resided in Babylon, brought such plants at vast expense from distant lands and planted them here, being an enthusiastic gardener like Artaxerxes the Resolute. Harpalos also refurbished the Hanging Gardens building, which had fallen into disrepair.

Spacious stairways lead to the roof. In summer the rulers of Babylon hold feasts by moonlight in the delightful roof garden, looking out over Babylon as the gods were once thought to look out over the works of man from their seat on Olympos. Now, however, because the air was cool with the threat of rain, the tables were laid on the lower level. Still, strange it was to eat in a great gilded hall and look outwards, not at walls, but at masses of greenery.

A machine of chains and leather buckets hoists water from a well in the vaults below the building right up through the ground floor to the roof, where the water runs through channels in the gardens and pours in little artificial waterfalls over the edge of the roof to wet the gardens on the lower level. This apparatus is kept groaning and squealing night and day by slaves who endlessly turn windlasses in the bowels of the building.

Apollodoros, a wreath on his hair, met us at the entrance. The women he had procured for us were a pair of bay fillies named Nin-Zerbanis and Nin-Nika, behung with shawls and veils and ribbons and gewgaws. Zerbanis, who was short and plump, he presented to Thyestes, while Vardanas received Nika, a large and solidly built dame.

"Hoots, what a bonny deemie!" cried Thyestes in broad Thessalian. "General Apollodouros, my lord, you ken what makes a soldier happy!"

Apollodoros smiled and led us to couches which we shared with our companions. So long had it been since I had reclined at a meal that I scarcely remembered how to behave. Most of our companions were Greek officers of the forces at Babylon, but sprinkled amongst them were Babylonians, Persians, and other foreigners. Most of the diners, also, were accompanied by women—of no high degree, if I could judge—or by painted pleasure boys. A handsome middle-aged Persian was presented to me as Stamenes, viceroy of Babylonia.

As soon as we were settled, the Hellenes began throwing questions about my journey. As I was feeling gay and friendly, I so let my tongue wag that only by catching the words in my teeth did I avoid blurting out something about the money we bore.

In a corner, an orchestra of harps, lutes, flutes, cymbals, and drums played wailing music, and a music girl sang in Syrian a naughty song that began: "In the street I saw two harlots."

With an effort I kept myself from staring at Nirouphar, who looked so beautiful in her Babylonian coiffure and cosmetics that my heart ached. We talked in Persian between bites, on what subjects I recall not.

I like the Babylonian ways of cooking meat, albeit I do not care much for roast grasshoppers, and their vegetables (lentils, endives, and lettuce) are tender and delicious. I boggled a bit at the salted bats, which in Babylonia grow to the size of pigeons. In the end I found my bat edible, but there was hardly enough meat on the creature to repay the trouble.

The fruit—peaches, apricots, plums, and figs—was being served when I first caught a glimpse of Stamenes, the viceroy, and Agathon, the commandant, talking low and staring at me. Stamenes leant back in a carven chair whilst the Hellene bent over his shoulder and spoke in his ear. As soon as I looked at them, they turned their gaze away. I did not quite like the look of things; but, since I was full of good food and inflamed with love of Nirouphar, my suspicions were hard to arouse.

The wine was proffered, along with beer and palm wine, though I have never cared for these latter when real wine could be had. A trumpet blast signaled the libation. I noticed that most of the Hellenes had adopted the foreign habit of drinking their wine straight, even as I had. Apollodoros stood up, made a speech, and presented me to the company.

"Get up and tell them what you have told me about your journey, Troop Leader Leon," he said.

I had liefer fallen through the floor, but I rose on quaking legs and looked out over a meadow of gleaming cuirasses, shimmering silks, rings and other baubles winking in the lamplight, and wine-flushed faces.

"Though no orator," I began, "I'll try to give you a truthful tale, unadorned by tricks of rhetoric ..."

I launched into my account. For the first half hour all went well. Then the audience began to fidget, cough, whisper, and make love to their companions. I raised my strong voice and kept on. I had got the hipparchia as far as Karmana when I felt a tug on my shirt tail.

It was Vardanas. "Cut it short," he hissed. "You are boring them."

"So from Karmana we came to Babylon, and here we are. Oh, there were a few small adventures like being attacked by nomads and lions, but nought to speak of. Thank you for your attention." I sat down.

The audience cheered, no doubt in relief that I was not going on all night, and began to talk among themselves. Soon the music could hardly be heard above the roar of voices.

Apollodoros stood up and belched. "Now hear this!" he shouted. "It's time our fair guests showed us some of the dances for which Babylon is famous. Get up, girls, and go to it. What's that abandoned tune you dance to?"

Somebody spoke to the orchestra, which burst into a wild tune. About twenty women, including Zerbanis and Nika, let themselves be pushed out to the middle of the floor, whence tables and couches were drawn back.

The oldest of the women lined the others up in pairs, facing each other, gave them directions, snapped her fingers, and led the first figure —a lively affair with much spinning, arm waving, stamping, and finger snapping. Bright-colored skirts and robes billowed and whirled.

Anon, at a signal from the leader, the women doffed their shawls and veils and threw them in a heap in the center of the floor.

Now the orchestra changed to a slow dreamy tune. The women moved with slinking, serpentine motions. At another signal, they shed their outer robes and tossed them on the heap.

The orchestra played a martial tune; the women marched about in warlike poses. After a while the men began to shout: "Take it off! Take it off!" Off came their jackets to join the heap on the floor.

I felt a nudge and heard Vardanas' voice: "Nirouphar and I must go, Leon. I do not mind the show, but this is no place for a Persian girl of good family."

"But—" I began as he took Nirouphar's arm and forcibly drew her away from me. She protested and hung back, but he was the stronger.

"Nin-Nika will keep you company," he called back.

I wanted Nin-Nika not, nor did I want to start a dispute in public. Angry and unhappy, I turned my eyes back to the dance.

Now the orchestra caterwauled as if in deepest grief, and the women went through motions of mourning.

"Take it off!" yelled the men. Thyestes was among the loudest shouters. He pounded his table and screamed at his Zerbanis.

Off came the skirts, leaving the lassies in thin shirts and gay petticoats. A yearning tune brought off the shirts; and a furiously passionate melody, the petticoats. The women danced naked but for jingling ornaments.

In a frenzy of lust, Thyestes vaulted over his table, picked up Zerbanis (who must have weighed nigh as much as he) and bore her out of the hall. I had a glimpse of him as he carried her up a stair leading to the roof garden. Other men did likewise with their wenches. Drinking vessels fell to the floor; men tripped over couches and fell. Fights broke out. The noise was deafening.

All of a sudden the breath was knocked out of me by a heavy weight that landed in my lap. I found my arms full of Nika, clutching my neck, pressing her big brown breasts against me, smothering me with kisses, and muttering in broken Greek: "I love! You come! I make happy!"

Now, I am ordinarily cautious almost to the point of timidity, but under the circumstances I do not think I can be blamed for yielding to overwhelming forces. Besides, I was always so grateful to any woman who was not repelled by my plainness that I could deny her nought. I got up unsteadily, saying: "Hold it, lass; wait till I get this fixed."

For, what with the wine, the scenes I had witnessed, and this passionate assault upon me, I found when I stood up that the hang of my kilt left something to be desired in soldierly smartness.

"You come! I show!" she panted.

She led me almost at a run out of the hall. Instead of taking one of the stairs to the roof garden, howsomever, she led me into one of the corridors between the rows of governmental buildings surrounding the Hanging Gardens. Save for an occasional wall lamp, the place was almost entirely dark. I should have fallen on my face but that my guide knew the way.

Then suspicion began to edge passion out of the saddle. I braced my feet and slowed the woman's rush.

"Whoa!" I said. "Not so fast, kimmer. Whither away?"

She paused for breath, and a noise made me turn. But it was too late. Strong arms caught my wrists and twisted them behind me. I tore one arm loose and threw off the man who clutched it, but, ere I could do more, something smote me on the pate, and I swooned away in a shower of stars.

I awoke in a dark prison cell, shackled to the wall, with a lump on my head like the egg of a goose. When I had drunk a bowl of water left within my reach, I felt life return despite a headache. My indignant shouts brought a jailer. Instead of answering my questions, he shuffled off.

Presently there came the sound of many feet and the light of lanterns in the gloom. A cockscomb helmet shadowed the face of Aga-thon, the commandant. The other well-clad visitor was Stamenes, the viceroy. A pair of armed men of great girth and thew walked behind them.

"Awake, I see," said Agathon, grinning. "People who visit our fair city should pay more heed to our ordinances. With so much street traffic we must needs be strict, lest chaos ensue."

"What mean you?"

"Come, come, Thessalian, you know well enough. You left your elephant standing in a forbidden zone; you blocked traffic by causing a crowd to gather; and lastly you tried to bribe an officer of the law in the performance of his duty."

"I bribed nobody!" I shouted. "It was that Peithagoras who paid the guard."

"My, such a beastly temper! We know otherwise. Now we come to the penalty. We've been punishing such offenses lightly, but too many evildoers flout our just laws. It's time we made an example. So we've dug back into the archives."

"Long way back," said the Persian. "Babylonians wonderful. Keep records back to creation of world."

"And we've found just what we need!" said Agathon. "My dear fellow, you'll die when you hear. Back when the Assyrians ruled the land, some old king named Sennakrops—"

"Sennacheribos," said Stamenes.

"—decreed that any man who left beast or vehicle standing in a forbidden zone should be slain, and his body impaled on a stake before his house as a warning. Now, as you don't dwell here, we can't impale you in front of your house—"

"But can kill, oh yes!" said Stamenes, drawing a finger across his throat.

"However," said Agathon, "as you're one of the king's valued servants, we don't really wish to do anything so horrid. We'd rather let you off with a fine. Now, we know you're taking chests of treasure to Hellas. If you'll tell us where they are, the fine will be adjusted accordingly."

I thought. By "adjusting the fine" the Methonean meant setting the forfeiture at whatever sum we had with us. Any excuse will serve a tyrant, as it says in the fable.

Whilst they probably would not kill me ere they got possession of the chests, for fear they might not be able to find them without my directions, it was likely that, as soon as they seized the treasure, they would slay me, regardless of promises, lest I report their crimes to the king. Therefore, my game was to keep them from finding the chests as long as I could. I said:

"When we entered the city, we buried the chests in one of those piles of broken brick from the Tower of Babylon."

The two officials traded glances. Agathon said: "That tells us little, my friend. There are millions of bricks in that dump. To search it through would take a lifetime."

"Look beneath the piles nearest the inner city wall," I said. "The chests are under the second heap in from the Street of Mardoukos."

They went away, leaving me in darkness. Time passed with heavy-footed tread. I was fed and watered enough to keep me alive. I thought sadly of Nirouphar, whom I might never see again. I listened to the rustle of mice, scratched the bites of countless vermin, and cursed my folly in letting down for a moment the bars of my suspicion.

I thought that surely my hair must be turning gray with age when Agathon and Stamenes came back. I knew that days had passed since they had been there last, though how many days I could not tell, for no daylight came into the crypt.

This time they brought with them a man who bore a kit of tools which I soon recognized as those of a professional torturer. Agathon said:

"So, little old Leon plays jokes on us, eh? But important officials like us don't care for jokes. This gentleman" (he pointed to the torturer) "will entertain you for a while. Then we shall ask where the money is, and if you don't give us the truth, well ..."

I set my teeth. The executioner heated his tools in a brazier.

"You shall rue this outrage," I said, repeating my words in Persian for Stamenes' benefit. "The king will impale you. My orders are to write him every few days. If the letters stop, he'll know that ill hap has befallen me."

"We don't fear the polluted king," said Agathon. "He'll never return. Grab the blighter, boys."

The two muscular guards seized me and stretched me out despite my struggles. Unchained and well fed, I could surely have handled one at least. As it was, howsomever, I could do little but curse and threaten.

At the first touch of the hot iron I gave a fearful yell. "I'll tell!" I said.

It was not very heroic, but I was sure they would sooner or later find and seize the chests and then slay me. Therefore, to prolong the torture, merely to prove I could bear it, would not be a practical form of heroism.

I told them where the chests had been stowed in the precinct of the tower. Stamenes said: "You play more games, yes? We look there first thing, while you were still asleep from bump on head."

"We went over those grounds with the utmost care," said Agathon. "Give him some more, Kousouros."

The executioner applied his iron again. I yelled until I thought I should bring down the ceiling.

"I oversaw the stowing of those chests myself!" I shouted when the torturer paused in his ministrations. "An they be not there, they've been moved. With so many cells and storerooms on the tower grounds, you could easily have overlooked this one."

Agathon, fingering his beard, looked at Stamenes. "It might be worth trying. We can always set Kousouros to work on him again."

"All right," said Stamenes. "But give very good directions."

I told them exactly how to find the storeroom in question, and they and their ruffians went away. I was left alone in the dark again, wishing that I could swoon to ease the anguish of the burns.

Time passed. The burns pained me until I chewed my clothing to keep from crying out. Monstrous blisters formed.

Then came a sudden trampling and the sound of voices. A group of masked men rushed into the block of cells. One held a torch whilst two others, with a chisel and a sledge hammer, cut my chains with a few heavy strokes.

"The bracelets you'll have to manage for yourself," growled the leader. "Now, up and run for it!"

We ran down the corridor. I staggered and stumbled, limping from the pain in my burnt leg. Upstairs we clattered, through a labyrinth of chambers and corridors, across courts, and out a great door which I recognized as the main entrance to the citadel. It was night, and a sodden drizzle blotted out everything beyond the range of my rescuers' torches. Outside the citadel, something huge and black loomed over me. It was Aias.

"You're in no shape to sit a horse, eh?" said my chief rescuer, whose voice, muffled by a scarf about the lower part of his face, I could almost recognize. "Were you tortured?"

"Aye." I pointed to my leg.

"Zeus! You were at that. Here's some salve for your wounds. When you've applied this, you'll forget about complaining to the king. Now up this ladder with you, and take care that in passing through Harpalos' demesne you don't flee the ashes only to fall into the coals."

He slapped my back. I struggled up the rope ladder, panting. Kanadas' strong arms hauled me headfirst into the booth on the elephant's back. The man who had spoken to me handed up a heavy bag that clinked.

Forward, Vardanas called softly: "Advance!"

With the familiar jingle of bits, clatter of hooves, creak of axles, and commands of "Get up! Get up!" the hipparchia moved north on Enemy Street. The masked men put out their torches and ran off into the darkness.

We rode through the Ishtar Gate. Who guided us I could not tell. We shuffled through dark and dank, passed the inner city wall, passed the main city wall, and came to the suburban wall. A Greek voice said: "Fare you well!" A man at the head of the column swung his horse about and galloped back towards the city.

"Aside from this cursed burn," I said, "there's nought amiss with me that a good repast and a bath won't cure. But I must needs ride the elephant till my leg heals. Hand me up some victuals, Elisas. And tell me what befell, somebody. How came I to be rescued?"

" 'Twas our friend Beliddinos," said Thyestes, riding beside the elephant. "When I'd taken my pleasure with the wench, I looked down the stair to see four soldiers at the foot. These commanded me to give mysel up. No being minded to put my head in the lion's mouth, I made a running jump and came down with my heels on the breast of the foremost. It tumbled him on his back with muckle clatter.

"Then I ran for it afore the others could spit me. I dinna ken how I got out; but somegate I did, and lost my pursuers in the alleys. Then I was lost mysel and didna win back to the temple till dawn. When I learnt you hadna yet returned, Vardanas and I roused the priest from his slumbers and told him.

"The poor wight was hard to awaken, for he'd been up late hearing confessions. But, once he kenned what was afoot, he got up quickly enough. It would, he said, be like those all-depraved rogues in the citadel to frank you up in prison on a trumped-up charge in order to seize our silver. So he had his slaves drag the chests out of the storeroom on the tower grounds and hide them in the temple."

My leg hurt fiercely. I bethought me of the bag the masked man had given me. He called it salve, but it clinked like money. Sure enough, it was full of shiny didrachmons, tetradrachmons, and even some massy dekadrachmons. I could not count them on the rocking back of the elephant, but my hand told me there were several pounds of silver here.

This might be salve for the soul, but it did my burn no good. Again I appealed to Elisas, who, thanks to Athena the Foresighted, had provided himself with a pot of ointment made of bear grease, bitumen, and the gods know what else. It eased the pain a little. The Syrian even passed me a file with which to work on my fetters. One might have thought him endowed by Apollon with prophetic gifts, so shrewdly did he foresee all contingencies.

Thyestes went on: "Day broke and you hadna come back. Instead, the sun brought a company of soldiers, who searched the tower and temple grounds. They woulda say what they sought, but we could guess; and there were over many to fight. But nought did they find."

I asked: "Where had the chests been hidden?"

"Those rascally priests! By Zeus, 'tis the end of my faith in religion!"

"Where was it, man?"

"Ahint the statue of Mardoukos there's a hollow space ben the wall, with a grille of little holes in the brick. The entrance to the chamber is by a secret door in another room. When some great rich worshiper comes to question the god, a priest with a deep voice hides hissel in the hollow and speaks through the grille, and the poor gowk thinks it's the god. Well, our friends hid the chests in this wee chamber."

"But how was I rescued?"

"When the second day came without sign of you, Beliddinos went to work. None of us durst go near the citadel for fear they'd clap us up, too, but he sent a priest to inquire. The folk at the citadel said they kenned nought.

"Then Beliddinos summoned that Greek diviner, Peithagoras, and told him they'd made some new horoscopes which showed that Alexander would sune return from India. Beliddinos then brought Peithagoras to a session with the temple's seer. The seer went into a trance and said he saw a long line of crucified men, the wicked governors and generals whom the Alexander would punish when he got back. There was also some stuff about a Thessalian officer chained in a dungeon—nought but guesswork on Beliddinos' part.

"As Beliddinos expected, Peithagoras went till his brother and told him of these prophecies. He taxed Apollodouros with kidnaping you. Apollodouros denied this but admitted he kenned that Agathoun and Stamenes had some sic plan in mind.

"In terror, Peithagoras besought Apollodouros to get you out, lest the king on his return blame both Amphipolitan brothers for the crime along with those who really did it. So Apollodouros and some trusted men of his bodyguard snatched you from the cell when Agathoun and Stamenes were no looking. That was Apollodouros who spoke to you afore we departed."

"Beliddinos surely proved a friend to his friends," said Vardanas, riding on the other side of Aias.

I called down to Pyrron: "You cannot now say prophecy never serves a useful purpose."

Pyrron laughed. "If I may quote the divine Euripides:

"But I see your point. Neither should we say that ancient history is useless, for Beliddinos might not have gone to so much trouble on our behalf had we not rescued his bag of old bricks from the robbers."

"Whither are we bound?" I asked.

Thyestes said: "This is the road till Kounaxa and Opis, on the Tigris."

"But, man, we want the western road, to Sippara and Thilabos, up the Euphrates!"

"Na, that's what we planned, buckie. But Apollodouros sent us forth ane's errand on the Tigris road, mauger it be longer. Gin Agathoun and Stamenes send scouts after us, they'll think we're taking the short way to the Syrian coast and scour the Euphrates road, while we're safe on the Tigris road."

"The man has his wits about him," I said, "but the orra distance will cost us a pretty copper."

"Trust Leon to think of that!" said Pyrron. "My dear fellow, are you sure you're not of Phoenician extraction?"

"Nay," I said shortly. "And neither am I related to Aisopos' grasshopper, who trusts to the morrow to take care of itself."

So base is human nature that, mingled with my thankfulness at my escape, was resentment that the hipparchia should have gotten along so well without me and, moreover, that they should have saved me from the fruits of my own folly. It was then that I resolved no more to kill myself overseeing every detail of their equipment and conduct. Those who had not by now learned how to behave never would. I would, I swore, give more responsibility to the other officers and the double-pay trooper, and judge by results.

The road led us north through the fertile plain of Sittakia, where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers approach to a hundred and fifty furlongs of one another and then flow apart again. Heavy rains in the Assyrian hills had caused the Tigris to overflow, so that great stretches of land on our right were flooded. Millions of waterfowl sported in the lakes and marshes and rose whirring at our passage.

On our left, Vardanas pointed out the site of the battle of Kounaxa, where Kyros the usurper beat the army of Artaxerxes the Resolute but was himself slain. One of Vardanas' grandsires had fought on one side and one on the other. The place was of interest to me because it was thence that Xenophon's ten thousand began their retreat.

"After that bloody treacher lured their generals to a parley and murdered them," growled Thyestes.

"They should have known better," said Vardanas. "Anyway, Artaxashas" (for so the Persians pronounce Artaxerxes) "was not himself such a villain. He was a weak, easygoing man, and why he was called 'Resolute' I cannot imagine. He let himself be ruled by his bloodthirsty mother and equally savage wife."

"As no Hellene would let his women do," said Thyestes, who liked the last word.

At Sittakia we found a bridge of boats across the Tigris, though again Aias had to ford despite the swiftness of the broad brown flood. Going up the left bank of the Tigris, the fertile plain of Sittakia gave way to barren land in which a few prickly shrubs, of interest only to camels, broke in broad flats of clay. Snow-capped Persian mountains lined the horizon on our right.

As my burn was still too sore for riding, I stayed atop the elephant. For days I craned my neck to the rear, but none pursued us. Although riding Aias made me feel like an Indian king, my friends, riding before me, tended to ignore me rather than crane their necks to call up to me.

The first few days after we left Babylon, Nirouphar rode with me betimes in the booth atop the elephant and was tenderly solicitous about my burn. As the wound healed, howsomever, she returned more and more to her horse and to conversation with Pyrron in the mixture of Greek and Persian with which they now communicated. From my perch I watched them with pangs of jealousy. Vardanas, too, regarded this sight with visible unease.

At the beginning of Anthesterion we came to Doura. Here the land rises to cliffs overlooking the river, and the stronghold of Doura is perched upon these cliffs. The garrison gave me fodder without making difficulties. From here on, Kanadas grumbled because he could no longer buy rice but had to adapt himself to our barbarous diet.

Beyond Doura I rode Golden again. The burn on my leg left a large, unsightly scar, which still aches in damp weather. The Baktrian mare had grown spoilt whilst I rode the elephant. She tried to bite when I approached her and bucked me off when I first mounted. I mounted again, got a grip on her mane, and quieted her with a few good cuts of the whip. I have had horses I could treat as pets, but not this cross-grained beast.

North of Doura, I paid some gingerly court to Nirouphar, seeking quietly to show her my good points and, at the same time, to wean her from excessive admiration for Pyrron. Since she had been solicitous of me when my burn was bad, I was equally so towards her. Was her tent comfortable? Had it any leaks that should be mended? Was her pallet soft enough to give her good nights of sleep? Did the gait of her horse tire her? If so, would she like to try another mount? Was there aught in the way of special food I should try to obtain for her?

To my astonishment, she took my well-meant queries amiss. "Troop Leader Rheon!" she said sharply. "As I have told you many a time and oft, I am no piece of fragile Egyptian glass that shatters if you look crossly at it. I am comfortable and in fine health and spirits. When I have aught to complain of, I will let you know."

Then for some days she devoted more time than ever to Pyrron, leaving me crushed and glowering.

When I wrote to the king, I said I had been in trouble with the traffic laws in Babylon and hinted that Stamenes and Agathon might not be all they should as governors. However, I did not go into details of my imprisonment and torture, in consideration of the bag of silver Apollodoros had given me.

Perhaps I was wrong to let myself be bought off, when a strict sense of honor would have demanded vengeance at all costs on my tormentors. For years the question bothered my conscience. But at the time it seemed to me that I had enough to do to carry out my mission, without attempting to reform the whole Alexandrine empire.

One day, when I rode ahead of the column, Vardanas rode with me. I could see he was troubled. After he had fumbled for a while, I said:

"Out with it, man. Is it about your sister?"

"How did you guess? It plagues me that she should be so assotted with the philosopher. Yet I know not what to do about it. Were he a Persian of good family I could betroth them. But as it is ... Not that Pyrron is not a fine fellow in his way. He has never taken advantage of Nirouphar's folly. Still, either one is born an Arian or one is not."

"Have you taken her to task about it?"

"Yes, and it only caused a quarrel. She is unfair to me. She expects my protection but will not obey my commands."

"What would you have me do?"

"Speak to him. Perhaps persuade him to keep his distance until this spell passes."

"Why speak you not yourself?" I asked.

"As a civilian, Pyrron is not under my rule. But you as hipparch command us all. Besides, he is so learned that I should feel shame to chide him."

"Papai! That's a fine task to give me. Especially ..."

"Especially what?"

"Oh, fie! Dinna you ken I'm in love with the lass myself?"

Vardanas' eyes rounded. "Why, no, I did not know. Oh, my dear friend, how dreadful!"

"Meaning that, as I, too, am but a loathsome non-Arian, my suit were hopeless?"

"I would not so put it, but you grasp the gist."

"I had thought it plain to all," I said. "For the last ten-day I've been sighing and staring. I've hardly eaten or slept."

"Really? I ask your pardon, but I have seen no lessening of your good healthy appetite. Since you ever present a stern and serious front, I saw no change in your mien."

"So much for sympathy. If I complain of the burn on my leg, you'll tell me to chop the limb off."

"Alas, with what fortitude do we bear others' misfortunes! But that still leaves Pyrron. As you and he are in a sense rivals, you should be glad of a chance to break up this unnatural infatuation."

"Unnatural! As if a Hellene were some sort of slimy monster! If it be hopeless for both of us, why should I interfere? And if it be not, I'd not use my rank against him."

"You mean it were dishonorable? A noble sentiment!"

"Belike, but that's not quite what I had in mind. The men obey me, •not only because I can outwrestle them all, but also because I'm fair with them. Let it be thought I was ranking a man out his woman and trouble would soon raise its head."

"Oh dear!" said Vardanas. "Why could not my father have sent the wanton to some good Arian city like Parsagarda and wedded her to some respectable youth, as he did with my sister Artaunta? How shall we untie this tangle?"

"Let's both speak to Pyrron, stating the case and asking what he means to do. Thus I shan't appear as one meddling in his affairs from selfish motives, but as the just leader demanding that you and he compose your differences."

A day passed before we got Pyrron away from Nirouphar. Then the lass joined a group of our women who, having the Asiatic feeling about exposing the person, were going around a bend in the river out of sight of our camp to bathe. I said to Pyrron:

"O philosopher, 'tis time we gave our Persian frog another swimming lesson. Help me to teach him."

Vardanas did not look happy at the form of my stratagem. Though he had gotten over some of his horror of nudity, water more than knee-deep still frightened him. But the noble fellow did not quail.

It turned out that, although Pyrron was himself a poor swimmer, he was an excellent teacher of swimming. He had read everything ever written in Greek on the subject, and he had infinite patience and good humor. This time we got Vardanas to swim three strokes by himself before he shipped a mouthful of muddy Tigris water and put his feet down to cough it out again.

Whilst we dried ourselves, I said: "Pyrron, Vardanas has a matter to speak to you about."

"Go right ahead, old boy," said Pyrron.

Though usually glib, Vardanas stammered and stumbled. At last he got it out. "... it simply will not do for a respectable Persian girl to hang about one man all the time. Her reputation, already worn thin from leaving home, will now be in utter shreds. I blame myself that I let her talk me into bringing her. But you, my man, what do you intend?"

Pyrron waved his hands helplessly. "Gods on Olympos! I've done nothing but attempt to elucidate the mysteries of philosophy to one who seemed interested. I had no conception that your sister contemplated me with mundane desires."

"Your wisdom is not of this earthly plane," said Vardanas. "Anybody with eyes could see she is assotted with you."

Pyrron's voice rose to a squeak. "But I'm not out to marry her or seduce her or anything else! As I've asserted before, I desire no mortal lovers of any age, sex, or race. Athena is my only passion."

"Well," said Vardanas, "we cannot go on like this. You will break her heart even if you cause no scandal."

"What would you have me do? Insult her?"

"You could at least dissuade her from sticking to you like a burr to a dog."

"On what pretext? So long as anybody shows an earnest desire for enlightenment, I consider it my duty as a philosopher to satisfy—"

"Oh, rubbish!" I said. " 'Tis plain to the silliest wight she hangs upon your words for love of your sweet self and not for your philosophy. No woman could possibly understand your reasoning anyway. Why, I can scarce understand it myself."

Pyrron cleared his throat. "Now you come to a point on which I have a strong opinion. With the divine Platon, I hold that we Hellenes commit a national injustice and deprive ourselves of a valuable resource by relegating our women to the status of slaves—"

"For Hera's sake, dinna lecture! We wish you to dissuade Nirouphar; not necessarily by rudeness, but, say, by seeking other company. Talk to Vardanas and me, or discuss Indian theology with Kanadas."

"That's not a bad idea," said Pyrron. "To tell you the honest truth, I'm becoming a little tired of being plied with questions about man and the universe to which I don't know the answers and to which I think nobody else has the answer either. Let Leon woo her while Vardanas and I discuss philosophy. Perhaps she'll become enamored of Leon, and Vardanas can make a match between them."

"Out upon you!" I cried. "If that's a joke, 'tis a poor one. Know you not that I should like nought better, did Fate allow?"

"Why? Oh, you mean that you, too—my word, how blind I must be to the human drama about me! Well then, if you love her, what's amiss with my suggestion?"

"Tis Vardanas' cursed Arian-race nonsense," I said. "Tell him, Vardanas."

Vardanas explained the Persian doctrine of racial purity. "All right," said Pyrron. "You and Leon are good friends, aren't you?"

"Surely," said Vardanas. "None better."

"If Leon were demonstrated to be an Arian after all, would you find him acceptable as a brother-in-law?"

"Why certainly—well, perhaps. But it must needs be a better proof than some of your Greek tricks of logic. You know, proving Achilles could never catch a tortoise when we all know he could. What are you coming to?"

"Thanks to the coaching of your attractive and quite intelligent sister, I've acquired a fair smattering of the Persian language. Now, I've observed that many of the words of Persian sound recognizably like their Greek synonyms." Pyrron gave as examples the words for door, man, foot, and ship.

"It's therefore my hypothesis," he went on, "that the Hellenes and the Persians are ultimately of common ancestry. For, if you compare these same words in Syrian, you find no resemblance whatever. As far as I know, this is a point which none of my colleagues has ever raised, as none of them considers any foreign language worthy of study. Someday I shall compose a treatise on the subject. There should be lists of words having the same signification in the various languages, in parallel columns—"

"Excuse me," I said, "but aren't you straying off the subject of Nirouphar's future?"

"Oh yes, to be sure. My point is that, if Hellenes and Persians are of common lineage, then, if Persians are Arians, Hellenes must be Arians also. Thus are Vardanas' racial objections refuted."

My hopes rose, but Vardanas frowned in thought. "It were not so easy," he said. "However our forebears wandered and interbred in legendary times, we Arians certainly do not mean 'Greek' when we say 'Arian.'"

I said: "Prince Vaxouvartas of Baktria must have deemed the Hellenes Arian, since he married his daughter to Alexander. And aren't the Baktrians the purest Arians of all?"

"No purer than we Persians," said Vardanas. "And a conqueror takes what women he pleases. But, even if the racial obstacle be overcome, there remains the barrier of religion."

"Must I then become a worshiper of Auramasdas?"

"That were a necessary though not a sufficient condition. It were but the first of the labors of Samas. But I cannot decide the matter now. Whilst my father live unreconciled, and my sister's wayward heart be turned elsewhither than towards him who desires her, there is no prospect of a wedding feast in any case."

We dressed and went back to camp. Nirouphar also returned. She bent a suspicious look upon us and said: "What plot have you three been hatching?"

"Pyrron has striven to make a philosopher of Leon and a swimmer of me," said Vardanas. "I fear with but little success in either case."