Still laughing loudly, Caspar took off his hat, held it a second in his hand and looked at Balthazar, who immediately removed and loosened his beautiful turban. Caspar clapped his hat on to the head of one of the men, pushing it down, still acting as though it were a joke. Balthazar put his turban upon the head of the third and a fold fell…. They were still laughing, the two temporarily blinded when Caspar got to his feet, drew his knife across the throat of the one who wore Melchior’s hat, and in less than a breath’s space dispatched, in similar fashion, the other two. It was done so quickly, so surely, with such deadly savagery, that neither Melchior nor Balthazar could believe that it was done. One second the throats were emitting laughter and the next gushing fountains of blood.
Caspar wiped his knife on the rags of the last man he had killed and straightened up, his face impassive.
Melchior, that civilised man, felt a single queasy heave of the stomach, but it died away under the thought—The camels are safe. He said:
“By my father’s grave, you are quick.”
“In my country,” Caspar said, ‘a man is either quick or dead.”
Balthazar, who had seen blood spilt before, was far more affected; he hadn’t the strength just then to stand up, so he shuffled backwards a little on his haunches and, turning out of the firelight, threw up his supper.
Then something extraordinary happened. From the top of the rocky wall to the left of the enclosed space in which, by the fire, three men in grotesque attitudes lay dead, and one live man calmly sheathed his knife, and one thought of his errand, and one vomited, something came hurtling down, stumbled as it fell, recovered itself and made for Caspar.
It was a boy, quite a small one, no more than six or seven years old, but in such a blind, murderous rage that he was momentarily as dangerous as a tiger. Had he worn shoes the kicks he aimed at Caspar’s shins would have done real damage, the will to damage was there, but he was barefoot. And his teeth, directed at Caspar’s throat, were defeated by the collar of the leather jacket. He had launched himself, made the assault in silence, but under the double frustration he began to scream. Caspar took him by the nape of the neck and held him at arm’s length, as though he were a puppy. The boy’s legs and arms thrashed about and he went on screaming. Caspar dispassionately cuffed
him about the head until suddenly he hung, limpand quiet.
“One of their cubs,” he said, dropping the boy to the ground, and looking about.
“There may be others.”
But all was quiet.
“We must go,” Melchior said, standing up on legs that were not quite steady.
“This is a dangerous place.”
Balthazar wiped his mouth and his sweat-drenched face and turned back into the firelight, carefully avoiding looking at the dead men.
The boy, who had stood, dazed and dizzied where Caspar had dropped him, moved and went to the side of the shaggy-haired man who had taken Melchior’s hat. He said:
“You killed my father. I wish I could kill you.”
Balthazar, falling into place again, said to Melchior:
“That man was the boy’s father.”
“The boy’s father,” Melchior said to Caspar.
“A spirited boy,” Caspar said; but Melchior disregarded the remark. They must get away from here.
“You killed him,” the boy said again.
“He was only seeking food.” He began to cry.
“He was bringing me my supper.
Look!”
He fumbled in the dead man’s rags; and Balthazar, the only one who understood what the boy said, forced himself to watch, and it was true. Under cover of the ravenous eating, the greedy drinking, the horse-play, the man had remembered the child and secreted a good hunk of goat meat and some bread.
“He had saved some for the boy,” Balthazar said. This remark Melchior considered not worth passing on.
“Come,” he said, ‘let us go.”
But Caspar and Balthazar seemed to be fascinated by the boy. He held the food in his hand and he looked at it with a tragic expression, tears streaking his dirty face; but he was hungry, plainly very hungry, for though he wept with his eyes, his mouth began to drool like a dog’s. Then, suddenly he ceased to cry, his mouth folded in on itself, and he flung the meat and the bread straight at Caspar’s face. Caspar, with one of his swift movements, ducked and the two missiles went over his head. It was sad; so much Melchior admitted, in his mind. But the men were robbers and might have taken the camels and rendered his whole errand abortive. The boy had made his gesture; and probably, as soon as they had gone, would hunt for the food, find it and eat it.
He said again, “Come. Let us go.”
But Caspar said, “I like this boy. Ask Balthazar what other food we have.”
Impatiently, Melchior asked, and Balthazar said that all the meat was now eaten; they still had bread and some cheese.
“Give him some.” Caspar said. And while Balthazar opened the food-bag, he retrieved their headgear; Melchior’s first; the old man took it and with an impatient gesture, slapped it on his head; then his own, unsullied; the extreme end of Balthazar’s turban, hanging down over the robber’s face, was damp and dark with blood. Caspar, with a delicacy of feeling that nobody would have given him credit for, took out his knife, cut off the soiled portion, threw it on the fire, and tucked the raw edge back. Balthazar, returning with the food, accepted the turban with fastidious suspicion, but it looked all right…. The boy took the proffered food with a look in which sullenness and something else warred for mastery.
“Ask him to ask the boy’s name.”
“Such a waste of time!” Melchior said.
“What does his name matter?” But he passed on the question and Balthazar asked it, gently.
The boy said, “I am the son of my father. My name is Barabbas.”
Melchior, moving towards the camels, tossed this piece of worthless information, as he had tossed many similar pieces, to Caspar.
“Tell him I wish I had such a son and that I am sorry his father is dead. But it was necessary.” As he spoke Caspar fumbled in his pouch and brought out a rose jekkal. The boy took it and said something. Balthazar spoke, Melchior spoke.
“He says his father is dead but he is alive and he will be avenged.”
They mounted their camels and turned them, and as the weary, unwilling
animals moved, grunting and protesting,down the defile towards the road, the boy pelted them. Two crusty loaves, a piece of cheese, a rose jekkal and then lumps of rock, thrown with unerring aim, and with all the impetus of impotent fury, hit the camels’ hindquarters, so that their pace, for a few moments, satisfied even the impatient Melchior, who had just realised that with all this fuss he had failed to take his nightly reckoning.
Next day, thinking over the incident calmly, he realised that but for Caspar they would have lost their camels; and that even Caspar’s speedy trickery could not have succeeded without Balthazar’s gift of tongues. So his opposition to their desire to enter Jerusalem was rather less obdurate than it might have been. He gave in, grudgingly and petulantly.
“One hour, then. That is all I can spare. And that is an hour wasted,” he said.
And then, of course, when they reached the great city, with the massed towers, the many roofs showing above the walls of hewn stone, and thousands of people going this way and that, halting progress in the most infuriating way, Balthazar must choose to be difficult. He said, “This is not the one, I’m sorry,” at gateway after gateway. Caspar, all agog, was quite willing to ride all round the city, but Melchior, though the day was very cold, felt hot sweat prick out all over him, even to his eyelids as they wasted time and wasted time.
Then, as they came towards the Gate of the Fountain, Balthazar said in a tranced, ecstatic voice, “This is it! This is the gate through which I saw us riding.” He halted his camel and would have sat there, staring, had not Melchior said peevishly: “Let us ride in then, and get it over with.” Caspar had been assessing the city with a soldier’s eye. It was a strong, fortressed city which, properly provisioned and held by resolute men, would withstand a prolonged siege. Not, compared with Jexal, a beautiful city, but certainly strong. To him, Melchior said in the same peevish way: “I have not come so far to sightsee! There will be time to stare later.”
So they rode into Jerusalem; and even Melchior was slightly pacified to find that Balthazar had chosen the gate that was nearest to the Palace of Herod.