He made the fire, lighting it with a little bundle of sticks which he prudently carried, and then in the fading light began to hunt about for something to keep it going. Evidently, at some season of the year, even these barren rocks bore some shortlived vegetation; all withered and scorched and dead now, but with roots, waiting the winter rains and the soft warmth of a brief spring. He grubbed out an armful of them and carefully replenished the fire. Soon the savoury, peculiarly pungent scent of roast goat meat filled the narrow place. The camels grunted and groaned as they slept. Caspar indulged in one of the short naps which Balthazar envied; he could sleep for a few minutes at any time, in any place and wake instantly, with all his wits about him. Melchior unrolled a chart and holding it close to the fire—so close that once the sizzling meat spat fat into his eye-studied it, gloomily.
They ate, pulling the meat apart with their fingers and passing from hand to hand the goatskin of cheap wine mixed with water which Balthazar had provided, each one careful to wipe his mouth on his sleeve before drinking, and the mouth of the container afterwards. They were half-way through their meal when Caspar lifted his head, listened,” seemed to sniff the air like a dog.
“We are not alone,” he said to Melchior, and getting to his feet, put his hand to his knife which he carried thrust into the belt of his baggy trousers, under his leather jacket.
“See,” he said, and pointed towards the slope of scree up which, as soon as he had eaten, Melchior proposed to scramble. Neither Melchior nor Balthazar had heard anything, and looking into the darkness outside the fire’s range, they saw nothing for a minute; then they did, and it was a frightening sight. Three men, all looking larger than normal, clad in tatters that fluttered as they moved, all carrying clubs, all with wild, desperate faces.
“Robbers,” Balthazar said in a breathy whisper, recognising the breed. His legs had turned numb, his stomach quaked; one blow from a club like that and you’d be dead, or hopelessly disabled.
Melchior, alarmed, but still thinking clearly, said:
“The camels. They must not take the camels. Caspar, give them everything we have. The camels they must not take.” Lose the camels now and all would be wasted.
To Caspar these were the men he wanted to see, members perhaps of that nameless, unnumbered army of rebels who might one day be his allies.
“Do not be frightened,” he said.
“I am here. Melchior, tell him to speak civilly. Tell him to ask them what they want.”
The men were now within hand’s reach and arrogance hung about them, palpable, unmistakable. One old, frail man, a soft, flabby merchant, obviously rich and as obviously terrified, and one, younger and capable of giving trouble but prepared, from his attitude, to be placating. A hired guard, perhaps, with no intention of risking a cracked head to
protect the interests of those who had hired him.
Balthazar asked the question and one of them replied:
“To begin with, a share of your meal.”
“They wish to eat with us,” Balthazar told Melchior, and Melchior said to Caspar:
“Let them take the food, the gold, everything; but not the camels.”
In the desert the rules of hospitality were strict; it came easily to Caspar to say:
“Tell him to ask them to sit down and eat.” But it was plain that these men did not know the rules. They were already helping themselves. Most unmannerly!
“I have many questions to ask them,” Caspar told Melchior.
“Tell him to ask them where they come from, how many they are, how they feel about Herod and about the Emperor of Rome.” Never yet in all this journey had Caspar so much regretted his inability to speak strange tongues.
But with these men even Balthazar’s skill was unavailing. They understood his quavering questions, that was plain by the way they laughed and nudged one another and laughed again.
They gave no proper answers. One said:
“We have no names; we are not numbered. We know nothing of Herod, or the Emperor of Rome.”
Wary and dangerous as wolves, they squatted by the fire and ate all that was left of the goat meat and the bread which Balthazar had bought from a village bakery at midday, and they made short work of the wine.
One of them said, “Tell the young one to sit down and take his hand off his knife handle.”
Already terrified, Balthazar felt considerable dismay in being ordered to give Caspar such a curt command. The young man with his haughty looks and his money was still, to the slave, a figure of awe. He said to Melchior:
“The one with the most hair wishes that Caspar should sit down and remove his hand from his knife.”
Melchior passed on the words and Caspar sat down in an attitude that any of his own men would have known to be potentially dangerous. He sat with his legs crossed and the outer edges of his feet resting on the ground. It looked relaxed enough, but the slightest pressure against the sides of his soles would bring him upright. His arms were crossed too, but in such a fashion that in a blink of an eye his hand would be back on his knife.
Such precautions were second nature to him; he felt no fear; only a burning interest in the men who looked so hardy, who gave such cautious answers; and a maddening frustration because he could only communicate with them through Melchior and Balthazar How could he be certain that the questions were rightly put and the answers rightly returned? He tried again.
“Ask them their names,” he said.
The answer came back from the same man who had spoken before.
“We have no names.” All three laughed.
They were remarkably uncouth, Caspar reflected; a good deal of discipline would be needed to turn them into anything like a useful righting force. But they looked hard and tough, quite unlike the harassed, tame Jews who were hurrying about in obedience to Caesar’s command. Something could be made of them, if it came to the pinch.
“Ask them if they follow a leader.”
“We have no leader,” the answer came back.
The wine, though watered, was still potent—Balthazar was a careful shopper; and in the hills wine was a rarity. The three men grew hilarious, laughing at nothing. One of them reached out and snatched off Melchior’s hat, set it on his own shaggy head, and exercising some peculiar gift of mimicry, composed his body and features into a caricature of the old man.
Melchior, unaffected by the mockery, said to Balthazar:
“Tell him he can have my robe as well. Anything but the camels.”
And why, Balthazar asked himself, as he translated this statement, should they spare the camels? It was plain to him that these were robbers, bandits, who would take everything. They would certainly take the camels, drive them away over the hills and sell them somewhere, cheaply.
But the laughter, the mocking of Melchior’s dignity, affected Caspar; leaning forward a little from the hips he said to the shaggy-haired
man:“Stop that; and give back the hat.”
The shaggy-haired one, without understanding the words, sensed the protest, and replied, mocking Caspar:
“Yack-yack-yack! Yack-yack-yack!” And they all rocked with laughter.
“We’ll have all your hats! And everything else you have!”
Balthazar said to Melchior, “These are robbers; they will strip us of everything.”
Melchior said to Caspar, “They are bandits. They will take all.”
“They will take nothing! Wait. Leave this to me.”
It had dawned upon him, with the snatching of Melchior’s hat, that these were not the dignified, dedicated men-of-the-hills of whom old Benjamin had spoken with such respect, and whom he had come so far to see.
And there were three of them, men in their prime, armed, against him alone. At a moment like this he couldn’t count upon the frail old scholar, or the easily terrified black fellow. And what could one knife do against three clubs? Strategy was called for.
Suddenly he swayed back, laughing, laughing; his teeth bared in a grin as wolfish as any of theirs.
“Laugh,” he said to Melchior.
“Tell him to laugh, Laugh, I said, this is important!”
Melchior, wildly distressed at the prospect of losing the camels, managed only a death’s-head grimace; Balthazar, trained in obedience, creased his face into a smile that was in ill-accord with the terror in his eyes where too much white was showing.
“Now tell him,” said Caspar, pretending to hold his sides with amusement, ‘that when I move my hat he is to offer his turban to the one nearest him; but to loosen it first. Say this as though you were joking with him!”
Smiling pallidly Melchior passed on this order.