The Dragon of the Ishtar Gate

A fortnight later they were still marching. They crossed the Nile and struck southwest, into a country of broad plains broken by groups of low hills, of tree-dotted savanna interrupted by patches of solid' forest, in which long-tailed monkeys scampered and large black apes with bare behinds chattered and screamed and threw filth at the travelers.

On the higher ground, euphorbias lifted their many long green fingers heavenwards. Dragon trees bristled with sharp sword-shaped leaves. Enormous lobelias rose like the jade and emerald spires of ancient eastern temples, built back in the days when gods still walked the earth. The explorers plowed through stands of thick grass higher than their heads, where a man could see twenty feet along a trail and no more than five athwart it.

Ajang showed the travelers a small tree with glossy, dark-green leaves and clusters of red berries. When chewed, he explained, the berries of the kahawa tree had the property of banishing sleep.

The continuous rain at last let up, though they still encountered violent thunderstorms. Enormous storm clouds towered miles into the sky. Lightning flashed and thunder boomed as if quarrelsome gods were having it out.

Animals swarmed in the plains, and birds of strange forms and hues filled the air. Swarms of scarlet bee eaters incarnadined entire trees. Grotesque black hornbills flapped heavily past with raucous cries. Ring-necked crows cawed, slender little gray plovers daintily paced the grass for insects, and big brown eagle-hawks hung fearlessly about the company in hopes of offal. At night, cuckoos and barbets sounded the hours with bell-like notes.

The party shrank. Three Ptoemphani ran away, and Amr the Arab stepped on a thick-bodied venomous serpent and died of the bite.

Otherwise, compared with the haggard, exhausted state in which Bessas' people had come to Boron, they were in good health. Dinner seldom lacked a cut of antelope, brought down by Bessas' mighty bow. Besides too many kinds of antelope to remember, they saw herds of wild horses with gaudy black and white stripes.

"Is that the man-eating bull with the movable horns?" asked Myron, pointing.

Half a furlong away, scattered over a low hill, were a score of massive black wild cattle. Unlike the elephant, the rhinoceros, and the hippopotamus, which paid no heed to anything more than a plethron distant, the buffalo saw the travelers as soon as they came into sight. Up came all twenty heads to stare fixedly, so that both curling horns could be seen on the sides of each black muzzle. They stood like statues, except for the slow swing of their heads to keep the travelers in view.

"The horns do not look movable to me," said Bessas, reaching for his bow case. "But we might try cow steak for a change."

However, when the black interpreters saw what the Bactrian was up to, they loudly protested. This was no mere cow, they insisted. Although the buffalo usually let people alone, when wounded it was more to be feared than any other beast. It would trail its foe for leagues for a chance to kill him. At last Bessas sighed and put away his bow.

"This damned responsibility is making an old woman of me," he grumbled. "A year ago, 'twould have taken more than the plaints of a few fearful savages to turn me from my purpose."

One clear night, Myron climbed a hill and stood looking at the strange stars that circled the sky to the south. Long he stood, thinking. He felt that the answer to the problem of the shape of the earth was inside him, trying to burst from his heart—or from his head, if the Egyptians were right in locating the mind in the brain. His mind was pregnant with this solution, but somehow he could not quite bring it to birth.