The Garden of Eden Part 22

"Nothing."

"Zacharias, men do not cry out without speaking."

"Nevertheless," said Zacharias, "it was like the cry of a wolf when they hunt along the cliffs in winter and see the young horses and the cattle in the Garden below them. It was a cry, and there was no spoken word in it."

The master bit his lip.

"Abraham has been talking folly to you," he said; and, springing on the back of the stallion, he raced out of the patio and on to the south road with his long, black hair whipping straight out behind his head.

At length the southern wall rose slowly over the trees, and a deep murmur which had begun about them as soon as they left the house, light as the humming of bees, increasing as they went down the valley, now became a great rus.h.i.+ng noise. It was like a great wind in sound; one expected the push of a gale, coming out from the trees, but there was only the river which ran straight at the cliff, split solid rock, and shot out of sunlight into a black cavern. Beside this gaping mouth of rock stood Connor with Shakra beside him. Twice the master called, but Connor could not hear.

The tumbling river would have drowned a volley of musketry. Only when David touched his shoulder did Connor turn a gloomy face. They took their horses across the bridge which pa.s.sed over the river a little distance from the cliff, and rode down the farther side of the valley until the roar sank behind them. A few barriers of trees reduced it to the humming which on windless days was picked up by echoes and reached the house of David with a solemn murmur.

"I thought you would rest," said David, when they were come to a place of quiet, and the horses cantered lightly over the road with that peculiar stride, at once soft and reaching, which Connor was beginning to see as the chief characteristic of the Eden Gray.

"I have rested more in two minutes on the back of Shakra than I could rest in two hours on my bed."

It was like disarming a father by praise of his son.

"She has a gentle gait," smiled David.

"I tell you, man, she's a knockout!"

"A knockout?"

The gambler added hastily: "Next to Glani the best horse I have seen."

"You are right. Next to Glani the best in the valley."

"In the world," said Connor, and then gave a cry of wonder.

They had come through an avenue of the eucalyptus trees, and now they reached an open meadow, beyond which aspens trembled and flashed silver under a shock from the wind. Half the meadow was black, half green; for one of the old men was plowing. He turned a rich furrow behind him, and the blackbirds followed in chattering swarms in their hunt for worms.

The plow team was a span of slender-limbed Eden Grays. They walked lightly with plow, shaking their heads at the blackbirds, and sometimes they touched noses in that cheery, dumb conversation of horses. The plow turned down the field with the sod curling swiftly behind. The blackbirds followed. There were soldier-wings among them making flashes of red, and all the swarm scolded.

"David," said Connor when he could speak, "you might as well harness lightning to your plow. Why in the name of G.o.d, man, don't you get mules for this work?"

The master looked to the ground, for he was angered.

"It is not against His will that I work them at the plow," he answered.

"He has not warned me against it."

"Who hasn't?"

"Our Father whose name you spoke. Look! They are not unhappy, Jurith and Rajima, of the blood of Aliriz."

He whistled, whereat the off mare tossed her head and whinnied.

"By Heaven, she knows you at this distance!" gasped Connor.

"Which is only to say that she is not a fool. Did I not sit with her three days and three nights when she was first foaled? That was twenty-five years ago; I was a child then."

Connor, staring after the high, proud head of Jurith, sighed. The horses started on at a walk which was the least excellent gait in the Eden Grays. Their high croups and comparatively low withers, their long hindlegs and the shorter forelegs, gave them a waddling motion with the hind quarters apparently huddling the forehand along.

Indeed, they seemed designed in every particular for the gallop alone.

But Glani was an exception. Just as in size he appeared a freak among the others, so in his gaits all things were perfectly proportioned.

Connor, with a deep, quiet delight, watched the big stallion stepping freely. Shakra had to break into a soft trot now and then to catch up.

"Let us walk," said David. "The run is for when a man feels with the hawk in the sky; the gallop is for idle pleasure; the trot is an ugly gait, for distance only; but a walk is the gait when two men speak together. In this manner Matthew and I went up and down the valley roads. Alas, it is five years since I have walked my horse! Is it not, Glani, my king? And now, Benjamin, tell me your trouble."

"There is no trouble," said Connor.

But David smiled, saying: "We are brothers in Glani, Benjamin. To us alone he has given his head. Therefore speak freely."

"Look back," said Connor, feeling that the crisis had come and that he must now put his fortune to the touch.

David turned on the stallion. "What do you see?"

"I see old Elijah. He drives the two mares, and the furrow follows them--the blackbirds also."

"Do you see nothing else?"

"I see the green meadow and the sky with a cloud in it; I see the river yonder and the aspens flash as the wind strikes them."

"And do you hear nothing?"

"I hear the falling of the Jordan and the cry of the birds. Also, Elijah has just spoken to Rajima. Ah, she is lazy for a daughter of Aliriz!"

"Do you wish to know what I see and hear, David?"

"If it is your pleasure, brother."

"I see a blue sky like this, with the wind and the clouds in it and all that stuff--"

"All of what?"

"And I see also," continued Connor, resolving to watch his tongue, "thousands of people, acres of men and women."

David was breathless with interest. He had a way of opening his eyes and his mind like a child.

"We are among them; they jostle us; we can scarcely breathe. There is a green lawn below us; we cannot see the green, it is so thickly covered with men. They have pulled out their wallets and they have money in their hands."

"What is it?" muttered David. "For my thoughts swim in those waves of faces."

"I see," went on Connor, "a great oval road fenced on each side, with colored posts at intervals. I see horses in a line, dancing up and down, turning about--"

"Ah, horses!"

"Kicking at each other."