Chapter III: Part 3

In the meantime Joseph continued to examine the stranger. From head to foot the little, bright eyes moved, leisurely, and Connor grew hot as he endured it. When the survey was completed to his own satisfaction, Joseph went first to the mule and next to the horse, lifting their feet one by one, then running his hands over their legs. After this he turned to Jacob and his great fingers glided through the characters of the language of the mute, bunching, knotting, darting out in a fluid swiftness.

"Joseph says," translated Ephraim, "that your horse is lame, but that he can climb the hills if you go on foot; the mule is not lame at all, but is pretending, because he is tired."

An oath rose up in the throat of Connor, but he checked it against his teeth and smiled at Joseph. The big man hissed through his teeth and his mare sprang to his side. She was not more than fourteen two, and slenderly made compared with Abra, yet she had borne the great bulk of Joseph with ease before, and now she was apparently ready to carry him again. He dropped his hand upon her withers, and facing Connor, swept his arm out in a broad gesture of dismissal. Vaguely the gambler noticed this, but his real interest centered on the form of the mare. He was seeing her not with that unwieldy bulk crushing her back, but with a fly-weight jockey mounted on a racing pad riding her past the grand stand. He was hearing the odds which the bookies offered; he was watching those odds drop by leaps and bounds as he hammered away at them, betting in lumps of hundreds and five hundreds, staking his fortune on his first "sure thing." Even as she stood passive, tossing her nose, he knew her speed, and it took his breath. Abra himself would walk away from ordinary company, but this gray mare--slowly Connor looked back to the face of Joseph and saw that the giant was waiting to see his command obeyed. For the first time he noted the cartridge belt strung across the fellow's gaunt middle and the holster in which pulled the weight of a forty-five. In case of doubt, here was a cogent reason to hurry a loiterer. To persuade the giant would never have been easy, but to persuade him through an interpreter made the affair impossible. Struggling for a loophole of escape, he absentmindedly unsnapped from his watch chain the little ivory talisman, the ape head, and commenced to finger it. It had been his constant companion for years and in a measure he connected his luck with it.

"My friend," said Connor to Ephraim, "you see my position? But if I can't do better is there any objection to my using this fire of yours for cooking? The fire, at least, is outside the valley."

Even this question Ephraim apparently did not feel qualified to answer. He turned first to the gigantic mute and conversed with him at some length; his own fluent signals were answered by single movements on the part of Joseph, and Connor recognized the signs of dissent.

"I have told him everything," said Ephraim, turning again to Connor and shaking his head in sympathy. "And how Abra came to you, but though the horse trusted you, Joseph does not wish you to stay. I am sorry."

Connor looked through the gate into the darkness of the Garden of Eden; at the entrance to his promised land he was to be turned back. In his despair he opened his palm and looked down absently at the little grinning ape head of ivory. Even while he was deep in thought he felt the silence which settled over the three men, and when he looked up he saw the glittering eyes of Joseph fixed upon the trinket. That instant new hope came to Connor; he closed his hand over the ape head, and turning to Ephraim he said:

"Very well. If there's nothing else for me to do, I'll take the chance of getting through the mountains with my lame nags."

As he spoke he threw the reins over the neck of the chestnut; but before he could put his foot in the stirrup Joseph was beside him and touched his shoulder.

"Wait!" said he, and the gambler paused with astonishment. The mask of the mute which he had hitherto kept on his face now fell from it.

"Let me see," the giant was saying, and held out his hand for the ivory image.

The pulse of Connor doubled its beat--but with his fingers still closed he said:

"The ivory head is an old companion of mine and has brought me a great deal of luck."

The torchlight changed in the eyes of Joseph as the sun glints and glimmers on watered silk.

"I would not hurt it," he said, and made a gingerly motion to show how light and deft his fingers could be.

"Very well," said Connor, "but I rarely let it out of my hand."

He stepped closer to the firelight and exposed the little carving again. It was a curious bit of work, with every detail nicely executed; pinpoint emeralds were inset for eyes, the lips grinned back from tiny fangs of gold, and the swelling neck suggested the powerful ape body of the model. In the firelight the teeth and eyes flashed.

Joseph grinned in sympathy. Ephraim and Jacob also had drawn close, and the white man saw in the three faces one expression: they had become children before a master, and when Connor placed the trinket in the great paw of Joseph the other two flashed at him glances of envy. As for the big man, he was transformed.

"Speak truth," he said suddenly. "Why do you wish to enter the Garden?"

"I've already told you, I think," said Connor. "It's to rest up until the horse and mule are well again."

The glance of the huge man, which had hitherto wandered from the trinket to Connor's face, now steadied brightly upon the latter.

"There must be another reason."

Connor felt himself pressed to the wall.

"Look at the thing you have in your hand, Joseph. You are asking yourself: 'What is it? Who made it? See how the firelight glitters on it--perhaps there is life in it!'"

"Ah!" sighed the three in one breath.

"Perhaps there is power in it. I have used it well and it has brought me a great deal of good luck. But you would like to know all those things, Joseph. Now look at the gate to the Garden!"

He waved to the lofty and dark cleft before them.

"It is like a face to me. People live behind it. Who are they? Who is the master? What does he do? What is his power? That is another reason why I wish to go in; and why should you fear me? I am alone; I am unarmed."

It seemed that Joseph learned more from Connor's expression than from his words.

"The law is the will of David."

The Garden became to Connor as the forbidden room to Bluebeard's wife; it tempted him as a high cliff tempts the climber toward a fall. He mustered a calm air and voice.

"That is a matter I can arrange with your master. He may have laws to keep out thieves, but certainly he has nothing against honest men."

Joseph shrugged his big shoulders, but Ephraim answered: "The will of David never changes. I am no longer young, but since I have been old enough to remember, I have never seen a man either come into the valley or leave it except Joseph."

The solemnity of the old man staggered Connor. He felt his resolution to enter at any cost waver, and then Abra, the young stallion, came to his side and looked in his face.

It was the decisive touch. The life which the devotee would risk for his God, or the patriot for his country, the gambler was willing to venture for the sake of a "sure thing."

"Let us exchange gifts," said Connor; "I give you the ivory head. It may bring you good luck. You give me the right to enter the valley and I accept any good or evil that comes to me."

The huge fingers of Joseph curled softly over the image.

"Beware of the law!" cried Ephraim. "And the hand of the master!"

The giant shrank, but he looked at Ephraim with sullen defiance.

"Come," he said to Connor. "This is on your own head."

_CHAPTER TEN_

"It is a long ride to the house of David," said Jacob. "Your horse is footsore; take Abra."

But Ephraim broke in: "If you care for speed and wise feet beneath you, Tabari herself is there."

He whistled as Jacob had done before, but with another grace-note at the end.

"Those of my household answer when they are called," continued the old man proudly. "Listen!"

A soft whinny out of the darkness, and Tabari galloped into the firelight, and stopped at the side of her master motionless.

"Choose," said Ephraim.

He smiled at Jacob, who in return was darkly silent.

The mare tugged at the heartstrings of Connor, but he answered, slipping carefully into the formal language which apparently was approved most in the valley.

"She is worthy of a king, but Abra was offered to me first. But will he carry a saddle?"

"He will carry anything but a whip," said Jacob, casting a glance of triumph at Ephraim. "You will see!" He was already busy at the knot under the flap of Connor's saddle, and presently he slipped the saddle from the back of the chestnut. "Come!" he called.

Abra came, but he came like a fighter into the ring, dancing, ready for trouble.

"Fool!" shouted Jacob, stamping. "Fool, and grandson of a fool, stand!"

The ears of Abra flicked back along his neck and he trembled as the saddle was swung over him. Under its impact he crouched and shuddered, but the outbreak of bucking for which Connor waited did not come. The jerk on the cinch brought a snort from him, but that was all.

"We may not put iron in his mouth," said Jacob, as Connor came up with the bridle, "but a touch on this will turn him or stop him, as you wish."

As he spoke he picked up a small rope, which he knotted around the neck of Abra close to the ears, and handed the end to Connor.

"Look!" he said to the horse, pointing to Connor. "This is your master to-night. Bear him as you would bear me, Abra, without leaping or stumbling, smoothly, as son of Khalissa should do. And hark," he added in the ear of the young stallion; "if the mare of Joseph outruns you, you are no horse of my household, but a mongrel, a bloodless knave."

Joseph was already trotting through the gate and growing dim beyond, so Connor put his foot in the stirrup and swung into the saddle. He landed as upon springs, all the lithe body of the stallion giving under the shock; and Connor felt a quivering power beneath him like the vibration of a racing motor. Abra's eyes glinted as he threw his head high to take stock of the new master.

"Go," commanded Jacob; "and remember your speed, for the honor of him who trained you!"

The last words were whipped away from the ear of Connor and trailed into a murmur behind him, for without a preliminary step Abra sprang from a stand into a full gallop. That forward lurch swayed Connor far back; he lost touch with his stirrups, but, clinging desperately with his knees, he was presently able to right himself. There was hard gravel beneath them, but the gait was as soft as if Abra ran in deep sand without labor; there was no more wrench and shock than the ghost of a man riding a ghost of a horse.

A column of black shot by on either hand; Connor was through the gate to the Garden of Eden and rushing down the slope beyond. He knew this dimly, but chiefly he was aware only of the whipping of the wind. Something Ephraim had said came into his memory: "If there were ten like Abra in one corral, and one like Tabari in another, a wise man--" But, no doubt, Ephraim had jested.

For, glancing up, he saw the tops of tall trees rushing past him against the sky, and for the first time he knew the speed of that gallop. In his exultation he threw up his hand, and his shout rang before him and behind. That taught him a lesson he would never forget when he sat the saddle on an Eden Gray; for Abra lurched into a run with a suddenness that swayed Connor against the cantle again.

He steadied himself quickly and called to Abra; the first word cut down that racing gait to the long, free stride, but the brief rush had taken the breath of the rider, and now he looked about him.

He had been in California years before, and now he recognized the peculiar, clean perfume of the trees which lined the road; they were the eucalyptus, and they fenced the way with a gigantic hedge several rows deep. It was a winding road that they followed, dipping over a rolling ground and swinging leisurely from side to side to avoid high places, so that the vista of the trees was continually in motion, twisting back and forth; or when he looked straight up he saw the slender tree-points brushing past the stars. So he galloped into a long, straight stretch with a pale gleam of water beyond it; and between he saw Joseph.

It was strange that in spite of the speed of Abra, Joseph's mare had not been overtaken; for no matter what quality the mare might have, she carried in the gigantic Negro an impost of some two hundred and fifty pounds. A suspicion of discourtesy on his part must have come to Joseph, for now he brought his horse back to a canter that allowed Connor to come close, so close indeed that he saw Joseph laughing in a horrible soundless way and beckoning him on, very much as though he challenged Abra. Surely the fellow must know that no horse could concede such weight to Abra, but Connor waved his arm to signify that he accepted the challenge, and called on Abra.

There followed the breathless lunge forward, the sinking of the body as the stride lengthened, the whir of wind against his face; Connor sat the saddle erect, smiling, and waited for Joseph to come back to him.

But Joseph did not come, and as the mare reached the river and her hoofs rang on the bridge Connor saw with unspeakable wonder that he had actually lost ground. Once more he called on Abra, and as they struck the bridge in turn the young stallion was fully extended, while Connor swung forward in the saddle to throw more weight on the withers and take the strain from the long back muscles. Leaning close to the neck of Abra, with the mane whipping his face, he squinted down the road at Joseph, and growled with savage satisfaction as he saw the mare drift back to him. If he could reach her with a sprint she was beaten, for she bore the extra burden. Once more he called on Abra, and heard a slight grunt as the stallion gave the last burst of his strength; the hoofs of the two roared on the hard road, and Joseph came back hand over hand. Connor, laughing exultantly, squinted into the wind.

"Good boy!" he muttered. "Good old Abra! If he had Salvator under him we'd get him at this rate. We're on his hip--Now!"

He was indeed in touch with the flying mare, and, looking through the dimness, he marveled at her long, free swing, the level drive of the croup, and--he saw with astonishment--her pricking ears! Not as if she were racing, but merely galloping. He flattened himself along the neck of Abra and called on him again, slapped his shoulder with the flat of his hand, flicked him along the flank with the butt of the rope; but the mare held him invincibly; he could not gain the breadth of a hair, and by the pounding of Abra's forefeet he knew that the stallion was running himself out. At that moment, to crown his bewilderment, Joseph turned, laughing again in that soundless way. Only for a moment; then he turned, and, leaning over the withers of his mount, the mare lengthened, it seemed to Connor, and moved away.

Her hips went past him, then her tail, flying out straight behind, a streak of silver; and last of all, there was the hiss of derision from Joseph whistling back to him.

Connor threw himself back into the saddle and brought the stallion down to a moderate pace. One hand was clutched at his throat, for it seemed to him that his heart was beating there. Before him raced a vision of Ben Connor, king of the racetracks of the world, with horses no handicapper could measure.

_CHAPTER ELEVEN_

A Second thought made him lean a little, listening closely, and then he discovered that after this terrific trial Abra was breathing deep and free. Connor sat straight again and smiled. They must be close to the lake he had seen from the mountain, for among the trees to his left was a faint gleam of water. A moment later this glimmer went out, and the hoofbeats of Abra were muffled on turf. They had left the road and headed for a scattering of lights. Joseph had drawn the mare back to a hand-gallop, and Abra followed the example; at this rocking gait they swept through the grove between two long, low buildings, always climbing, and came suddenly upon a larger house. On three sides Connor looked down upon water; the building was behind him. Not a light showed in it, but he made out the low, single story, the sense of weight, and crude arches of the Mission style. Through an opening in the center of the facade he looked into darkness which he knew must be the patio.

Following the example of Joseph, he dismounted, and while the big man, with his waddling, difficult walk, disappeared into the court, Connor stepped back and looked over Abra. Starlight was enough to see him by, for he glimmered with running sweat even in the semidarkness, but it was plain from his high head and inquisitive muzzle that he was neither winded nor down-hearted. He followed Connor like a dog when the gambler went in turn to the mare. She turned about nervously to watch the newcomer. Not until Abra had touched noses with her and perhaps spoken to her the dumb horse-talk would she allow Connor to come close, and even then he could not see her as clearly as the stallion. By running his finger-tips over her he discovered the reason--only on the flanks and across the breast was she wet with perspiration, and barely moist on the thighs and belly. The race had winded her no more than a six-furlong canter.

He was still marveling at this discovery when Joseph appeared under the arch carrying a lantern and beckoned him in, leading the way to a large patio, surrounded by a continuous arcade. In the center a fountain was alternately silver and shadow in the swinging lantern light. The floor of the patio was close-shaven turf.

Joseph hung the lantern on the inside of one of the arches and turned to Connor, apparently to invite him to take one of the chairs under the arcade. Instead, he raised his hand to impose silence. Connor heard, from some distance, a harsh sound of breathing of inconceivable strength. For though it was plainly not close to them, he could mark each intake and expulsion of breath. And the noise created for him the picture of a monster.

"Let us go to the master," said Joseph, and turned straight across the patio in the direction of that sonorous breathing.

Connor followed, by no means at ease. From the withered old men to huge Joseph had been a long step. How far would be the reach between Joseph himself and the omnipotent master?

He passed in the track of Joseph toward the rear of the patio. Presently the big man halted, removed his hat, and faced a door beneath the arcade. It was only a momentary interruption. He went on again at once, replacing his hat, but the thrill of apprehension was still tingling in the blood of the gambler. Now they went under the arcade, through an open door, and issued in the rear of the house, Connor's imaginary "monster" dissolved.

For they stood in front of a blacksmith shop, the side toward them being entirely open so that Connor could see the whole of the interior. Two sooty lanterns hung from the rafters, the light tangling among wreaths of smoke above and showing below a man whose back was turned toward them as he worked a great snoring bellows with one hand.

That bellows was the source of the mysterious breathing. Connor chuckled; all mysteries dissolved as this had done the moment one confronted them. He left off chuckling to admire the ease with which the blacksmith handled the bellows. A massive angle of iron was buried in the forge, the white flames spurting around it as the bellows blew, casting the smith into high relief at every pulse of the fire. Sometimes it ran on the great muscles of the arm that kept the bellows in play; sometimes it ran a dazzling outline around his entire body, showing the leather apron and the black hair which flooded down about his shoulders.

"Who--" began Connor.

"Hush," cautioned Joseph in a whisper. "David speaks when he chooses--not sooner."

Here the smith laid hold on the iron with long pincers, and, raising it from the coals, at once the shop burst with white light as David placed the iron on the anvil and caught up a short-handled sledge. He whirled it and brought it down with a clangor. The sparks spurted into the night, dropping to the ground and turning red at the very feet of Connor. Slowly David turned the iron, the steady shower of blows bending it, changing it, molding it under the eye of the gambler. This was that clangor which had floated through the clear mountain air to him when he first gazed down on the valley; this was the bell-like murmur which had washed down to him through the gates of the valley.

At least it was easy to understand why the servants feared him. A full fourteen pounds was in the head of that sledge, Connor guessed, yet David whirled it with a light and deft precision. Only the shuddering of the anvil told the weight of those blows. Meantime, with every leap of the spark-showers the gambler studied the face of the master. They were features of strength rather than beauty from the frowning forehead to the craggy jaw. A sort of fierce happiness lived in that face now, the thought of the craftsman and the joy of the laborer in his strength.

As the white heat passed from the iron and it no longer flowed into a shape so readily under the hammer of the smith, a change came in him. Connor knew nothing of ironcraft, but he guessed shrewdly that another man would have softened the metal with fire again at this point. Instead, David chose to soften it with strength. The steady patter of blows increased to a thundering rain as the iron turned a dark and darker red.

The rhythm of the worker grew swifter, did not break, and Connor watched with a keen eye of appreciation. Just as a great thoroughbred makes its supreme effort in the stretch by a lengthening and slight quickening of stride, but never a dropping into the choppy pace of unskilled labor at speed, so the man at the anvil was now rocking steadily back and forth from heel to toe, the knees unflexing a little as he struck and stiffening as he swung up the hammer. The greater effort was told only by the greater ring of the hammer face on the hardening iron--by that and by the shudder of the arm of the smith as the fourteen pounds went clanging home to the stroke.

And now the iron was quite dark--the smith stood with the ponderous sledge poised above his head and turned the bar swiftly, with study, to see that the angle was exactly what he wished. The hammer did not descend again on the iron; the smith was content, and plunging the big angle iron into the tempering tub, his burly shoulders were obscured for a moment by a rising cloud of steam.

He stepped out of this and came directly to them. Now the lantern was behind him, he was silhouetted in black, a mighty figure. He was panting from his labor, and the heavy sound of his breathing disturbed the gambler. He had expected to find a wise and simple old man in David. Instead, he was face to face with a Hercules.

His attention was directed entirely to Joseph.

"I come from my work unclean," he said. "Joseph, take the stranger within and wait."

Joseph led back into the patio to a plain wooden table beside which Connor, at the gesture of invitation, sat down. Here Joseph left him hurriedly, and the gambler looked about. The arcade was lightened by a flagging of crystalline white stone, and the ceiling was inlaid with the same material. But the arches and the wall of the building were of common dobe, massive, but roughly built.

Beyond the fountain nodded like a ghost in the patio, and now and then, when the lantern was swayed by the wind, the pool glinted and was black again. The silence was beginning to make him feel more than ever like an unwelcome guest when another old Negro came, and Connor noted with growing wonder the third of these ancients. Each of them must have been in youth a fine specimen of manhood. Even in white-headed age they retained some of that noble countenance which remains to those who have once been strong. This fellow bore a tray upon his arm, and in the free hand carried a large yellow cloth of a coarse weave.

He placed on the table a wooden trencher with a great loaf of white bread, a cone of clear honey, and an earthen pitcher of milk. Next he put a wooden bowl on a chair beside Connor, and when the latter obediently extended his hands, the old man poured warm water over them and dried them with a napkin.

There was a ceremony about this that fitted perfectly with the surroundings, and Connor became thoughtful. He was to tempt the master with the wealth of the world, but what could he give the man to replace his Homeric comfort?

In the midst of these reflections soft steps approached him, and he saw the brown-faced David coming in a shapeless blouse and trousers of rough cloth, with moccasins on his feet. Rising to meet his host, he was surprised to find that David had no advantage in height and a small one in breadth of shoulder; in the blacksmith shop he had seemed a giant. The brown man stopped beside the table. He seemed to be around thirty, but because of the unwrinkled forehead Connor decided that he was probably five years older.

"I am David," he said, without offering his hand.

"I," said the gambler, "am Benjamin."

There was a flash that might have been either pleasure or suspicion in the face of David.

"Joseph has told me what has passed between you," he said.

"I hope he's broken no law by letting me come in."

"My will is the law; in disregarding me he has broken a law."

He made a sign above his shoulder that brought Joseph hurrying out of the gloom, his keen little eyes fastened upon the face of the master with intolerable anxiety. There was another sign from David, and Joseph, without a glance at Connor, snatched the ivory head out of his pocket, thrust it upon the table, and stood back, watching the brown man with fascination.

"You see," went on David, "that he returns to you the price which you paid him. Therefore you have no longer a right to remain in the Garden of Eden."

Connor flushed. "If this were a price," he answered, clinging as closely as he could to language as simple and direct as that of David, "it could be returned to me. But it is not a price. It is a gift, and gifts cannot be returned."

He held out the ape-head, and when Joseph could see nothing save the face of David, he pushed the trinket back toward the huge man.

"Then," said the brown man, "the fault which was small before is now grown large."

He looked calmly upon Joseph, and the giant quailed. By the table hung a gong on which the master tapped; one of the ancient servants appeared instantly.

"Go to my room," said David, "and bring me the largest nugget from the chest."

The old man disappeared, and while they waited for his return the little bright eyes of Joseph went to and fro on the face of the master; but David was staring into the darkness of the patio. The servant brought a nugget of gold, as large as the doubled fist of a child, and the master rolled it across the table to Connor.

A tenseness about his mouth told the gambler that much was staked on this acceptance. He turned the nugget in his hand, noting the discoloration of the ore from which it had been taken.

"It is a fine specimen," he said.

"You will see," said David, "both its size and weight."

And Connor knew; it was an exchange for the ivory head. He laid the nugget carelessly back upon the table, thankful that the gift had been offered with such suspicious bluntness.

"It is a fine specimen," he repeated, "but I am not collecting."

There was a heavy cloud on the face of David as he took up the nugget and passed it into the hand of the waiting servant; but his glance was for Joseph, not Connor.

Joseph burst into speech for the first time, and the words tumbled out.

"I do not want it. I shall not keep it. See, David; I give it up to him!" He made a gesture with both hands as though he would push away the ape-head forever.

The master looked earnestly at Connor.

"You hear?"

The latter shrugged his shoulders, saying: "I've never taken back a gift, and I can't begin now."

Connor's heart was beating rapidly, from the excitement of the strange interview and the sense of his narrow escape from banishment. Because he had made the gift to Joseph he had an inalienable right, it seemed, to expect some return from Joseph's master--even permission to stay in the valley, if he insisted.

There was another of those uncomfortable pauses, with the master looking sternly into the night.

"Zacharias," he said.

The servant stepped beside him.

"Bring the whip--and the cup."

The eyes of Zacharias rolled once toward Joseph and then he was gone, running; he returned almost instantly with a seven foot blacksnake, oiled until it glistened. He put it in the hand of David, but only when Joseph stepped back, shuddering, and then turned and kneeled before David, the significance of that whip came home to Connor, sickening him. The whites of Joseph's eyes rolled at him and Connor stepped between Joseph and the whip.

"Do you mean this?" he gasped. "Do you mean to say that you are going to flog that poor fellow because he took a gift from me?"

"From you it was a gift," answered the master, perfectly calm, "but to him it was a price. And to me it is a great trouble."

"God!" murmured Connor.

"Do you call on him?" asked the brown man severely. "He is only here in so far as I am the agent of his justice. Yet I trust it is not more His will than it is the will of David. Also, the heart of Joseph is stubborn and must be humbled. Tears are the sign of contrition, and the whip shall not cease to fall until Joseph weeps."

His glance pushed Connor back; the gambler saw the lash whirled, and he turned his back sharply before it fell. Even so, the impact of the lash on flesh cut into Connor, for he had only to take back the gift to end the flogging. He set his teeth. Could he give up his only hold on David and the Eden Grays? By the whizzing of the lash he knew that it was laid on with the full strength of that muscular arm. Now a horrible murmur from the throat of Joseph forced him to turn against his will.

The face of David was filled, not with anger, but with cruel disdain; under his flying lash the welts leaped up on the back of Joseph, but he, with his eyes shut and his head strained far back, endured. Only through his teeth, each time he drew breath, came that stifled moan, and he shuddered at each impact of the whip. Now his eyes opened, and through the mist of pain a brutal hatred glimmered at Connor. That flare of rage seemed to sap the last of his strength, for now his face convulsed, tears flooded down, and his head dropped. Instantly the hand of David paused.

Something had snapped in Connor at the same time that the head of Joseph fell, and while he wiped the wet from his face he only vaguely saw Joseph hurry down the corridor, with Zacharias carrying the whip behind.

But the master? There was neither cruelty nor anger in his face as he turned to the table and filled with milk the wooden cup which Zacharias had brought.

"This is my prayer," he said quietly, "that in the justice of David there may never be the poison of David's wrath." 79

He drained the cup, broke a morsel of bread from the loaf and ate it. Next he filled the second cup and handed it to the gambler.

"Drink."

Automatically Connor obeyed.

"Eat."

In turn he tasted the bread.

"And now," said the master, in the deep, calm voice, "you have drunk with David in his house, and he has broken bread with you. Hereafter may there be peace and good will between us. You have given a free gift to one of my people, and he who gives clothes to David's people keeps David from the shame of nakedness; and he who puts bread in the mouths of David's servants feeds David himself. Stay with me, therefore, Benjamin, until you find in the Garden the thing you desire, then take it and go your way. But until that time, what is David's is Benjamin's; your will be my will, and my way be your way."

He paused.

"And now, Benjamin, you are weary?"

"Very tired."

"Follow me."

It seemed well to Connor to remove himself from the eye of the master as soon as possible. Not that the host showed signs of anger, but just as one looks at a clear sky and forebodes hard weather because of misty horizons, so the gambler guessed the frown behind David's eyes. He was glad to turn into the door which was opened for him. But even though he guessed the danger, Connor could not refrain from tempting Providence with a speech of double meaning.

"You are very kind," he said. "Good night, David."

"May God keep you until the morning, Benjamin."

_CHAPTER TWELVE_

From the house of David, Joseph skulked down the terraces until he came to the two long buildings and entered the smaller of these. He crossed a patio, smaller than the court of David's house; but there, too, was the fountain in the center and the cool flooring of turf. Across this, and running under the dimly lighted arcade, Joseph reached a door which he tore open, slammed behind him again, and with his great head fallen upon his chest, stared at a little withered Negro who sat on a stool opposite the door. It was rather a low bench of wood than a stool; for it stood not more than six inches above the level of the floor. His shoes off, and his bare feet tucked under his legs, he sat tailorwise and peered up at the giant. The sudden opening of the door had set his loose blouse fluttering about the old man's skeleton body. The sleeves fell back from bony forearms with puckered skin. He was less a man than a receptacle of time. His temples sank in like the temples of a very old horse; his toothless mouth was crushed together by the pressure of the long bony jaw, below which the skin hung in a flap. But the fire still glimmered in the hollows of his eyes. A cheerful spirit lived in the grasshopper body. He was knitting with a pair of slender needles, never looking at his work, nor during the interview with Joseph did he once slacken his pace. The needles clicked with such swift precision that the work grew perceptibly, flowing slowly under his hands.

Meanwhile this death's head looked at the giant so steadily that Joseph seemed to regret his unceremonious entrance. He stood back against the door, fumbling its knob for a moment, but then his rage mastered him once more, and he burst into the tale of Connor's coming and the ivory head. He brought his story to an end by depositing the trinket before the ancient man and then stood back, his face still working, and waited with every show of confident curiosity.

As for the antique, his knitting needles continued to fly, but to view the little carving more closely he craned his skinny neck. At that moment, with his fallen features, his fleshless nose, he was a grinning mummy head. He remained gloating over the little image so long that Joseph stirred uneasily; but finally the grotesque lifted his head. It at once fell far back, the neck muscles apparently unable to support its weight. He looked more at the ceiling than at Joseph. His speech was a writhing of the lips and the voice a hollow murmur.

"This," he said, "is the face of a great suhman. It is the face of the great suhman, Haneemar. It was many years ago that I knew him. It was a time so long ago that I do not know how to tell you. It was before your birth and the birth of your father. It was when I lived in a green country where the air is thick and sweet and the sun burns. There I knew Haneemar. He is a strong suhman. You see, his eyes are green; that is because he has the strength of the great snake that ties its tail around a branch and hangs down with its head as high as the breast of a man. Those snakes kill an antelope and eat it at a mouthful. Their eyes are green and so are the eyes of Haneemar. And you see that Haneemar has golden teeth. That is because he has eaten wisdom. He knows the meat of all things like a nut he can crack between his teeth. He is as strong as the snake which eats monkeys, and he is as wise as the monkeys that run from the snake and throw sticks from the tops of the trees. That is Haneemar.

"There is no luck for the man who carries the face of Haneemar with him. That is why David used the whip. He knew Haneemar. Also, in the other days I remember that when a child was sick in the village they tied a goat in the forest and Haneemar came and ate the goat. If he ate the goat like a lion and left tooth marks on the bones then the child got well and lived. If he ate the goat like a panther and left the guts the child died. But if the goat was not eaten for one day then Haneemar came and ate the child instead. I remember this. There will be no luck for you while you carry Haneemar."

The big man had heard this speech with eyes that grew rounder and rounder. Now he caught up the little image and raised his arm to throw it through the window. But the old man hissed, and Joseph turned with a shudder.

"You cannot throw Haneemar away," said the other. "Only when some one takes him freely will you be rid of him."

"It is true," answered Joseph. "I remember the visitor would not take him back."

"Then," said the old sage, "if the stranger will not take him back, bad luck has come into the Garden, for only the stranger would carry Haneemar out again. But do not give Haneemar to one of our friends, for then he will stay with us all. If you dig a deep hole and bury him in it, Haneemar may not be able to get out."

Joseph was beginning to swell with wrath.

"The stranger has put a curse on me," he said. "Abraham, what shall I do to him? Teach me a curse to put on him!"

"Hush!" answered Abraham. "Those who pray to evil spirits are the slaves of the powers they pray to."

"Then I shall take this Benjamin in my hands!"

He made a gesture as though he were snapping a stick of dry wood.

"You are the greater fool. Is not this Benjamin, this stranger, a guest of the master?"

"I shall steal him away by night in such a manner that he shall not make even the noise of a mouse when the cat breaks its back. I shall steal him away and David will never know."

The loose eyelids of the old man puckered and his glance became a ray of light.

"The curse already works; Haneemar already is in your mind, Joseph. David will not know? Child, there is nothing that he does not know. He uses us. We are his tools. My mind is to him as my hand is to me. He comes inside my eyes; he knows what I think. And if old Abraham is nothing before David, what is Joseph? Hush! Let not a whisper go out! Do not even dare to think it. You have felt the whip of David, but you have not felt his hand when he is in anger. A wounded mountain lion is not so terrible as the rage of David; he would be to you as an ax at the root of a sapling. These things have happened before. I remember. Did not Boram once anger John? And was not Boram as great as Joseph? And did not John take Boram in his hands and conquer him and break him? Yes, and David is a greater body and a stronger hand than John. Also, his anger is as free as the running of an untaught colt. Remember, my son!"

Joseph stretched out his enormous arms and his voice was a broken wail.

"Oh, Abraham, Abraham, what shall I do?"

"Wait," said the old man quietly. "For waiting makes the spirit strong. Look at Abraham! His body has been dead these twenty years, but still his spirit lives."

"But the curse of Haneemar, Abraham?"

"Haneemar is patient. Let Joseph be patient also."

_CHAPTER THIRTEEN_

Connor wakened in the gray hour of the morning, but beyond the window the world was much brighter than his room. The pale terraces went down to scattered trees, and beyond the trees was the water of the lake. Farther still the mountains rolled up into a brighter morning. A horse neighed out of the dawn; the sound came ringing to Connor, and he was suddenly eager to be outside.

In the patio the fountain was still playing. As for the house, he found it far less imposing than it had been when lantern light picked out details here and there. The walls and the clumsy arches were the disagreeable color of dried mud and all under the arcade was dismal shadow. But the lawn was already a faintly shining green, and the fountain went up above the ground shadow in a column of light. He passed on. The outside wall had that squat, crumbling appearance which every one knows who has been in Mexico--and through an avenue of trees he saw the two buildings between which he had ridden the night before. From the longer a man was leading one of the gray horses. This, then, was the stable; the building opposite it was a duplicate on a smaller scale of the house of David, and must be the servants' quarters.

Connor went on toward a hilltop which alone topped the site of the master's house; the crest was naked of trees, and over the tops of the surrounding ones Connor found that he commanded a complete view of the valley. The day before, looking from the far-off mountaintop, it had seemed to be a straight line very nearly, from the north to the south; now he saw that from the center both ends swung westward. The valley might be twelve miles long, and two or three wide, fenced by an unbroken wall of cliffs. Over the northern barrier poured a white line of water, which ran on through the valley in a river that widened above David's house into a spacious lake three or four miles long. The river began again from the end of the lake and continued straight to the base of the southern cliffs. Roads followed the swing of the river closely on each side, and the stream was bridged at each end of the lake. His angle of vision was so small that both extremities of the valley seemed a solid forest, but in the central portion he made out broad meadow lands and plowed fields checkering the groves. The house, as he had guessed the evening before, stood into the lake on a slender peninsula. And due west a narrow slit of light told of the gate into the Garden. It gave him a curiously confused emotion, as of a prisoner and spy in one.

He had walked back almost to the edge of the clearing when David, from the other side went up to the crest of the hill. Connor was already among the trees and he watched unobserved. The master of the Garden, at the top of the hill, paused and turned toward Connor. The gambler flushed; he was about to step out and hail his host when a second thought assured him that he could not have been noticed behind that screen of shrubbery and trunks; moreover the glance of David Eden passed high above him. It might have been the cry of a hawk that made him turn so sharply; but through several minutes he remained without moving either hand or head, and as though he were waiting. Even in the distance Connor marked the smile of happy expectation. If it had been another place and another man Connor would have thought it a lover waiting for his mistress.

But, above all, he was glad of the opportunity to see David and remain unseen. He realized that the evening before it had been difficult to look directly into David's face. He had carried away little more than impressions; of strength, dignity, a surface calm and strong passions under it; but now he was able to see the face. It was full of contradiction; a profile irregular and deeply cut, but the full face had a touch of nobility that made it almost handsome.

As he watched, Connor thought he detected a growing excitement in David--his head was raised, his smile had deepened. Perhaps he came here to rejoice in his possessions; but a moment later Connor realized that this could not be the case, for the gaze of the other must be fixed as high as the mountain peaks.

At that instant came the revelation; there was a stiffening of the whole body of David; his breast filled and he swayed forward and raised almost on tiptoe. Connor, by sympathy, grew tense--and then the miracle happened. Over the face of David fell a sudden radiance. His hair, dull black the moment before, now glistened with light, and the swarthy skin became a shining bronze; his lips parted as though he drank in strength and happiness out of that miraculous light.

The hard-headed Connor was staggered. Back on his mind rushed a score of details, the background of this picture. He remembered the almost superhuman strength of Joseph; he saw again the old servants withering with many years, but still bright-eyed, straight and agile. Perhaps they, too, knew how to stand here and drink in a mysterious light which filled their outworn bodies with youth of the spirit, at least. And David? Was not this the reason that he scorned the world? Here was his treasure past reckoning, this fountain of youth. Here was the explanation, too, of that intolerable brightness of his eye.

The gambler bowed his head.

When he looked up again his soul had traveled higher and lower in one instant than it had ever moved before; he was staring like a child. Above all, he wanted to see the face of David again, to examine that mysterious change, but the master was already walking down the hill and had almost reached the circle of the trees on the opposite side of the slope. But now Connor noted a difference everywhere surrounding him. The air was warmer; the wind seemed to have changed its fiber; and then he saw that the treetops opposite him were shaking and glistening in a glory of light. Connor went limp and leaned against a tree, laughing weakly, silently.

"Hell," he said at length, recovering himself. "It was only the sunrise! And me--I thought--"

He began to laugh again, aloud, and the sound was caught up by the hillside and thrown back at him in a sharp echo. Connor went thoughtfully back to the house. In the patio he found the table near the fountain laid with a cloth, the wood scrubbed white, and on it the heavy earthenware. David Eden came in with the calm, the same eye, difficult to meet. Indeed, then and thereafter when he was with David, he found himself continually looking away, and resorting to little maneuvers to divert the glance of his host.

"Good morrow," said David.

"I have kept you waiting?" asked Connor.

The master paused to make sure that he had understood the speech, then replied:

"If I had been hungry I should have eaten."

There was no rebuff in that quiet statement, but it opened another door to Connor's understanding.

"Take this chair," said David, moving it from the end of the table to the side. "Sitting here you can look through the gate of the patio and down to the lake. It is not pleasant to have four walls about one; but that is a thing which Isaac cannot understand."

The gambler nodded, and to show that he could be as unceremonious as his host, sat down without further words. He immediately felt awkward, for David remained standing. He broke a morsel from the loaf of bread, which was yet the only food on the table, and turned to the East with a solemn face.

"Out of His hands from whom I take this food," said the master--"into His hands I give myself."

He sat down in turn, and Isaac came instantly with the breakfast. It was an astonishing menu to one accustomed to toast and coffee for the morning meal. On a great wooden platter which occupied half the surface of the table, Isaac put down two chickens, roasted brown. A horn-handled hunting knife, razor sharp, was the only implement at each place, and fingers must serve as forks. To David that was a small impediment. Under the deft edge of his knife the breast of one chicken divided rapidly; he ate the white slices like bread. Indeed, the example was easy to follow; the mountain air had given him a vigorous appetite, and when Connor next looked up it was at the sound of glass tinkling. He saw Isaac holding toward the master a bucket of water in which a bottle was immersed almost to the cork; David tried the temperature of the water with his fingers with a critical air, and then nodded to Isaac, who instantly drew the cork. A moment later red wine was trickling into Connor's cup. He viewed it with grateful astonishment, but David, poising his cup, looked across at his guest with a puzzled air.