The Golden Wind

BOOK IV — Otaspes the Persian

Two ten-days after the attack on the Ourania, I had sold most of our cargo. I could speak enough Indian to get around, although it is a long way from saying: "Two fowl's eggs, a loaf of bread, and a mug of goat's milk, please," to carrying on an intelligent conversation.

I had bought some cargo for the return voyage—mainly cotton cloth, silk, ivory, pepper, cinnamon, ginger, perfumes, and spikenard. I bought several knife and sword blades of Indian steel, which is finer than any steel one can purchase in the Inner Sea. Indian smithery and carpentry are exceptionally skillful. Indian pottery, on the other hand, is crude; there might be a market there for fine Athenian decorated ware.

I learnt some of the peculiar techniques of Indian commerce. Some of their coins are round, some square. Coinage is nowhere standardized, so that every purchase requires weighing the coins as well as the goods. For small change the Indians use, not coins at all, but little sea shells shaped something like walnuts. They count on their fingers, as we do, but begin by extending the little finger instead of the thumb or the index finger. To bargain, one sits cross-legged beside the shopkeeper and conveys one's offers by a kind of dumb language, touching his hand with one's fingers. Thus onlookers are kept from following the course of the chaffer.

The rains were dwindling. We had, however, another month to wait for the seasonal northeaster. With Otaspes as intermediary, I tried to make my peace with the Arabs by telling them that their little ships could still fetch cargoes to Barygaza from shallow ports like Barbarikon and sell them to the Hellenes. But it was no use. The Arabs had decided that they had a feud with me and would not give it up.

Arabs are funny that way. Without some enemy to hate and feud with, an Arab finds life too dull to bear. So, if he has no enemy, he goes out and kicks somebody in the balls in order to make one. The fact that there is nothing much else to do for fun in the Arabian desert may have something to do with it. If they try to rob or murder you and you hurt one of them in resisting, they become as furiously indignant as if you had been the aggressor.

I have had good friends among the Arabs of Syria, but not with this crowd in Barygaza. After they had stabbed and wounded one of my sailors, I made my men go armed and in pairs ashore. I also got permission to carry my sword, a keen Persian blade, longer than the usual Greek smallsword. From Otaspes I bought a shirt of fine Parthain chain mail, made of little interlocked iron rings, and wore it under my tunic.

I survived the attack of some local disease, with flux and fever. When I had recovered, I tried to hire Rama to stay on with us as interpreter, but he refused.

"I am shipping out day after tomorrow to Souppara," he said. "Must save enough to buy share of another ship."

"At least," I said, "before you go, take me to meet that wise man, that Sas—Sisa—"

"Sisonaga?" He wagged his head. "All right, we go in the morning."

I invited Hippalos, too, but he declined. He had taken a hut with one of those little Indian women, a girl of fourteen. I suppose the paltry price he paid her father was more than the old man usually saw in a year.

Sisonaga lived in a hut in the woods, a few furlongs from Barygaza. When we came upon him, he was sitting naked in front of his hut with his eyes closed, enjoying the morning sun, which slanted through the leaves. He was very black, with a mane of white hair and beard. In this part of India, as in the Hellenic lands, a beard is usually the badge of a philosopher. (I had let mine grow on the voyage, because I have always hated to shave or be shaved on shipboard, fearing lest a roll of the ship result in a slashed throat. Moreover, if its gray streaks made me look older, it also hid some of my pockmarks.)

"Peace, O Rama," said Sisonaga as we approached. "And peace to your foreign guest. He would, I take it, learn wisdom?"

"That I would, O Sisonaga," I said. "Permit me, sir ..." And I laid down the loaves of bread and the hamper of fruit and greens that I had brought, as Rama had directed, for my lecture fee.

Sisonaga ignored the food and spoke: "You have come to the right place, my dear pupil. For I, and only I, have found the one true means of uniting oneself with the world-soul. Where the foolish Buddhists and Brachmanists still grope in ignorance, I alone know the truth. Sit before me and I will explain my system."

So, with Rama interpreting the hard parts, Sisonaga told of the three categories {energy, mass, and intelligence); of the equilibrium between soul and consciousness, whence the ego evolves; of how activity causes the ego to differentiate into the six senses, the five motor organs, and the five potentials, which in combination with the five elements and the soul make up the twenty-five realities ...

"Speaking of the five motor organs," I said, "it is about the last of those—the generative organ—that I wish to consult you." And I told him of my troubles. He said:

"Oh, my dear pupil, how wrong you are! You seek to continue experience; but experience involves pain. This pain results from the five errors: inference, illusory knowledge, imagination, sleep, and memory. To attain concentration and thence to unite your individual consciousness with the cosmic consciousness, you must correct these errors. To correct the five errors, you must suppress egotism and self-esteem, which includes all desire and aversion, even the desire for self-preservation. To achieve this, you must first adhere to the negative ethic. That is, you must renounce injury to any being, falsehood, theft, incontinence, and the acceptance of gifts. This is followed by the positive ethic of vegetarianism, austerity, and irresponsibility. So, obviously, your desire—"

"Yes, yes," I interrupted. 'This is very much what Rama's Buddhist priest told me. But suppose I undertake all this, what do I get? That priest's bliss of nonexistence?"

"Not at all; that is where they err. You unite your individual consciousness with the cosmic consciousness, and the powers of the cosmic consciousness become yours."

"What powers?"

"An accomplished yogin can do things on this material plane that ordinary men cannot—levitate himself, pick up an elephant, push over a city wall, or raise the dead back to life. Of course, these acts must all be done from purely altruistic motives. The slightest trace of self-interest, and the powers vanish."

"Well," I said, "I have known a multitude of men. Many claimed purity of motives; but when I considered their actions, I saw that all of them acted from self-interest, at least most of the time."

"Precisely, my dear pupil, precisely," said Sisonaga, beaming. "That is why so few yogins can perform these acts, although there are many liars who falsely claim all sorts of wonders. Beware of them. In my own century and a half of seeking—in this body, that is—I have been privileged to achieve such feats on but a few occasions: two revivals of dead persons, for example."

"How shall I acquire these powers?"

"First, there are the six postures: the lotus, the inverted, the pan-physical, the fish, the plow, and the serpent. Then there are the breathing exercises, with their cycles of inhalation, exhalation, and holding, and the control of the nose, mouth, and throat passages. The final stage comprises the exercises in concentration, whereby one learns to control one's own thoughts, to observe them with complete detachment, and to induce a mental vacuum. Eventually, one achieves the cosmic trance. Let us try the first and simplest posture, the lotus. Sitting erect, place the left foot, with the sole up, on the right thigh.... Come on, my good pupil, pull!"

"I fear I am a little old and creaky for such gymnastics," I muttered, straining to get my leg into the position indicated. At last I got my foot up on the opposite thigh.

"Now," continued Sisonaga, "push your left knee down so that it lies flat on the ground, as mine does. Push harder! Harder!"

Feeling like a suspect being questioned on the rack by the Ptolemies' police, I tried to carry out the yogin's commands. But, though I strained until my joints creaked, sweat ran down my brow, and the two Indians lent their help, I could not get my left knee down to the grass. Until I did, there was no hope of hoisting my right foot up so as to lay it upon my left leg in the lotus posture.

After a struggle that may have lasted a quarter hour, although ft seemed much longer, the yogin gave up. When I tried to straighten out my bent left leg, I found that I could not The leg was stuck, with the foot pressing into the right thigh. I had to ask the Indians to pull the foot loose. Although I am no stranger to wounds, the pain of this operation fetched a groan from me. When I tried to stand up, I collapsed like a toddler just learning to walk. Rama had to steady me until my limbs recovered from the wrenching they had received.

"With one so stiff in the joints as yourself," said Sisonaga, "we must draw nigh to these things bit by bit. I will prescribe exercises for the thigh joints. Performed once a day, these will enable you to begin your regular course of postures within a month."

"In a month," I said, "I shall, Lady Luck willing, be on my way back to Egypt. Whilst I do not doubt the value of your treatments, I have no wish to go into a cosmic trance or to pick up an elephant. What I really want is to make love to my dear wife once more."

Sisonaga clucked. "Nay, I fear I cannot help you to seek sensual gratification. I do, however, have a colleague: the vanaprastha, Jaivali of Mahismati. Although I deem his doctrines riddled with error and his practice hardly more than witchcraft, it is said that he can help earthbound persons like yourself to attain their mundane goals."

"Where shall I find this Jaivali?"

"Go up the Nammados about twenty-five yojanas to the city of Mahismati and ask for Jaivali the hermit. Anybody can direct you to his forest dwelling. In fact, it is deemed a pilgrimage of great merit to walk the entire length of the Nammados afoot, up one side to the source and down again on the other to the mouth. If you would fain cleanse your karma thus ..."

"No, thank you. Time does not permit, and anyway I fear that your spiritual exercises have crippled me for life." I took my leave of Sisonaga and, leaning on Rama's shoulder, hobbled back to Barygaza.

I sought out Hippalos' hut and found my versatile first officer sitting in front of it in the very lotus posture, which I had tried in vain to assume and from whose effects I was still limping. Moreover, he was amusing a circle of Indians by conjuring tricks, making square Indian coins and other small objects appear and vanish and plucking them out of the ears and nostrils of his audience. Rama said he had to go, so we bade him a final farewell.

"Walk to the ship with me," I told Hippalos. The spies from Andhra and Magadha fell in behind us. Being sure they did not know Greek, we ignored them.

"I'm going up the river for a couple of fen-days," I said. I told Hippalos about Jaivali, adding: "I shall have to leave you in command of the ship. Now, this would be the time to do a little trading on our own. It seems obvious what sort of goods to buy, to avoid old Fatty's monopoly."

"Pearls and precious stones, of course," he replied with his satyriike grin. "We can hide them next to our skins on our return. I'm with you, Captain. I should say for me to try to buy pearls locally, since they will be cheapest along the coast, while you see what you can do in the way of rubies and sapphires inland."

"Agreed."

"When should I expect you back?"

I thought. "Sisonaga said Mahismati was twenty-five yojanas upriver, which according to Rama is about sixty leagues. But one can never be sure of distances in a foreign land. Besides, I might fall ill or have to come back by another route. You'd better give me at least two months. If I'm not back by then and haven't sent word, take the Ourania back to Egypt"

Then I sought out Otaspes the Persian and said: "You hope to leave during the coming dry season, and you'll want to make a last killing before you go. Why not go to Mahismati with me and try to pick up some bargains? You can help with the local dialects, while I can help with the fighting if it come to that."

"What sort of trip had you in mind? A simple round trip, up and down the river?"

"I don't know. I might make a side trip if something interested me. I must, however, be back when the northeast wind begins to blow."

"If you are going to travel about the interior of India, you had better choose nations under Buddhist rule to visit."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because Buddhists are generally friendly to Hellenes, whereas Brachmanists are hostile. This goes back to the days when King Menandros and King Pushyamitra of Magadha were fighting up and down the Ganges. Being a devout Brachmanist, Pushyamitra persecuted the Buddhists, so the latter sided with Menandros and looked upon his Bactrio-Greeks as saviors. Besides, Brachmanists hate Hellenes because the latter do not take their system of colors seriously. In their eyes, to permit 'confusion of colors'—that is, intermarriage among people of different color—is one of the wickedest sins a ruler can commit."

"I'll bear that in mind. But are you coming?"

Otaspes thought a moment and said: "I'm with you, Eudoxos. Your servant is getting too fat, sitting around the pothouses picking up gossip, day after day."

Two days later, Otaspes, Gnouros, and I were on our way up the Nammados in a river boat. Under my tunic and mail shirt I carried my money, in golden Ptolemaic staters, folded into a cloth, which was tied like a belt around my middle. Otaspes brought a man-load of Persian rugs and other trade goods besides his money.

During the wet season, the traffic on the Nammados, like that of the Nile, benefits from the fact that the water goes one way while the wind goes the other. One merely hoists sail to go upstream and lowers it to come down again.

The jungle-clad banks on either side of the river rose by stages, like steps, to low ranges of bills or plateaus. Now and then we passed a village in a clearing, or a temple, or one of those huge domes of brick, covered with white stucco, which the Buddhists build to house the relics of their holy men. There was constant traffic along the roads on each side of the river: single wayfarers, family groups, caravans of traders, pilgrims and holy men, and religious processions. There were men afoot, on asses, on horses, in carriages, in ox wains, in buffalo carts, and on elephants. We had thought of using horses, too, but the river promised greater comfort and safety.

At night, there always seemed to be a religious ceremony within earshot. We heard their singing and their musical bands, sometimes slow and solemn, sometimes fast and frenzied.

"The real business of India is religion," said Otaspes. "If you wonder why they act like such idiots, the reason is that their minds are not on this world, which to them is a mere illusion. Instead, they are trying to think up some new and quicker way to unite themselves with God—or at least with some god or other, for this land has more gods than it has men."

"How about you?" I said.

"Me? I worship the one Good God, Oramazdes, the Lord of Light. If these people wish to divide God up into ten thousand aspects, incarnations, demigods, and so forth, that is their affair."

In nine days we reached Mahismati. As we disembarked, Otaspes hired some skinny little porters to hoist our baggage on their heads and follow us into the city. As we climbed the path from the landing to the river gate, we saw a crowd of people around a funeral pyre. As we drew closer, I saw that an elderly woman sat on top of the pyre beside the corpse. She was not bound; she simply sat there until the flames roared up and hid her from view.

"By the gods and goddesses!" I said, "what's that?"

"A widow burning herself," said Otaspes. "Among the upper colors of the Brachmanists, it is a point of honor for a widow to sacrifice herself on her man's pyre. She thus expiates all their sins, so they shall spend the next fifty million years in paradise. If she failed to burn herself, she would be deemed an outcast—a person of no color, treated worse than a dog."

"Phy! What a country!"

We walked on to the city—a town of much the same size and character as Barygaza, but with a more substantial wall of brick. A gay assortment of flags flew from the Walls, and Otaspes learnt that the king was celebrating the birth of his first son by his legitimate wife. The massive wooden gates were studded with large iron spikes to keep elephants from breaking them down with their heads. Before each gate was a kind of triumphal arch, consisting of a pair of wooden pillars joined at the tops by several wooden crosspieces intricately carved into figures of elephants, dancing girls, creatures half woman and half serpent, and other beings.

At the river gate stood a pair of soldiers whose bronzen cuirasses, horsehair-crested helmets, and long pikes looked familiar. As I approached, I said:

"Ô hoplitai! Legete ta hellênika?"

They looked startled; then the bearded faces split in broad grins. "Malista!" they shouted. In no time, the whole duty squad was swarming around me, wringing my hands and pounding me on the back. Their strangely accented Greek was sprinkled with Persian and Indian words,

"By Zeus the Savior, have the Hellenes at last reached this god-detested part of India?" asked one.

"Just this one Hellene, a trader from Egypt," I said. "But how did you fellows get here? You're as far from Hellas as I am."

The speaker explained: "We're Bactrian Hellenes—born and reared in the mountains of Gandaria. We soldiered for King Antialkidas, but lately the polluted Sakas have wrested most of Antialkidas' lands from him. The other big Hellenic king, Straton, saw a chance to stab Antialkidas in the back, so he attacked his rear.

"When the fighting stopped, Antialkidas had so little land left that he couldn't afford to keep us all, so several thousand left to take service elsewhere. Some went over to King Straton, but we wouldn't work for the treacher. So we came hither."

"How do you make out?"

He shrugged. "It's India, but we might be worse off. But look, sir, you must let us give you a feast, so you can tell us the news from the West."

"I shall be glad to." I turned to Otaspes. "Where are we staying?'

"At Sudas' inn, unless he's full. Tell your friends to leave a message for you when they get their party organized."

So it was agreed. Having paid a tax on our goods to the customs officer at the gate, we passed on into the city, ignoring as best we could the stares of the Indians. When we were settled, we went to pay our respects to the king. Since His Majesty was busy at rites connected with his son's birth, we were received, instead, by a lean, bald, dour-looking, elderly minister, who wore the sacred thread of the Brachman color about his neck. He welcomed us with brief sentences and told us to come back two days later, when the natal ceremonies would be over.

"But you need not waste your time tomorrow," he said. "The king is giving a fete to conclude the celebrations, and you shall be invited." He signed to a clerk, who produced a piece of dried palm leaf on which something had been scribbled in ink. "That is your pass. Present it at the public park outside the East Gate at sunrise tomorrow."

By now it was too late for trading or for seeking out the hermit Jaivali. A couple of Bactrio-Greek soldiers appeared at Sudas' inn and invited us to the party at the barracks. A fine, festive affair it was, with naked dancing girls and real wine from Persia—a great rarity in India—on which Otaspes got drunk and slid quietly under the table. King Girixis' whole company of Greek mercenaries jammed into the mess hall.

I told the soldiers about events around the Inner Sea, and they told me how King Odraka of Magadha was already collecting tribute from the next neighboring kingdom to the east, that of Vidisha. It was only a matter of time, they said, before he fastened his grip on Mahismati and Avanti as well.

"I don't think our little king will resist very hard," said one. "So long as he has his girls and his jug and his hunting, he doesn't care who collects tribute from whom."

"Oh, come!" said another. "You're unfair to the little bastard. He's a real sport, always ready to give us a big bonus.

It's that dog-faced minister who's always telling him he can't afford to do the generous thing."

"He'll do the generous thing once too often, and then there won't be any regular pay left for us," said the first soldier. "Remember last year, when he ran short? He'd have sent us on a raid into Vidisha to refill his coffers, except that he was afraid it would bring Odraka down on him. So he had to grind it out of his starving peasantry, as usual. What he should do is to play off the kings of Magadha and Andhra, one against the other ..."

And they were off on an argument over foreign policy. Like onlookers everywhere, each was sure he could manage the government with infinitely more skill and address than those who were faced with the task.

While these two argued, a third soldier said: "Master Eudoxos, among your trade goods, you didn't by chance bring any Greek girls, did you?"

"Why, no," I said. "I never expected to find a market for them here."

"I think you might. We all have women—except those who prefer the love of other men—but they're native women and don't count as lawful wives. What we want are real Greek girls, so we can marry them properly and beget legitimate children—"

"Now, look here!" said another. "My wife is a respectable Bactrian girl, of a good landowning family, and I won't have anybody saying our children are bastards—"

"All right for you," said another, "but most of us have to make do with whatever dames we can pick up. Solon's right. If Master Eudoxos will load his ship with Greek girls—either slave or free; we'll free the bonded ones and wed 'em anyway —we'd make it well worth his while ..."

And so it went, far into the night. I took note of the idea for possible future use. When I finally got to bed, I had the fright of my life when I disturbed one of those giant mice, as large as a half-grown kitten, which infest this land. Luckily, the beast dashed into its hole without attacking me.

We presented ourselves at the park at dawn, with supplies of food and drink for the day. Despite having awakened with four heads instead of one, Otaspes had wisely thought to bring this provender with us. We were shown to an inclosure reserved for foreigners, heretics such as Buddhists and Jainists, and persons of low color. The other colors all had their proper inclosures. I grumbled a bit at being so classified, but Otaspes merely shrugged and smiled. "It's India," he said.

Around us, thousands of Indians sat or squatted on the grass, while the action took place in a cleared space in the center of the crowd. The king made a speech, which did not much enlighten me because he spoke with his back to us. Then his band played and his dancing girls danced.

Next, a company of actors staged a play, about a noble hero whose king was turned against him by the plots and slanders of a wicked minister. The actors, in gilded armor, strutted about the low platform that served as a stage, shouting verses in the ancient Sanskrit tongue, of which I understood not a word. I was startled to see actors performing unmasked, with their faces bare save for paint and powder. I have heard that the Italians put on plays in this manner. I also learnt that women's parts were actually taken by women instead of by boys. I suppose it was foolish of a widely traveled man like me, but I could not help feeling uncomfortable, as if this spectacle were somehow indecent.

After the heroine had stabbed herself and thus, in some manner I never understood, proved to the stupid king that the hero was really a monster of virtue and valor, other acts followed. There were acrobats, tight-rope walkers, jugglers, animal trainers, wrestlers, storytellers, and conjurors. There was a chariot race along a path cleared through the crowd.

As the sun set, another troupe staged a play. This was a comedy, which I had little trouble in following. For one thing, the actors spoke ordinary modern Indian; for another, the plot was much like that of the comedies of Menandros and his kind. It told about a pair of young lovers kept apart by the benighted obstinacy of their parents but united at last by the crafty advice of a holy hermit.

Next morning I called upon Jaivali. I took the usual offering of food and found the hermit a stout, jolly-looking fellow, naked and bearded like his colleague downstream, and living in a cave. He, too, assured me that he had the only true system of attaining the higher wisdom.

"Sisonaga means well," said Jaivali, "but he is lost in a swamp of ignorant atheism."

"Does he not believe in gods?"

"Well, he calls himself an agnostic, saying there is no proof whether gods be or not."

"We had a fellow named Protagoras, who said something like that," I said. "The men of Athens—a great city in the West—exiled him and burnt his books on that account"

"What a wicked thing, to force a belief upon a man by persecution! But that, I suppose, is to be expected in your barbarous land. In Bharata we believe in tolerance; nobody would dream of interfering with another's beliefs.

"But as to the gods, I can assure you that they do exist. By austerities and spiritual exercises, I have induced a vision wherein the gods appeared to me in person and explained it all. If you would submit to my discipline, I could double your physical powers and the acuteness of your senses within a year."

Jaivali described his system, which sounded much like Sisonaga's, save that it entailed the worship of many Indian gods. It also involved some disagreeable-sounding exercises, such as swallowing and vomiting up a rag to cleanse one's stomach. Lacking a translator, I repeatedly had to ask Jaivali to slow down and to repeat, but I think I got the gist of it.

"Well," I said, "I fear I shall not be in Mahismati long enough for your full course. Actually, I came here in hope that you could cure me of one specific physical weakness ..." And I told him.

His response was just like those of the Buddhist priest and the yogin Sisonaga. "My poor man!" he exclaimed. "Know you not that, for long life and health, you must retain your semen instead of wasting it in copulation? If retained, this secretion is carried by invisible ducts to all parts of the body, nourishing and lubricating it. Besides, of all forms of physical pleasure, that of copulation is the most intense. Therefore it must be forsworn by the seeker after higher wisdom, since it ties one by the strongest bonds to attachments and desires on this material plane."

"Well, that is what I am after and nothing else. If you cannot help me, who can?"

Jaivali closed his eyes for a space. When he opened them, he said: "There is a philosopher in Ozenê, Gupta, who might do something. His repute is not of the highest, but he may have what you seek."

"Where is Ozenê?"

"Eight yojanas north of here, over the Paripatra Hills. It is the capital of Avanti."

I got directions for finding Gupta and took my leave.

Otaspes had spent the morning trading in Mahismati and had bought a bolt of turquoise-colored silk. I told him that my next goal was Ozenê.

"By the Holy Ox Soul, you do have the traveler's itch!" he said. "Here in Mahismati, the Brachmanist dynasty enforces tolerance between its Brachmanist and Buddhist subjects. But in Ozenê, the two factions are always fighting for supremacy. The Brachmanists (or Orthodox, as they call themselves) are more numerous, but the Buddhists have more wealth and power."

"Jaivali tells me that Indians never do that sort of thing. They believe in tolerating one another's opinions, he says."

Otaspes gave his silent laugh. "My dear Eudoxos, have you been around for half a century without learning that men say one thing and do another?"

"I know what you mean. But are you coming to Ozenê?"

'To hear is to obey! One can make even better buys there, and no true Persian merchant ever quailed at the prospect of a hazardous journey. But we shall need horses."

I made the rounds of the gem merchants, picked up three sapphires, and marked for purchase a ruby and an emerald if I could beat the price down far enough. These five gems would have been worth a king's ransom in the Inner Sea, but for a hundred drachmai one can buy a gemstone in India that would fetch a thousand in the West.

In the afternoon, we at last made our duty call on King Girixis. The sour-looking Brachman minister informed us that the king was late for the audience; he was out hunting in the royal park east of the public park we had seen the day before.

"But you need not waste your time whilst awaiting His Majesty," he added. "I will have one of our officials show you through the royal art gallery."

This was an unexpected diversion. The gallery was a separate building full of paintings of astonishing lifelikeness and liveliness. Most of them illustrated scenes from Indian myth and legend, such as the churning of the Sea of Milk, the slaying of the demon Bali by the god Indra, and the adventures of the scholar Utanka in the underground world of serpents. The official pointed out some paintings by the king himself, which to me looked neither better nor worse than the rest.

Back before the porch of audience, we found King Girixis seated on his terrace and judging a minor lawsuit. This king proved a short, plump young man who nibbled sweetmeats and watched his six naked dancing girls more than he did the litigants.

When our turn came, he graciously accepted our gifts and seemed pleased to see us. When I told him—truthfully—that the paintings in his gallery were better than anything I had seen in my native western lands, and less truthfully added that his own paintings were by far the best, he beamed all over and hoped we should have a long and profitable stay in Mahismati.

"I thank Your Majesty," I said, "but we must shortly leave for Ozenê. I should not like my ship to sail for home without me.

"That beastly place?" said King Girixis, yawning. "Full of fanatical sectaries? Know, sir, that I am Orthodox, as was my sire before me. But I do not force my beliefs upon others, and I treat my Buddhist subjects the same as any others. You will find things otherwise in Ozenê. But then, meseems, you merchants must needs face such risks. If you can cross the dreadful Black Water, you can do anything." He snapped his fingers, and a servant appeared with a tray of gifts.

"I regret that I can offer you but one small gift apiece," said the king. "Our treasury has been straitened of late."

Otaspes chose a silver ornament. When the tray was proffered to me, I picked up a little bronze statuette with a ring at the top and a fine chain for hanging it round one's neck, as Phoenicians do with glass statuettes of their Pataecian gods. The statuette was that of a pudgy man with an elephant's head, seated on a flower.

"Would Your Majesty mind telling me what this means?" I asked.

Girixis smiled. "That is the Lord Ganesha, one of the most popular minor gods among the Orthodox. He is the patron of literature and commerce. With that statue in your possession, you should be able to sell anybody anything, since Ganesha gives you the power to make people believe whatever you say."

"Well, I am a merchant, and I have written a little for publication, so this statue should be the perfect amulet for me."

"May it prove so. You came hither by boat, did you not? How will you get to Ozenê?"

"We had thought of buying horses, sire."

"My dear barbarians! That will never do; the Paripatras swarm with tigers and brigands. The only small parties who can cross the hills in safety are holy men, so poor they tempt not the robbers and so pure that even the tigers let them be."

"What, then, Highness?" I asked.

"If you could tarry ..." Girixis turned to his minister. "Munda, when leaves the next caravan for Ozenê?"

"At the next full moon, sire, fifteen days hence."

"Can you wait until then?" the king asked me. "I fear not, sire."

"Well, then ..." He snapped his fingers. "I have it! Permit me to lend you an elephant. Thus shall you be safe from attack. Let me see—there are you, and your Persian friend, and your slave. Old Prasada can easily bear the three of you and your trade goods. See to it, Munda."

"But, Your Majesty!" protested the minister, "that elephant is too precious to risk—"

"Not another word, Munda. Prasada is my elephant, and if I am fain to lend him to these foreign gentlemen, that is that."

Thus it happened that, two days later, Otaspes, Gnouros, and I hoisted ourselves and our gear aboard the biggest bull in Girixis' herd. Prasada was certainly a monster, as tall as two men, one atop the other, with tusks half again as long as my arm. He was also elderly, as was shown by the deep hollows on the sides of his head and the ragged edges of his ears. He moved slowly and ponderously, refused to be hurried for long, and did not get excited over trifles as, I was told, younger elephants were wont to do. He had formerly been the Royal Elephant, regularly used by the king for war and parades. But a few years before, Girixis had retired him from this post in favor of a younger and more spirited beast.

Our saddle was not one of those box-shaped affairs, with benches for two or four riders, which Indian kings occupy for hunting, war, and processions. It was a less pretentious but more practical structure. First, on the elephant's back were two long rolls of padding, extending the length of the animal's torso, one on each side of its spinal ridge. Atop these rolls was laid a huge plank, also as long as the animal's back. From this plank, a footboard was hung by ropes on each side. The whole assembly was held in place by a girth of ropes, which went around the elephant's body just aft of the forelegs, and a crupper around the base of the tail.

At each end, the plank bore an iron staple, a span high and as wide as the plank itself, which served as a handrail for those seated at the ends of the plank. Those in the middle had loops of rope to hold on by. When I first clambered aboard, I tried to sit astride the plank, as if I were riding a horse. But the plank proved too wide for this purpose, and the elephant's barrel too thick. After a half hour of torment like that which I had undergone in trying to assume the lotus posture, I turned sideways on the plank, with both feet on one footboard, and made out much better.

Prasada was lying down when we mounted him. The plank proved amply long for the three of us. The driver or mahavata, a little gray-bearded man named Koka, scrambled up to Prasada's neck and picked up the two-foot iron goad, which he had hung over Prasada's left ear. He spoke to the beast and whacked him over the head with the goad. The blow made a sound like a drum or a hollow log, but the elephant did not seem to mind.

The driver called back: "Beware!" Up went Prasada's foreparts. Gnouros yelped with fright and clutched the rear staple. Then the hindquarters rose in their turn, and Prasada plodded out of the elephant yard. He had an easy gait: a gentle, back-and-forth, rocking motion. A bell hung from his neck tolled with an irregular rhythm.

We shuffled through the winding streets, out the Ozenê Gate, and along the muddy road to the hills. A drizzle hid the rising sun.

We were still riding through cultivated fields—mostly of poppies, whence the Indians extract an intoxicating juice— when Prasada stopped. A little man in breechclout and shawl, with a pair of baskets slung over his shoulder by a yoke, stood in the road before us. He and Koka engaged in a long colloquy, but I could not follow their speech. Otaspes confessed himself likewise baffled.

"I think," he said at last, "that the man in the road is asking Koka to give him a ride."

"Well, now, we won't have anything like that—" I began, when the man in the road scuttled around to Prasada's rear and scrambled up like a monkey, baskets and all, using the elephant's tail and the ropes of his harness. Before I knew what had happened, he had squeezed in between Gnouros and the after end of the plank.

"Koka!" I cried. "We do not wish another passenger. He crowds us. Put him off, at once!"

"Sorry, my lord," said Koka, "but this man has forced me to let him board the elephant."

"What do you mean, forced you? Nobody can force you except Master Otaspes and me."

"He has compelled me by his reasoning. Giving him this ride will gain me merit in my next life."

"You heard me!" I yelled. "Put him off, do you hear?"

"I am sorry, my lord, but I cannot."

"You do as I command, or by all your ten-armed Indian gods 111 wring your scrawny neck!"

"Then who will drive the elephant?" said the driver, helplessly spreading his hands.

"You might as well calm down, old boy," said Otaspes, who had been slyly grinning. "This is India, where people who ruffle easily don't last long. We are not really crowded. I'm wider than you, and I do not mind. Besides, it never hurts to do a favor that costs nought."

"You're too good-natured," I grumbled. "By the time we reach Ozenê, we shall have these knaves hanging from the elephant's ears."

"Besides," persisted Otaspes, "this man may give us news. One never knows what one may pick up. Koka, find out who he is and what he does."

There was more speech in the dialect I did not know. Then Koka announced: "His name is Bhumaka, and he is a snake charmer. He came to Mahismati to earn a pittance with his snakes during the natal fete."

"Snakes!" screamed Otaspes. "Mean you that he has serpents in those baskets?"

"Only in one of them, my lord. The other contains mice to feed his serpents on."

"Arimanes take them! Get rid of him! Throw away those baskets! I am terrified of serpents!" The Persian had turned deathly pale.

"Now who's getting excited?" I said. "The lids of the baskets seem to be well tied down, so the serpents can't get at you. Now I'm glad we have Master Bhumaka with us; I have always wondered how one charms a serpent."

'Then you shall change places with me," said Otaspes, "to put me as far as possible from those accursed reptiles."

When this had been done, Koka whacked his beast on the head, Prasada resumed his shuffle, and we breasted the long slopes that led up into the Paripatras.

As we wound higher into the hills, the villages and cultivated fields became smaller and fewer, until we were plodding through dense jungle, dripping from the morning's rain. A herd of deer bounded across the road before us. I snatched at my bow case, which dangled from one of the footboards along with the rest of my gear.

"Better not," said Otaspes.

"Why not? We could have a venison dinner—"

"I think there is some law that only the king may hunt. Besides, these people are mostly Buddhists, who consider it wicked to slay even an animal."

"If it's wicked for me, why isn't it wicked for King Girixis?"

"He is a Brachmanist, and in any event the king may do as he likes."

We passed on. A piercing scream made me start until I realized it was only a peacock. An immense pile of dung by the road caused me to ask what monster could possibly have dropped it.

"Rhinoceros," said Otaspes.

"Then your Indian rhinoceros must be thrice the size of this elephant!" said I in some alarm.

"No, it's much smaller than an elephant. But it has the habit of coming to the same place to relieve itself every day."

We stopped for lunch in an open space, while Prasada wandered through the nearby woods, stuffing greenery into his vast pink maw. A monkey stole up, snatched Gnouros' piece of bread, and ran away with it, chattering in triumph.

Bhumaka opened one of his baskets to exercise his serpents, while Otaspes moved as far away as he could without leaving the clearing altogether. Bhumaka's troupe comprised three serpents: a six-foot python, a four-foot snake of an extremely venomous kind they call a naga, and a smaller snake of some harmless species.

All were torpid from having been lately fed, but by flapping a cloth Bhumaka persuaded the naga to rear up and spread its hood. Then he played his tootle-pipe to it, swaying his body in time to the music. The naga swayed likewise. It is said that the music compels the serpent to sway, but it looked more as if the creature were sighting upon its owner in order to make its deadly lunge. Every time its target moved, it had to move also. After a while the naga got bored, shrank its hood, and sank back into its basket. Bhumaka seized it by the neck, dragged it forth, and pried open its jaws.

"What is he doing?" I asked Koka.

"He is looking to see if the naga's fangs have grown in."

"How do you mean?"

Koka: "A charmer from time to time makes his naga bite a piece of cloth and then jerks the cloth to break the serpent's fangs. But, when a naga loses its fangs, a new pair grows in. Hence the charmer must assure himself that a new pair grow not in unbeknownst to him, lest he lose his life."

Bhumaka spoke angrily. Koka said: "He says I give away his trade secrets."

'Tell him we won't tell a soul," I said.

"I do not want any more lunch," said Otaspes, looking green.

"Well, you came on this journey to lose weight," I said.

The afternoon passed pleasantly, with glimpses of the swarming wild life: buffalo, deer, antelope, wild pig, and once a rhinoceros, standing a few paces from the road and staring at us, as unmoving as a great, gray boulder. The Indian kind has but one horn on its snout. Birds and monkeys chattered overhead.

When night came, we found another open space, ate, and told stories around the fire, which attracted a vast swarm of moths. Koka and Bhumaka performed a ritual to keep ghosts and goblins away, and we lay down, wrapped in our cloaks, on beds of leaves. I spent the first watch in tramping around the clearing with bow and arrow in hand, hearing the distant toot of a wild elephant and the rhythmic snarl of a hunting tiger, which sounds like a man sawing wood. Koka assured me that the presence of Prasada, prowling around the camp and gorging on green stuff, would discourage any dangerous men or beasts from molesting us.

Otaspes, who also had brought a bow, took the second watch. Then came the turn of Gnouros. Although the little man swore afterwards that he had been wide awake the whole time, I think he must have dozed. For, the next thing I knew, I was awakened by a chorus of yells, and several men landed on top of me. I kicked and punched but was never able to shake off more than one at a time.

I was lined up with the rest of our party in front of our campfire, all battered and disheveled. Our captors were a wild-looking, ragged crew of fifteen or twenty Indians, thin as skeletons and armed with only crude spears. The tall, gaunt chief wore a turban and carried a sword.

Several Indians held each of us by the arms while a man with cords began binding us. While he was tying Gnouros' wrists, Koka spoke to the chief.

"What is all this?" I asked Koka. "Just thieves?"

"Nay, my lord," said the mahavata. "This is a religious sect. Besides robbing us, they believe they can achieve union with God by a ritual, wherein they torture us to death. That is why they have not yet slain us. They will tie us to yonder trees ..."

There was no sign of Prasada, who had discreetly withdrawn. The chief was looking at Bhumaka's baskets near the fire. He cut the cord of one and knocked off the lid. Up popped the heads of Bhumaka's serpents, which, having been warmed by the fire, were in a lively mood.

The chief gave a wild yell, backed up, tripped, and fell into the fire. With a shriek he bounced out, scattering coals and beating at his burning skirt and shawl. The serpents began to slither out of the basket. One of the men holding me let go and, shouting his alarm, backed away. In the excitement, the others loosened their grasp.

A quick wrench freed my arms; a blow knocked one of my captors sprawling and a kick in the crotch doubled over another. A glance showed that Otaspes had freed himself likewise and was laying about him with his sword.

I still wore my sword, too; but Hermes sent me a better idea. I sprang to the basket and picked up a serpent, the naga. The reptile struck at my arm but failed to draw blood in its fangless state. I tossed it into the faces of the nearest Indians, who scattered screaming. The harmless serpent followed.

Then I grabbed the python. The beast gave me a nasty bite on the knee, tearing the skin with its many needle-pointed teeth. But I gripped it by neck and tail, whirled it around, and let fly at the chief, who had torn off his shawl and was stamping out the flames.

When the brigand saw the huge serpent whirling through the air towards him, he threw up both hands before his face, covering his eyes. Otaspes stepped forward with a mighty backhand swing. The chiefs head leaped from his shoulders and went bounding and rolling across the clearing, while the body, spouting blood, fell. Then there was only the backs of Indians, fleeing into the forest. I caught one and sworded him to death. Otaspes pursued them, too, but he was too stout to catch them.

Back in the clearing, I had to lean against a tree to get my breath. Koka cut Gnouros' bonds. Bhumaka wept and be wailed the loss of his serpents, all of which had vanished into the darkness.

"Tell him I'll buy him a new set of serpents," I bade Koka. "And round up that accursed elephant of yours before these scoundrels recover their nerve and come back."