III
AT THE FOOT OF MOUNT HOR
The moment the sun sank into the billows of sand Kanana had left hisperch.
From the loaded stalks about him he gathered a goat's-hair sack of grainand fastened it upon his back. There was no one to whom he need sayfarewell, and, armed only with his shepherd's staff, he started awayupon the desert, setting his course to the north and west.
Before he had gone far he passed a lad of about his own age who had comefrom the encampment to hunt for desert-rats. Had Kanana seen him hewould have made a wide detour, but the boy lay so still upon the sandthat the first Kanana knew of his presence was when a low sarcasticvoice uttered his name.
"Kanana!" it exclaimed. "Thou here! Dost thou not fear that some rat maybite thee? Whither darest thou to go, thus, all alone, and after dark,upon the sand?"
Fire flashed from Kanana's eyes. His hand clutched his shepherd's staffand involuntarily he lifted it; but the better counsel of his curiousnotions checked the blow. It was so dark that the boy upon the sand didnot notice the effect of his taunts and knew nothing of his narrowescape. He only heard the quiet voice of Kanana as presently it meeklyreplied to his question:
"I go to Mount Hor."
It was an answer so absurd that the boy gave it no second thought and bythe time that the footsteps of Kanana had died away the rat-hunter hadas utterly forgotten him as though he had never existed.
To Mount Hor?
Kanana had only the most imperfect information to guide him. He knewthat the Beni Sad caravan had been for some days upon the roadsouthward, to Mecca, when it was captured by Raschid Airikat and turnedat an angle, northward, toward Damascus.
Seen from a great distance, over the sea of sand, the solitary peak ofold Mount Hor, where Aaron, the great high priest of Israel, was buried,forms a startling beacon. By day or night, it rises clear and sharpagainst the sky, guiding the caravans northward, from Arabia toJerusalem and Damascus, and southward from Syria to Medina and Mecca;while the fertile oasis about it is the universal resting-place.
Kanana was not at all sure that the caravan would not have passed MountHor long before he could reach it; but if so, it must in time returnthat way, and, in any case, of all Arabia Mount Hor was the one spotwhere he could be sure to gather further information from passingcaravans.
He knew his path upon that shifting sand as well as an Indian knew hisway through the trackless forests of New England. With the sun and starsabove him, any Arab would have scorned the idea of being lost inArabia, and through the long night with strong and steady strides Kananapressed onward toward Mount Hor.
As the harvest moon rose above the desert, behind him, the Bedouin boywas softly chanting from the second _sura_ of Al Koran:
"God, there is no God but him; The Living! The Eternal. Slumber doth not overtake him, Neither Sleep. And upholding all things, To him is no burden. He is the Lofty and the Great."
His long, black shadow fell over the silver sand, and, watching it, hechanted the Koran again:
"God is God. Whatever of good betideth thee cometh from him.
"Whatever of evil is thine own doing."
Suddenly a speck appeared upon the distant horizon. None but the keeneye of a shepherd would have seen it, in the night, but Kanana watchedit as it quivered and wavered, disappearing as it sank into a valley inthe rolling sand, appearing again, like a dory on the ocean, each time alittle nearer than before.
Kanana noted the direction the speck was taking, and he made a wide pathfor it; he crouched among the sand-shrubs when it came too near.
First a small party of horsemen passed him, the advance guard of amoving tribe. Then came the main body of men upon camels and horses; butthe only sounds were made by the feet of the animals and the clanking ofthe weapons. The she-camels with their young followed; then the sheepand goats driven by a few men on foot; next, the camels laden with thetents and furniture; last of all the women and children of the tribeaccompanied by another armed escort.
From all that company there was not a sound but of the sand and thetrappings. There was nothing but shadows, swinging, swaying shadows,moving like phantoms over the white sand, as the trailing train wentgliding on, in that mysterious land of shadows and silhouettes.
There was nothing in it that was weird to Kanana, however. He hidhimself simply as a precaution. He had often been a part of such acaravan, and he knew from experience, that if a solitary Arab were foundupon the desert, he would very quickly be forced to help drive the sheepand goats, and kept at it until he could make his escape. Any Arab boywould have hidden himself.
Long before Kanana's next halt the sun was pouring down his furiousheat. To his great good fortune he came upon a bowlder rising out of thesand; there he quickly made a place for himself where the sun could notreach him and lying down slept until night.
Only one who has walked upon a desert, hour after hour, parched withthirst and utterly exhausted in the fierce glare and heat can properlyappreciate the Bible picture of "the shadow of a great rock in a wearyland."
Had he not found this rock Kanana would simply have dug a hole in thesand and forced himself into it.
Here and there as he pressed on, Kanana saw grim skeletons of men andanimals as they lay whitening among the sand-shrubs, but he paid themlittle attention. Before the sun had set, upon the second day, he beheldthe distant summit of Mount Hor cutting sharply into the blue sky.
The sight renewed his strength. Hour after hour he pressed onward, withhis eyes fixed upon the tomb of Aaron, a white monument upon the summitof the mountain, flashing like snow as the moon rose in the clear,blue-black sky.
Kanana did not pause again until he fell upon his knees beside thestream which rises in a spring upon Mount Hor, to die in the sand, notfar from its base. He plunged into the water; then, dressing himselfagain, he lay down upon the bank to sleep. He awoke with the first graylighting in the east, when the air of a desert is almost cold enough tofreeze.
He had now nothing more to do till he could obtain some information frompassing caravans. It would soon be sunrise, the hour for morning prayer,and, to warm himself while he waited, he walked along the banks of thestream. They were blue as the very sky, with masses of forget-me-nots.
Suddenly Kanana paused. He started back. His eyes dilated, and his handtrembled till the shepherd's staff fell, unheeded, to the ground. Thenext moment he dropped to the ground to examine the place morecarefully.
What was it? Only some marks upon the grass where a caravan had camped.The herbage was matted here and there where the camels lay, and croppedshort in little circles about each spot where they had eaten it as faras they could reach.
Caravans were continually resting for the day under the shadow of MountHor. There was nothing remarkable in the fact that a caravan had campedthere, and had gone. They always move at night; not so much because itis cooler as because a camel will not eat at night, no matter how hungryhe may be, and must be given the daylight or he will deliberatelystarve.
A moment later Kanana was upon his feet again with a triumph in his eyeswhich clearly indicated his satisfaction.
The grass about the spot was unevenly cropped; there were stragglingspears of green left standing in the center of each mouthful which thecamel had taken. Upon one side the bees were clustering on the mattedgrass. A multitude of ants appeared upon the other side. The imprintleft by the forefoot of the camel showed that it had been extended infront of him, instead of being bent at the knee and folded beneath him.
All this meant to the young Arab that the camel was old, that it waslame in the left knee, that it had lost a front tooth, that its burdenon one side was honey, on the other the dust of river clay, to be usedin the manufacture of stucco.
Had one of his father's camels stood before him Kanana could not havebeen more sure. Nothing more was needed to assure him that RaschidAirikat, with the stolen camels, had left Mount Hor the night before,upon the trail leading southward into Arabia
.
His eyes flashed with excitement. "My brother and the white camel arenot ten hours from here, and they are on the road to Mecca or Medina,"he exclaimed as his fingers tightened about the staff.
His white teeth glistened in a smile, as he added, "They are mine, or Iam a coward!"
He stood there, motionless, for a moment, his dark eyes instinctivelyturning southward. The magnitude of his task lay vividly before him. Herecalled his father's words: "Thou wisp of flax before a fire! Thoureed before a whirlwind!" They served to strengthen him.
The first step which lay before him was enough to test the courage of abrave man, and yet it was only a step toward a grand destiny.
Suddenly starting from his revery, Kanana exclaimed:
"I will do it! or I will consent to be known forever as the coward ofthe Beni Sads!" and turning he ran up the rocky sides of old Mount Hor,toward the white tomb of Aaron, whence he knew he could see far awayover the great ocean of sand.
It might be there would yet appear a speck upon the distant horizon, toguide him toward the retreating caravan.