The Golden Wind

BOOK III — Rama the Indian

In the games that Physkon staged, the Kyzikene team stood third in number of firsts, after Athens and Antioch. At last the Persephoneia was over, and I saw the delegates safely sack aboard the Persephone. I intrusted them with several letters, to my wife, my brothers, and other kinsmen, telling of my plans for the Indian voyage. When they had sailed, I settled down to the business of preparing myself, as thoroughly as I knew how, for this enterprise.

In my Scythian wanderings, I had found that books were tactically useless for preparation, because they told so many untruths—for example, that Scythia had a mild, balmy climate. I shall never forget the shock I gave the family when I returned from Pantikapaion wearing a Scythian fur cap and trousers, having been forced to don these barbarous garments to keep my ears and balls from being frozen off. (I had been compelled to spend the winter there by a fall from a horse, which had cost me three broken ribs.)

Moreover, at my age I found it hard to focus my eyes on writing at less than arm's length. And I have always disliked being read aloud to; my mind wanders, and I miss half the message. (In Alexandria I was helped by Ammonios, who lent me a burning glass to read with. This glass was ground to such a perfect curve that, when one looked through it at a piece of writing, the letters appeared twice their true size. But most burning glasses are not so well made, and squinting through one of these things by the hour also tires the eye.)

In the case of India, however, I read the literature because there was so little other information to be had. Even Rama was not of much help. While he knew the ports of the Arabian coast, he had never been inland from his native Barygaza. As he explained:

"You see, Lord Eudoxos, Barygaza is city of reformed religion—religion of Buddha. You are knowing how peoples of India are split into—ah—how you say—colors?"

"You mean those classes, whose members are not allowed to marry or take jobs outside their class? Yes; I've been reading about it. There are seven classes, aren't there?"

"We call them colors. Five colors are: white for priests, red for warriors, yellow for merchants, black for workers."

"That's four."

"Fifth is no color—people who do not belong to any; mostly wild men hunting in woods. In reformed religion of Buddha, color not much matters; Buddha says: 'Any man is Brachman—that is, priest color—who is wise, patient, virtuous, pure, harmless, tolerant, truthful'—and so on—'no matter who his parents were.' But in old Brachman religion, color very important is. Among Brachmanes, a man who sails on sea loses color. Nobody will have to do with him, so he is starving. So we sailors are not visiting cities where Brachmanes rule. Always the Brachmanes are fighting followers of Buddha, and we might get killed."

Hence I read what Megasthemes and Onesikritos and Nearchos had to say about India, and I read about navigation on the African coast. I learnt that, according to Herodotos, a Phoenician fleet had sailed clear around Africa in the time of the Egyptian king Necho. Herodotos disbelieved the story, because the Punics asserted that, when they got to the southernmost parts of Africa, the sun stood to the north of them. But Agatharchides showed me by a diagram how the sun would, in fact, appear to the north at noon, south of the equator; and this claim, which made Herodotos doubt the tale, was really the best reason for accepting it I suppose Herodotos did not know that the earth was round, because in his day this theory was just being broached.

I picked my boatswain with care, since Hippalos was not a professional ship's officer, and I had not captained a vessel for some years. I chose a burly, red-faced salt named Linos, with a bronzen hook in place of his right hand. He said he had lost the hand defending his ship against pirates. I suspected that he had been a pirate himself until his injury forced him into more lawful work.

What with one thing and another, we did not set sail in our refitted merchantman until the fourteenth of Hekatombaion, [* Approx. July 5.] at the start of the fourth year of the 165th Olympiad. The Ourania was the biggest ship in the Red Sea sailing fleet: a beamy 120-footer, like the grain or wine freighters of the Inner Sea. She was, in fact, too big for many of the shallow little coves that pass for harbors in the Red Sea; hence Physkon was easily persuaded to let me have her. She was old but sound. I had personally seen to her cleansing, scraping, caulking, and painting, and I had checked every bit of rope and sail that went aboard, at the cost of furious quarrels with Physkon's officials when they tried to palm off defective equipment on me.

It was a typical midsummer day at Myos Hormos, with a scorching sun glaring down from a steely sky, and the deck so hot that one had to wear sandals to keep one's feet from being burnt. The Ourania lay at the end of a rickety pier that thrust far out into the bay, the water near shore being too shallow for anything deeper than a raft. Anchored farther out were several black-hulled biremes and a few cargo carriers, similar to my ship but smaller, and a couple of little Arab coasters awaiting their turn to unload.

Nearer shore were tethered three elephant barges. A fourth, which had foundered from neglect—now that the Ptolemies no longer kept up a military elephant corps—was being broken up for salvage by a gang of local tribesmen, with black skins and hair in long, greasy braids. They splashed about, naked and yelling, in the shallows with mallets and crowbars, while a Greek foreman screamed orders at them.

In the other direction, a galley had been hauled out on rollers. A couple of workmen, supposed to be cleaning her bottom, slept in the shade of her hull. Further off, on the single shipway, carpenters languidly tapped at the hull of a new trireme.

Standing on the deck of the Ourania, I was checking the cargo of glass, wine, oil, copper ingots, and purple-dyed stuffs as the royal slaves, shuffling slowly along the pier, brought their loads aboard. They moved with all the liveliness of the pointer of a water clock, and even their overseer had not the energy to raise his lash to speed them up. Not trusting any slave to be careful enough, Hippalos and Linos personally carried aboard the gifts, wrapped in sacking, that we took for such kings as we might encounter. Rama the Indian, comfortable in his turban and skirt despite the heat, brought a cageful of small birds on board.

Beside me, little Gnouros held my inkwell and other writing gear. I had to enter the list of cargo on the papyrus manifest, awkward though this was, because the heat was such as to melt the wax right off a tablet. Although Gnouros kept his face blank as becomes a well-trained slave, I knew that, being subject to seasickness, he dreaded the voyage. He had already stowed my gear, including my sword and my Scythian bow, in the cabin, which formed part of the deckhouse aft.

When I had checked off the last amphora of Chian, I sought the shade of the freight shed and a big mug of Egyptian beer. Gnouros and I sat with our backs to the bulkhead, drinking thirstily to the snores of several sailors from Physkon's fleet, who lay in corners of the shed. I said:

"You don't like this voyage, do you?"

"I like whatever my master likes," he said. He had received a bad sunburn, and his shoulders, snub nose, and forehead were peeling. His little gray eyes peered at me from under his dirty mop of light-brown, gray-streaked hair.

"You don't fool me, boy. Look, you've been a good and faithful servant for—how long is it, now?"

"Nine years."

"Well, during that time you've obeyed every order, as far as you understood it; and you've hardly complained once. Not one slave in a hundred does his duty so well."

"Thank you, S-sir."

"Well, how would you like to be free? With the fare back to Scythia."

He was silent for so long that I asked: "Did you understand what I said?"

"I understand all right, master. I am thinking." After another pause, he replied: "I like better to stay your slave." 'What?"

"Arrê, yes. What if I go back to Scythia? That knight who wanted to kill me would still kill me when he learn I come home."

"Perhaps he's dead or gone away."

"Maybe, maybe not Somebody else has my land and my wife by now. She never liked me much, anyway. Used to say, I did not love her because I did not beat her. She a big strong woman, and I was afraid. So, is no way to make my living. I am farmer, not sailor or merchant or clerk."

"Suppose I gave you a farm near Kyzikos?"

A little lizard fell from the overhead, plop into Gnouros' beer. With a Scythian curse he picked the creature out and threw it away. Then he said:

"Thanks, but is no good. Farming different in each country: different weather, crops, soil. I only know Scythian farming. Too old and stupid to learn other kinds.

"Besides, I am not doing badly. I get plenty to eat, good clothes to wear, good place to sleep. You not work me very hard, not hit me, not call me names. With you I travel, see strange places. Peasants on Tanais River have much worse time. Starve in famines, freeze in winter. Say they are free men, but nomad lords are always robbing and beating and killing them, futtering their women, selling their children. I rather be slave of kind, softhearted master like you."

This was the longest speech I had ever heard Gnouros make. He caught my hand and kissed it with tears in his eyes.

"Well, grind me to sausage!" I said. "Me, the most ruthless, grasping, hard-bitten shipowner in the Inner Sea, kind and soft? Stop blubbering, or by Bakchos' balls, I'll beat you into a bloody mush!"

Hippalos and I rounded up the crew of Linos, nine deck hands, and the cook. We reported our departure to Physkon's officials and went aboard. I led the ship's company in prayers and sacrificed a chicken to the powers of the deep.

I also told them I had consulted a soothsayer, who assured me that the day was lucky and the planetary aspects favorable. I had not done any such thing; as far as I was concerned, all this mumbo-jumbo before sailing was a lot of nonsense. If the gods decided to kick up a storm—assuming that there were gods and that they caused storms—they were no more likely to notice some little bug of a ship crawling across the sea than you notice whether you step on an ant as you walk. But the sailors expected such mummery, and I thought it wise to humor them.

We warped ourselves out of the harbor with the ship's boat, hoisted the mainsail and artemon, and set off down this long, shallow, steamy sea called the Red. Myos Hormos, with its dust, flies, starving dogs, and snoozing sailors, shrank into the distance. May you never be stranded there!

For the first ten-day, we sailed along briskly enough with a fair north wind, stopping at Berenikê to top off our food and water. Then, however, the wind became fitful, veering and backing and betimes dropping away to a flat calm. We had to put out the dinghy on a tow line and struggle down this glassy, reef-bound sea by oar power. I wished that somebody had invented a sail by which one could sail, not merely at right angles to the wind, but actually against it more than a few degrees.

We stopped again at Adoulis, where a swarm of Ethiopians besieged us with offers to sell elephants' tusks, rhinoceros horns, and tortoise shells. Thenceforth we struggled against head winds until we got through the Strait of Dernê. The coast turned eastward along the Southern Horn, so that we had a beam wind.

We made another stop at Mosyllon, which—although it has nothing but an exposed anchorage off the beach—is still a lively trading center because of the spices and incense gums shipped thence. After loading up with all the fresh fruit and extra water we could find room for, we pointed our bow straight out into the unknown waters of the Arabian Sea, with the seasonal southwest wind filling our sails.

To show what perverse creatures men are, the sailors had behaved well during that first month, when they were sweating at the oars and struggling down the Red Sea through calms and adverse winds, in the hottest, stickiest weather I had ever seen. Now we were out on the ocean with a fair wind and plenty of fresh bread from the galley in the deckhouse. We had nought to do but stand watches, throw dice, and play "sacred way" and "robbers" on lines drawn with charcoal on the deck.

So the men got restless. The first sign of this was a fight between two of the older sailors over the affections of the youngest and prettiest of them. The boatswain knocked one fighter down, and I knocked over the other, so that for a while peace prevailed.

To pass the time, I had been getting Rama to teach me his language. The only foreign tongue in which I was fluent was Scythian. I offered to correct his barbarous Greek, in case he wished to try another voyage to Egypt. But he declined, saying that, once he got home again, an occasional voyage to Arabia would suffice him.

"Alexandria," he said, "is fine, big city. But I do not like place where everybody is hurrying all the time. Rush, rush, rush; no rest. You even have machines to measure time, those clip-clep—how you say?"

"Clepsydras?"

"Yes. Make me unhappy, just to look at them. If Lord Buddha help me back to India, I think I stay there, where people know how to live."

"O Rama," I said, "I've heard about the wisdom of Indian philosophers. Have you any such wise men in Barygaza?"

"I am thinking." Then he tipped his head from side to side, as Indians do when they mean "very well" or "as you wish."

"There is one man of kind we call yogin, who lives outside Barygaza. Name is Sisonaga. Why, you want to be his che-taka—how you say—"

"Pupil? Follower?"

"Yes, pupil. All right, you go see him. If he is not meditating, maybe he is taking you."

"And if he is meditating?"

"Then you wait for him to come out of trance. Wait maybe five, ten days. You say you want him to be your guru—master. He is giving you exercises and training for ten, twenty years. Then you can learn to live standing on your head for hundred years. He says he for hundred and fifty already has lived."

"Why in Hera's name should anyone wish to live standing on his head?"

Rama snickered. "How do I know? I am simple sailor man. If my ship does not run on rock or sink in storm, I am happy. No time to study wisdom of ancient sages."

At barren Dioskoridis Island, we stopped at the wretched Arab fishing village on the north coast. This is the isle's only settlement, the rest being given over to lizards, turtles, and crocodiles. Then we headed northeast once more.

When for a ten-day we had seen no sign of land, the sailors began to grumble. A delegation of three came to see me, saying:

"Captain, the boys have been talking, and we should like it mighty well if you'd turn back. The way we're going, we're sure to be swallowed by some sea monster or fall off the edge of the earth."

"The earth has no edge," I said. "It's round, like a ball."

"What a crazy notion—begging your pardon, sir! All the water would run off the bottom."

Not being too well up on the theory of gravity, I contented myself with saying: "Well, that's what all educated men believe, and you can see the curvature yourself as you sail away from land. Anyway, Rama is a wizard, and his spells will protect us. Besides, he has been over this track before and knows the way. So back to your posts."

All was quiet for a few days. Hippalos and I passed time by telling each other of our experiences in the Inner Sea. Although I suspected that many of his tales were fictions, I could not help enjoying them, for the Corinthian was a fascinating storyteller. One moonlit night he said:

"Eudoxos, old boy, I've known all along that you were going to India for some reason you won't tell. What is it?"

"Who, me?" said I, looking innocent—or as innocent as anyone with my scarred, weatherbeaten countenance can look. "I'm after fame and fortune, the same as you."

"Rubbish! I know better. You're already as rich and famous as any explorer has any right to be. And you've been asking about the wisdom of Indian philosophers. Are you after the secret of remembering your former incarnations, as some Pythagoreans claim they do?"

I should not have done it, of course; but I am not an especially taciturn man, and the monotony of a long, peaceful voyage can loosen one's tongue more than is prudent. I told Hippalos about my physical difficulties and my hopes of finding a cure in the East.

"Oil" he said when I had finished. "So that's why you have not made the least pass towards that pretty young sailor laddie. Well, may the Genetyllides stiffen your yard. What you need is that woman I lived with when I was an actor in Syracuse. She could give an erection to a statue by Pheidias."

"Are you married, Hippalos?" I asked.

"Not really, although some of my girls' fathers seemed to think so and went hunting for me with hounds and boar spears when I moved on. If you form no ties, you'll have no regrets."

The days passed smoothly, and then the men began to grumble again. The sailors whispered in each others' ears, shooting wary glances at Linos and Hippalos and Rama and me. They obeyed orders, but grumbling under their breath.

After a ten-day of this, I called a council in the cabin. While we conversed, Hippalos and I cleaned and honed our swords—which we had taken out of their oiled wrappings— while Linos filed the point on his hook. I asked Rama:

"How long before we sight India?"

"Oh, we are seeing land very soon, very soon."

"How soon is very soon? How many days?"

"How many days since we left Dernê?"

"Let me see ..." I consulted the tablet on which I had been keeping a log. "Thirty-one."

"Then we soon are arriving; maybe one day, maybe ten. You wait; I find out."

"Are you going to work one of those spells I've told the men you do?"

Rama grinned and wagged his head, leaning it to right and left. "Maybe. You see." He left the cabin and went to the tent he had rigged on deck.

Presently he emerged from the tent, holding one of the little birds he had brought aboard. Then he went forward, uttering some sort of chant in his own language and making gestures with his free hand. The sailors gathered around, watching. After some more hocus-pocus, Rama cast the bird from him. It flew round and round the ship, climbing with each turn into the sky, which bore a thin, hazy overcast. At last it disappeared into the haze high overhead.

An hour later, the bird returned to the ship. It perched on the rigging for a while, then came down and landed close to Rama, who held out a handful of birdseed. It let him capture it and put it back in its cage. To the expectant sailors, he put on a solemn face and pointed ahead, saying:

"Land that way is."

"How far?" asked several at once.

"Little more than three days' sailing." To me explained, privately: "If bird see land, she is not coming back to ship. Bird can fly high enough to see land three days' sail away. Simple, yes?"

Three days later, he released another bird. Again it returned to the ship. The sailors began to grumble again. The tension on the ship grew by the hour. Linos muttered in my ear:

"I think those two—Apries and Nysos—are at the bottom of this. Shall I slug 'em and drop 'em over the side tonight, sir?"

"Not yet," I said. "We might need them in case of a storm or pirates. We'll kill them only as a last resort."

"Well, you're the captain," said Linos with a sigh.

Next morning, Hippalos stepped out of the cabin ahead of me. At once there was a yell and sounds of a scuffle. I grabbed my sword and rushed out.

At one rail, a knot of sailors held Hippalos by the arms and around the waist. A couple tried to grab Linos, but he knocked one to the deck with a back-handed blow of his hook, and the other shrank back from him.

"Stand back!" yelled the sailor Nysos, touching a knife to Hippalos' throat. Linos hesitated; so did I.

"Now," said Nysos, "we've had enough, sirs. The fruit is all rotten, the water's foul, and this ocean just goes on and on. So you'll please bring the ship about and take us back to Egypt. Otherwise, we'll kill your mate."

"How in Tartaros do you expect me to sail directly into the polluted wind?" I yelled. "This wind blows for half the year one way and half the year the other. The northeast wind doesn't begin for months!"

"You say that crazy Indian pilot is a wizard," replied Nysos. "Make him whistle up the northeast wind ahead of time!"

I looked for Rama, who was emerging from his tent with another bird in his fist. "Please, people!" he said. "Let me try my land-finding spell once more."

With everybody watching, he went through his ritual and tossed the bird away. The bird circled, rose, and disappeared. We watched and watched, but the bird did not come back.

"You see?" said Rama. "Land is less than three days' sail ahead. If wind hold and we are not reaching land in that time, you may cut off my head."

Under a thickening overcast, we plodded on towards the northeast, with big swells coming up astern and rolling past us. The sailors kept control of Hippalos, with three men holding him and a fourth with his knife ready.

Late in the day, a man went up the mast and shouted: "Land ho!"

The man came down, and I took his place. From the masthead, I could just make out a dark line on the horizon when the swells boosted us up.

"See what you make of it, Rama," I said.

Rama went up in his turn and came down with a sour expression. "Syrastrenê," he said, "northwest of Barygaza. He is all desert or water too shallow for ship."

"Isn't there a decent harbor?" I asked. "If we could get some fresh food and water, it would soften up my crew of temple thieves."

"Gulf of Eirinon is, but too shallow. No big city is; no good harbor. Must anchor half a league out from shore and row in with skiff. You are turning ship to starboard now, quick, before we run aground. Shoals stick out long way."

We swung a quarter-circle to starboard, furled the artemon, and braced the mainsail around to take the wind abeam. For the rest of the day we bobbed along, the roll making poor Gnouros seasick. The overcast thickened.

"Must feel for bottom and anchor," said Rama as darkness fell. "We cannot see stars and might run aground."

We found the water a mere three fathoms deep and put down two anchors. With dawn came a drizzle. By keeping the wind on our starboard beam and the low line of land to our port, we cut a fairly straight course along the coast.

At last the coast of Syrastrenê—which must surely be the lowest, flattest land on earth—curved around to the northeast, so that we could again run free. We anchored and spent another night in the pattering rain. The sailors released Hippalos and came aft to apologize. They practically licked the decks we trod upon in their eagerness to have us forget the recent unpleasantness.

Only Nysos and Apries hung back, looking scared and apprehensive. I had seen them whispering frantically to the other sailors, trying to keep command of the situation. But from then until we reached Barygaza, I never saw a more alertly obedient crew, jumping to obey our orders before we had finished giving them, as if they hoped we should forget their mutiny.

The next day we sailed up the Gulf of Kammonoi, between Syrastrenê and the Barygaza country. This gulf is so wide that, from the middle, one can barely see the two shores from the masthead. But it is no open seaway, being full of shoals and reefs. We brailed up our sails and felt our way, with Rama watching from the bow and a sailor from the masthead. Rama said:

"Captain, you tie a piece of white cloth to masthead."

"Why?"

"To tell pilot boat we into Barygaza are coming."

Accordingly, I flew a strip of white rag as he had said. The rain ceased, and in an hour a boat appeared to starboard. As it came closer, I saw-it was a big twenty-oared barge, moving briskly. The naked, black, muscular rowers backed water under our bow, and a skirted man called up to Rama. I caught the words:

"Rama son of Govinda! Is that really you?"

"Yes, it really is," replied Rama, and the two went off into a long talk, too fast for me to follow.

At last the man in the barge threw up a rope, which Rama caught and made fast to the sternpost. We furled our sails, and the barge towed us towards the eastern shore, avoiding shoals by a winding course. I saw that we were entering the estuary of a river, which Rama called the Nammados. The shores of the estuary narrowed, and the incoming tide boosted us along at a lively clip.

The sky had partly cleared and the sun, half hidden by clouds, was setting in the Gulf of Kammonoi behind us when we reached Barygaza. The city was built around a low hill—a mere hummock, but conspicuous in that flat country. A fort or castle crowned this hill. The banks of the Nammados, clad in palms, stretched away to east and west.

The barge towed us to one of a number of tidal basins along the shore, a furlong below the city on the north bank. These basins were natural hollows in the river bed, which had been enlarged by the hand of man. As we anchored, a gang was finishing its day's work on the adjacent basin, hauling mud up from the bottom in buckets. Arab coasters, dwarfed by the Ourania, lay in others.

I asked Rama how much to pay the barge. Since the amount he named seemed reasonable, I paid. Later I learnt that he had named twice the going rate. No doubt he and the barge captain split the overcharge.

"He says," reported Rama, "we must stay on board tonight. Too late for inspectors."

I led the crew in the prayer of gratitude to Poseidon, and the cook got our dinner on board. During the evening, Rama coached me on how to behave ashore. "You must not," he said, "kill or harm any animal."

"What! You mean I can't even take a whack at a dog that snarls at me, or a cow that gets in my way?"

"Oh, no! Especially not cow. Indians are loving cows; man who hurts cow is worst kind of criminal. Brachmanes love cows even more than we Buddhists. They tear you to pieces if you hurt cow; but we think that is superstition. We just flog you."

"What's your king like?"

"I am not knowing. Naraina—barge captain I was talking to—says we have a new king, just elected."

"You mean you elect your kings in India?"

"In Barygaza, yes. Other places, king's son becomes king, or council chooses him, or candidates fight to death—every place is different Two candidates were, one of merchants and one of sailors. Big election riot was; many people killed."

"Who won?"

"The sailor. He promised to lower harbor dues, but already he is raising them." Somehow, that sounded familiar.

Next morning it rained again. The harbor master and his guards came aboard. I gave him a hearty greeting in Indian and a broad smile, but he only stared at me as if I were an insect of some repellant kind and proceeded to inspect the cargo. He collected his harbor tax, rattled off a sentence too fast for me to catch, and departed.

"What said he?" I asked Rama.

"He said you must call on king in middle of afternoon, today."

"I hope you'll come along."

"Oh, yes, he told you to bring Lord Hippalos and me."

I started to ask about court etiquette, but my words were cut off by a deep, booming roar. The tide was coming up the Nammados in a three-foot wave. I yelled to the sailors to loose the anchor cables but to hold them and brace themselves. They had hardly done so when the wave reached us. It split, foaming, into our little basin, and the Ourania was boosted into the air like a chip. The screaming sailors were jerked about the deck like dolls; one man almost went over the side. But, at the cost of some burnt hands, we had kept our anchors and cables. We pulled in and belayed the cables, while Rama bleated:

"Oh, Captain Eudoxos, I am so sorry! I meant to tell you about tide, but I am forgetting with excitement of getting home again!"

"By Bakchos' balls, must we watch for this thing twice a day?" I asked.

"It depends on time of month. When moon is at half, only little tidal wave is. When he is new or full, he even bigger than this one is. You see that all little ships have gone ashore."

I looked across the broad Nammados and, sure enough, the swarm of small craft that had plied it a half-hour earlier had vanished. Soon they began to reappear, creeping out from shore like so many water insects frightened by some splashing bather.

When the excitement had subsided, I made the sailors line up in front of the cabin to draw their pay, fining them two days' wages for the mutiny. As usual, some wanted the whole sum due them, to blow in one grand spree. Others, saving up for a house or a ship of their own, took only enough for small purchases and banked the rest with me. When the turn of Nysos and Apries came, however, I gave them their full pay for the voyage and told them:

"Take your gear and get off the ship. You're through."

Both spoke in shrill tones: "You can't do that to us, Captain ... You wouldn't maroon us here ... We might never get home ... We don't know the language or the customs ... You might as well kill us ..."

"You should have thought of that sooner," I said. "Now get off before I kick you off. If I find you hanging around the ship, or trying to stow away, I'll hang your heads from the yardarms."

If this has been a port of the Inner Sea, I should have dismissed the entire crew of mutinous rascals. But here, I knew, I should never find another Greek-speaking crew, so I should maroon myself as well.

When the rain let up, I gave Hippalos the deck and went ashore with Rama. The Indian's first task was to thank Buddha for his safe return. I accompanied him to a temple. This was a stone building of modest size, shaped like a kiosk.

Inside stood no statue, but a set of symbols of this sect, carved in stone. There was an empty throne, with an umbrella leaning against it. The prints of bare human feet were chiseled in the stone of the pavement before the throne. Behind the chair rose a pillar with a thing on its top that looked like a flower, but which I was told was a wheel with twenty-four spokes. Looking at these symbols, one had the uneasy feeling that the demigod (or however one should class the Lord Buddha) had just gotten up and walked out and might return any moment.

"We do not believe in making statues of Enlightened One," Rama told me. "Ignorant people would worship statues, as they do gods of Brachmanes, instead of trying to lead right lives."

Rama bought a bunch of flowers from a flower seller at the entrance. Inside the temenos, he spoke to a couple of shaven-headed priests, clad in robes of thin yellow cotton wrapped round and round them. He laid his flowers before the statue, clapped his hands, and stood, palms together and head bowed, praying in a high, nasal voice.

The priests looked curiously at me, standing at the entrance. As he turned away from his devotions, Rama called out:

"Come on in, Captain Eudoxos. Every good man is welcome." He introduced me to the priests, who smiled, bowed, and spoke. "They are saying," he translated, " 'Peace to all beings!' You like to hear teachings of true religion?"

"Yes," I said. So, with Rama translating, the senior priest spoke somewhat as follows:

"My son, when the Enlightened One received his illumination, four hundred years ago, it was disclosed to him that all existence is misery. Birth is pain, life is pain, and death is pain. Nor is death the end of misery, because one is then reborn into another body, to begin again the wretched round of existence."

"As the Pythagoreans believe among us," I put in. But the priest merely looked annoyed at the interruption and continued:

"Now, the cause of misery is desire, which in the nature of things always expands beyond what can be satisfied and is therefore always thwarted. The only way to avoid misery is to extinguish desire. This can be done by following the eightfold path, namely: right views, right intention, right speech, right action, right occupation, right effort, right alertness, and right concentration.

"Practice these things, my son, and in time—not, perhaps, in this life, but then in a future one—you, too, will become enlightened. Then, when you die, you will not be reborn but will achieve the supreme bliss of nonexistence."

There was more of it, about the Four Noble Truths and so on. But this gives the gist of the doctrine, which has many points in common with Stoicism. When the priest had finished, I said:

"That is all very fine, Reverend Father, for those who find life a burden. But I enjoy it thoroughly. I've traveled to far lands and seen strange beasts and people. I've hunted and fished, galloped and sailed, gorged and guzzled, reveled and mourned, lain with fair women, and told tall tales. I've loved, hated, and fought with bloodthirsty foes. I've consorted with the great and the humble and found the same proportion of rascals among both. I've served my city and made money from my voyages. I've made new discoveries, written a book about them, and heard it praised by qualified critics. I've had narrow escapes from maiming and death, and I've rejoiced in every moment of it."

"But, my son! The pain of wounds and sickness—and I see from your scars and pockmarks that you have sustained both —far outweigh the pleasures of this material life, to say nought of the loss of dear ones and the waning of physical powers with age. Is it not so?"

"Not for me, it isn't. True, life has its pains and adversities. One of them, in fact, impelled me to come to India. But they merely add spice to the stew. If I were to perish painfully tomorrow, I should still say that life on the whole has been great fun."

"What adversity brings you to Bharata?" (For so the Indians call India.)

I told the priest of my masculine weakness and asked: "Now, you people are supposed to be full of the wisdom of the ages. None of the physicians of my country can help me; can you?"

The priest looked sadly at me and sighed, as if he were trying in vain to explain some obvious truth to a half-wit. "Oh, my dear son! Have you not heard what I said? Your loss, as you call it, is one of the luckiest things that could have befallen you. It will help you to suppress all attachment to mundane objects and beings. It will aid you to cultivate a benevolent indifference to earthly matters. It will enable you to extinguish all desire and thus to reach the true happiness of nonexistence. I cannot revive your fleshly lusts and give you the means of gratifying them, nor would I if I could. I see that you are not yet ready for the higher wisdom. Perhaps the yogin Sisonaga can help you, although we deem him a mere vulgar magician.

"Is it true that you have come thousands of yojanas across the Black Water, out of sight of land, in that great ship of yours?"

"It is. I wonder that you Indians, knowing of this seasonal wind, hadn't built ships to ply this route long ago."

"Ages ago, my son, we of Bharata had ships that flew through the air, magical weapons that blasted like lightning, medicines to give eternal youth, and other ingenious devices. But our wise men found that these earthly things are not important. They do but bind one to the material world and retard one's escape to blessed nonexistence. So the sages ceased to care about childish things like ships and weapons."

After some more small talk, I bid farewell to the priests. We entered the outer wall of Barygaza: a feeble affair of mud brick. I suppose that in case of attack, the people counted on withdrawing to the hilltop castle. Rama turned off into a side street.

"Now I go," he said. "I am seeing you this afternoon on ship."

"Why not come with me as guide and interpreter?" I said. "I'll stand you a drink."

He grinned. "I am sorry; must get home to see wives and children. I have much lovemaking to catch up on."

"Well, don't make love so hard that you can't stay awake this afternoon."

I left him and walked on into Barygaza. The streets were wandering tracks in the mud, lined by squalid little thatched mud huts set at every angle among palms and other trees. Monkeys chattered and scampered in the branches.

The town was as filthy as a Scythian peasant village, which is saying a lot. Dung—animal and human—lay everywhere; one could not walk without stepping in it. Barygaza was a good-sized center, whose streets swarmed With ox-carts, laden asses, carriages, chariots, gentlefolk being borne in Utters, two men riding an elephant, and other traffic. Crying their wares in a nasal singsong, peddlers trotted through the mud with wide, shallow baskets of goods balanced on their heads. But there was no real shopping district, only an occasional hut with an open front and the goods laid out on a board in the street in front of it. There did not seem to be any sort of inn, tavern, or wineshop in the entire place. The more I saw of Barygaza, the more convinced I became that it was not really a city at all, but an overgrown village.

Like Rama, the folk were very dark of skin, if not quite so dead-black as the Ethiopians of Adoulis and Mosyllon. The men wore dirty waist garments like his, although with many the skirt was a mere breechclout. Buddhist priests wore yellow robes like those I had already seen and carried staves with iron rings loosely strung on them at one end; the clatter of these rings, when the priest shook his staff, was their way of begging alms.

Dodging among the ubiquitous cows, which were nosing in the heaps of garbage in competition with beggar women, I passed an elderly man, completely naked, with long, matted hair and beard and his body smeared with ash. He was rolling his eyes and shouting incoherently. I took him for a madman but later learnt that he was a particularly holy ascetic.

The women wore longer—if equally soiled—skirts but, like the men, left their upper bodies naked save for necklaces and other ornaments, and a veil of thin stuff draped over then-hair. A common ornament was a golden plug, often set with a precious stone, inserted in one side of the nose. Among the more prosperous-looking younger women, their bare breasts were often attractively full and rounded; but the more numerous working-class women were skinny little things, no bigger than a well-developed Greek girl of twelve.

As I strolled, people turned to stare at me from all sides. When I paused at a crossroads, where women were drawing water from a well, several children stopped to stare at me. Then older persons, seeing a gathering crowd, stopped also. In fifty heartbeats a hundred Indians, all staring sullenly with big, sad, black eyes, surrounded me. To have two hundred glassy white eyeballs staring fixedly at one out of black faces makes one uneasy, to say the least But one must put up with it in India, for they stare thus at a foreigner wherever he goes. When Hippalos came ashore, his red hair aroused even more and harder stares than I received.

When a swarm of beggars came creeping and hobbling forward, displaying stumps and scars, I thought it time to move on. I wandered through a street of coppersmiths, and a street lined with the cribs of courtesans, who called invitations in soft, childish voices. These last would not have attracted me, even if my strength had been upon me; it would have been too much like mounting a small child.

At last, along the river front, I found a tavern with an inn attached: small, cramped, and dirty, as everything seemed to be in India, but still a tavern. I squeezed into a seat and looked about me. Most of those present were Arabs with beards, head cloths, and hooked noses; there were only a few Indians, and those mainly of lower degrees.

A boy appeared, whom I asked in my best Indian for a mug of wine. He looked blank. I repeated the request, slowly and carefully. The boy went away, and soon a short, fat Indian appeared. I made the same request. Again that blank stare, with a mutter that I could not understand. Then I heard a shout from a corner:

"O xene, legeis ta hellênika?"

"Well, thank all the gods and spirits!" I cried. "There's somebody I can talk to. Who are you, sir?"

The man responded: "Come on over; we have room. Your servant is Otaspes son of Phraortes, of Harmozia in Karmania. This is my friend, Farid son of Amid. And you, sir?"

I introduced myself. The Persian who had spoken crossed his hands on his breast and bowed; his Arab companion touched his fingertips to his breast, lips, and forehead. The Persian was a stout man of medium height, with a long, straight nose in a square face, black hair growing low on his forehead, heavy, black brows that met above his nose, and a close-cut black beard. He said:

"You thought you were asking for palm wine; but you really asked for 'the black one.' They do sound alike, and our host was naturally puzzled."

Otaspes spoke to the taverner, who brought my mug. It was the horrible concoction, made from fermented palm juice, which they drink in India; but at times any drink is better than none.

"How," I asked, "do you come to speak Greek, and what are you doing in India?"

"That is a long story," said Otaspes. "But your servant traded for many years in Seleuceia and so came to know Greek. Then I returned to Harmozia with a Babylonian bride. The family took umbrage at that. Then the syndicate to which we belonged decided they needed a resident factor to handle the Indian end of our trade, so I took the post."

"How do you like it here?" ,

He shrugged. "It's India, even though it pays well. I shan't be sorry to retire on my gains. This is the unhealthiest damned coast in the world during the rainy season. We have lost all three of our children, one after another."

"Is this the rainy season?"

"This is the fag end of it. A month ago it rained all the time; now it only rains half the time. But about you: is it true what I've heard, that you have sailed directly hither from the Strait of Dernê?"

"Where did you hear that?"

Otaspes gave a silent little laugh. "My dear fellow! What earthly good should I be as a factor if I did not learn such things? The story of Rama's return from the dead was all over town within an hour of your arrival last night." He turned to the Arab. "It occurs to me, friend Farid, that we are seeing the opening of a new commercial era in the Arabian Sea. If Captain Eudoxos can do it, so can others; so will others. So think not to avert the new competition by cutting his throat or burning his boat." The Persian laughed silently again and translated his remark to me, while the Arab looked at me with such a venomous glare that I knew he had been thinking just that.

"Much better," continued Otaspes, "to build yourselves bigger ships and get in on the new trade at the start I might be tempted to try a bit of throat-cutting myself, but I hope soon to leave for home. So this Egyptian competition won't concern me. Come to dinner at my house tomorrow, Captain, an hour before sundown. My house is near the Souppara Gate. Anybody will point it out; just say: 'Kahang Parsi ka ghar hai?' Agreed?"

"You're extremely kind," I said. "Agreed."

Inside the hilltop fortress, the king's house—one could hardly call it a palace—was larger and better built than those of the common folk, but it was of the same mud-brick construction. Along the front of the house ran a terrace, shaded by a thatched roof upheld by wooden pillars. The king used this terrace for audiences, since it never gets cold enough in this part of India to force people indoors.

Protocol at this court was highly informal. Eight soldiers attended the king; but these were merely men in loincloths, with a spear and a buckler each. Instead of standing at attention, they squatted or lounged, and one was peacefully snoring against the house wall. A small crowd of petitioners and litigants milled on the muddy ground in front of the terrace.

To one side, near the end of the terrace, four musicians sat, twanging and tootling. Their music had a nervous, apprehensive sound, as if the musicians were about to burst into hysterical tears. Two dancing girls swayed and spun. They were comely wenches, altogether nude save for strings of pearls and other ornaments around their wrists, ankles, necks, and waists. Their dancing consisted of slow little shuffling steps, while they jerked their necks and arms so that their bangles clashed.

To one side of the king stood a flunkey holding a white umbrella, ready to hoist it over the king's head in case His Majesty chose to walk out from under the roof of the terrace. I found that all Indian kings are accompanied by such umbrella carriers, since in India a white umbrella is as much a symbol of royalty as a crown is in more westerly lands.

On the other side squatted the royal timekeeper. His clock was a basin in which floated a bronze cup with a small hole in its bottom. When the cup filled and sank, the timekeeper whacked a drum or blew a blast on a horn made from a conch shell. Then he emptied the cup and started over. The Indian hour is only three quarters as long as ours, so that a day and a night comprise thirty-two hours instead of twenty-four.

As the king finished each case, his minister or major domo pointed to somebody in the crowd and shouted to him to come forward. There would be arguments and counterarguments, which became shouting matches, until the king shouted down both parties and gave his decision. People wandered in and out, and nobody thought anything of interrupting or contradicting the king.

We listened to one such case, and then another—a criminal case, this time, wherein a merchant was accused of poisoning a competitor. The king heard the stories and sentenced the culprit to be trampled by one of the royal elephants. Then the minister beckoned us forward.

Sitting on a heap of cushions on the floor of the terrace, King Kumara of Barygaza was a small, cross-eyed man with a skin wrinkled by years of seafaring. He wore the usual skirt, a couple of ropes of pearls around his neck, and a turban with a spray of peacock feathers stuck in the folds. He chewed a cud made of the nut of an Indian palm, wrapped in leaves. Now and then he spat a crimson stream into the royal spittoon. This habit stains the Indians' teeth black, which gives an odd effect when one of them permits himself a rare smile.

With Rama translating, we uttered our greetings and presented our gift: a handsome silver cup set with garnets. I said grandly:

"I, Eudoxos of Kyzikos, am the ambassador of the mighty king of Egypt, Ptolemaios Evergetes. My master greets his brother king—"

"Peace to all beings! Where is this Egypt?" said the king, giving me a haughty stare from one of his crossed eyes.

"Two months' sail to the west, sire. It compares in size and population with all Bharata. To further the prosperity of our respective realms—"

"What is this story of your sailing straight across the ocean, without stopping at the Arabian ports?"

I explained as best I could. Beside me, I could see Hippolas suppressing a guffaw at my description of myself as an ambassador. While Rama was translating, I muttered out of the side of my mouth:

"If you laugh, by Herakles, I'll break your fornicating neck!"

"Well," said the king at last, "tell your master I am glad to have his friendship. As for sending his ships to trade, I am glad of that, too—provided he gives us equal privileges in his ports. That is all, except that I shall ask you to receive some small gifts from me."

He snapped a finger, and a servant came out with a tray on which lay a rope of pearls, like that which the king wore, and a couple of other pieces of jewelry.

"The pearls," said King Kumara, "are for your king. You may have the first choice of the other gifts."

I chose a silver bracelet set with three small pearls, leaving a silver broach with a big turquoise for Hippalos. The bracelet was of no use to me—a Hellene does not wear such things, and I could not have gotten my big fist through it anyway— but maybe Astra would like it. They were nice gauds, although one can find the equal in Alexandria for fifteen or twenty drachmai. I thought that, counting the pearls, we had gotten the better of the exchange. But doubtless King Kumara thought he had, too, because pearls were so much cheaper in India than in Egypt.

When we returned to the ship, we found four Barygazan merchants standing at the foot of the plank. Displaying his hook, Linos said:

"They wanted to come aboard to look over the cargo, sir: but I figured if they stole anything you'd take it out of my hide."

"Quite right," I said and led the merchants aboard.

Since my sailors had gone ashore, Gnouros, Linos, Hippalos, and I had to haul the samples up from the hold ourselves —a procedure that the Indians found extraordinary. They poked and fingered and smelt, as solemn as owls. Naturally, when one is about to make an offer, one does not display enthusiasm, lest one's eagerness stiffen the price. But these men, it seemed to me, carried disdainful indifference beyond reasonable bounds.

They finally muttered a few offers, as if they were doing us a great favor even to look at our garbage. The olive oil they would not consider at any price. Even when I had explained, through Rama, the many uses to which we put it, he reported back:

"They say this oil smells foul and tastes dreadful, and it is not customary to rub oil on themselves or to cook with it. In India, we cook with butter."

"They could burn it in their lamps."

"We burn butter in lamps, too. Oil lamps stink."

"Well then," said I wearily, "tell them we won't sell anything today. We shall have to learn the Indian market better. Ask them if they'd care to join us in a round of drinks."

"So sorry," said Rama, "but they are not drinking wine. It against their religion is."

"Well then, how would they like to have supper with us?"

When Rama translated this offer, the faces of the merchants, hitherto as blank as virgin papyrus, took on expressions of stark horror.

"Oh, sir!" said Rama. "Indians never eat with strangers, or with people not of their color. It would be a—how do you say —poll—"

"Pollution?"

"Yes, pollution. Why, if the shadow of person of lower color on your food falls, you must throw it away."

"I notice you ate with the boys on the voyage."

"Oh, but I am traveled man, used to funny customs of foreigners. But these men could not eat your food anyway. Members of high colors are not eating meat."

"I thought your wise Buddha taught that color was not important?"

Rama shrugged and spread his hands. "Even Enlightened One cannot change all old customs."

That evening, when the blue haze and pungent smell of cow-dung fires hung in the air, Nysos and Apries appeared, begging to be taken back aboard ship.

"You're murdering us, Captain," wailed Nysos. "These barbarians won't hire us for even the dirtiest work. In this dunghill of a country, all jobs are inherited, so there's no place for a foreigner. We shall have to live by stealing, and they'll catch us and have us tramped by those polluted elephants."

"Go to the crows!" I said. "I wouldn't let you temple thieves back aboard, if you were the only sailors in India."

After the pair had wandered despondently off, I returned to Hala's tavern; but the Persian factor was not there. As before, there were many Arabs and a few Indians.

I hung around for a while, trying to strike up acquaintances. But the Arabs only glowered and fingered then-daggers. I tried them in my bad Syrian, which is similar to Arabic and which most northern Arabs understand, but without success. My rudimentary Indian was no more successful. As for the Indians, they stared coldly at me and made remarks, meant to be overheard, about the uncouth appearance and disgusting habits of this crazy foreigner.

I do not think my failure was entirely due to a poor command of the languages. I have struck up acquaintances in pothouses all around the Inner and Euxine Seas without any trouble, when I knew even less of the lingo. Doubtless the Arabs had decided that I represented a threat to their coastal shipping business, while the Indians were just being Indians.

I gave up at last and set out for the ship. Since it was almost the end of Boedromion, there was no moon. As I walked, I thought I heard the patter of feet behind me, but I could not be sure. When I stopped, the sound stopped; when I went on, it resumed.

Having been through this sort of thing before, I slipped around a corner and waited. Presently three shadowy figures appeared, slinking along. Even in the feeble starlight that filtered through the palm fronds, I could tell an Arab cloak and head cloth from the skirt and turban of an Indian.

"Well?" I said.

The three whirled with guttural exclamations, and I caught the gleam of a curved dagger in the starlight. I sprang forward and brought my stick down on the arm that held the knife. I heard the bone snap and the knife skitter away. A rap on the pate sent a second man sprawling. The unhurt man dragged his felled companion to his feet, and the three scuttled off.

When I got back to the Ourania, I told Linos to post a double watch, since there might be trouble. Everybody was aboard save Rama, who had gone home, and Hippalos, who was out whoring. In the cabin, I unwrapped my Scythian bow.

I had hardly been asleep for an hour or two when a yell brought me out. On shore, twenty or thirty paces away, a group of Arabs stood around a man with a big torch, by which they were lighting fire arrows and shooting them at the Ourania. Several had already stuck in the woodwork. My men were running about, wrenching them out and throwing them over the side, or knocking them loose with boathooks.

I stepped to the rail and sent a Scythian arrow whizzing towards the group. I missed, but range is hard to judge by such lighting. A second shaft was luckier. The Arabs gave a wild yell and scattered; the torch bearer threw his torch at the ship, but it only struck the side, fell into the water, and went out with a sizzle.

Linos, a couple of sailors, and I went ashore and found an Arab with my arrow through his brisket, spitting bloody foam with each breath. We carried him, feebly begging for mercy, aboard. By threats of finishing him off in interesting ways, I got his name and the name of his ship. Linos said:

"Captain, I've been looking these Arab ships over. They're made of little pieces of scrap lumber tied together with strings. If I took a gang of the boys, we could board one and knock a hole in her bottom in no time."

"Not yet," I said. "We don't want to start a feud between all the Hellenes and all the Arabs that may use this port forever more; bad for trade. Leave this to me."

Hippalos, returning, whistled when he learnt what had happened. The Arab died at dawn. I went ashore, hunted up the harbor master, and made him understand that I wanted Rama. He gave me the usual insolent stare, rattled directions at me, and—when I did not understand—sent a guard to show me the way. The guard found Rama's house, but the sailor's two little wives informed us that the master was out. '

I was wandering aimlessly about the town, looking for Rama and followed by the bored harbor guard, when I heard a hail. It was Otaspes the Persian, who said:

"Well, well! I did not know you were a hero like the Persian Thretonas and the Greek Achilles rolled into one."

"What have you heard?"

"Only that you beat all the Arabs in Barygaza in pitched battle, single-handed."

"That's a slight exaggeration." I told him what had really happened.

"Since when," he asked, "has any Hellene been able to shoot like a Persian?"

"This Hellene learnt how among the Scythians. Now, I don't want to make too much of this brawl, but I should like to lay a complaint before the king, to stop it before it gets out of hand. Can you help me?"

Thus it came to pass that, late that afternoon, we stood again before the king's house. The corpse lay on the ground on a stretcher, and the crews of the two ships involved—the one to which the dead man had belonged, and that of the man whose arm I had broken—stood before the terrace with their hands bound and soldiers guarding them.

"Now hear this!" said King Kumara. "Master Eudoxos does not wish to go to extremes in this matter. But, lest any of you be tempted to disturb the peace again, I will keep you and you—" (he pointed to one man from each crew) "—as a hostage until your ship is ready to sail. If aught befall Captain Eudoxos or any of his men in Barygaza, you shall be trampled by elephants. And I have doubled the waterfront patrol. Court is dismissed."

As Otaspes and I walked to his house through the rain, the Persian said: "I am sorry you had trouble, but that's the way of things. These Arabs are an emotional lot: good friends but bad enemies, and one never knows which tack they will take. Luckily, most are friends of mine, and I'll try to smooth things over. And, if I may make a suggestion, do not wander the streets at night without high, thick boots."

"Why? To kick marauders with?"

"No; serpents. This land swarms with them. People are always going out to visit their uncle Krishna at night, treading on a venomous serpent, and being found dead in the morning. That is what befell that former sailor of yours, the Egyptian."

"Apries? Is he dead?"

"Yes; had you not heard? The harbor patrol found him this morning; he was trying to break into somebody's house when he trod on this serpent."

"Lovely country," I said. Startled by Otaspes' news, I had paused in my stride. While I hesitated, staring Indians began to collect in a circle around us. Annoyed, I pushed through the circle and resumed our walk, moving more briskly.

"Not so fast, old man!" said Otaspes. "I do not have legs like tree trunks, as you have."

"Sorry," I said, "but this constantly being stared at bothers me. Have these folk never seen a man from the West before?"

"There have been no Hellenes here for decades. Half a century ago, they tell me, Apollodotos, who was a satrap of the Greek king Demetrios, marched down here from Syrastrenê and demanded submission. The Barygazans gave it on condition of retaining their local self-government. So for a time the city had a Greek garrison, first under Demetrios and then under the great Menandros. But after Menandros died, about thirty years ago, these Greeks marched away to take part in the struggle for his empire; for God has given you Hellenes all the virtues save the ability to work together. Hence you and your shipmates are the first Hellenes seen here in a score of years and are naturally objects of curiosity."

As we walked, I became aware that two Indians, who had formed part of the crowd we had escaped, were following us, stopping when we stopped and pretending interest in the nearest display of merchandise. After we had rounded several corners, so that there could be no mistake, I called Otaspes' attention to this escort. He only gave his little silent laugh and explained:

"Those are the spies from Magadha and Andhra."

"How do you mean? Where are those lands?"

"I see you are not up on Indian politics. Well, a hundred and some years ago, a mighty king of Magadha, one Ashoka —named for one of these flowering trees—conquered most of India. Then he turned Buddhist and discovered that conquering and slaying people was wrong. In fact, he came to believe in no killing whatever and ordained that no man should slay even an animal, on pain of death. This does not make sense to me, but perhaps your Greek logic can explain it. Of course, Ashoka did not free all the hundreds of tribes and kingdoms he had conquered, but I suppose that were too much to ask.

"After Ashoka died, his empire broke up. At the moment, the strongest powers are Magadha, that way—" (he pointed northeast) "•—and Andhra, that way." (He pointed southeast.) "As Ashoka's successor, King Odraka of Magadha claims to be the rightful ruler of all India. But the king of Andhra, Skandhastambhi, says he should be the rightful ruler. So they fight, and each sends agents into other nations, to subvert the local rule in favor of some puppet of their respective masters. The Brachmanes love to harp on the virtues of harmlessness and pacifism, but at the same time they tell each king he has a moral duty to enlarge his realm until it comprises the whole earth. So, naturally, the Indians fight among themselves just as much as do the less enlightened peoples, like yours and mine."

"If you know these knaves, why not tell the king?"

"Kumara knows all about them, but he prefers to let them live and watch them. They are singularly stupid, inept spies, as you can see from the fact that you noticed them. If Kumara had them squashed by his elephants, Odraka and Skandhastambhi might send a pair who were more skilled and less easily watched."

"Is it true that descendants of Alexander's generals still rule parts of India?"

"Aye. They ruled the mountainous country to the northwest and, when Ashoka's empire fell, moved down to the plains to set up kingdoms there. Lately they, in turn, have been beaten by the Sakas and have lost much of their power."

"Who are the Sakas?"

"What you would call Scythians—the eastern branch of that race. Subdued by Mithradates of Parthia, many Sakas have moved eastward, seeking lands and fortune on the marches of India."

We reached Otaspes' house, and I met his charming Babylonian wife Nakia; for Persians, like Egyptians and Romans, are perfectly willing to let their wives meet strangers. I could talk to Nakia to some extent in Syrian. The pair had suffered much from the loss of their children to India's deadly diseases but were too well-mannered to dwell upon the subject. Otaspes merely said:

"You can see why I am eager to get back to Harmozia, to a clime where, if the Lord of Light grant us some more, they have a chance of growing up healthy. For, as you see, Nakia is still a young woman."

When I was taking my leave with profuse thanks, Otaspes said: "Think nothing of it, old boy. In India, we palefaces starve for human contacts. Indians have little to do with those outside their own families, less to do with those outside their colors, and nought to do with foreigners. So, for a foreigner in India, there is no social life. Come back again soon."

I picked my way home with caution, watching for serpents and listening for Arab assassins. As I neared the Ourania, my attention was attracted by a small, jabbering crowd around one of those giant fig trees which, by lowering auxiliary trunks from its branches, becomes a whole grove in itself. A man was hanged from one of the branches. As I got close, I saw by the flickering torchlight that it was Nysos, the other mutineer.

Linos came up, saying: "He climbed up the main trunk with the rope around his neck, while a score of these barbarians stood and watched. Then he tied the rope to the branch and let go."

"Didn't anybody try to cut him down?"

"No. Rama—where is the little dog-face? He was here a moment ago—Rama explained it to me. In India, if somebody wants to kill himself, that's his business. Maybe he'll do better in his next life, so nobody interferes. Anyway, nobody cares what becomes of a foreigner."

"Well," said I, "this simplifies things for us, anyway. If he'd kept on coming around and begging for a berth, I might have weakened."