The proceedings took several days. On one, the two kings went hunting. At the end of the ceremonies, there were dancers and singers and speeches. The bride and groom were presented to the people and cheered with a deafening uproar. The fact that Jugurtha already had a few wives bothered none.
The feast comprised whole roast oxen, rivers of wine and beer, and a few sober Moorish guards to squelch any fights. Quarrels easily occur when soldiers of two nations get drunk together and start boasting. The Moors are generally a sober, abstemious folk, but on such occasions they make up for lost time.
I saw nothing of Hippalos. Despite the king's protection, the ready-for-aught was taking no chances of coming within my reach.
I was gorging and guzzling with the rest when a brown hand fell on my shoulder. I looked up to see a tall, hawkfaced Numidian standing over me.
"Are you not Eudoxos the Kyzikene?" he asked in barbarously accented Greek.
"Why, yes! And you're—ah—Varsako! I remember you from Alexandria. How did you know me, with this bush on my face?"
"I heard you were in Mauretania," he said, sitting down on the bench beside me, "so I was looking for you. I could not forget the man who saved my life!"
"Oh, that," I said, remembering our scuffle with the robbers. "It was nothing. But tell me ..."
And we were off on reminiscences of our respective adventures during the last five years. Varsako, I learnt, was a provincial judge in Jugurtha's kingdom. We ended the evening staggering about with arms about each other's shoulders, singing tipsily until others threatened to drown us in the beer tub if we did not shut up and let them go to sleep.
Pronax I had sent home early, and Gnouros had feasted with the palace servants and slaves. I fetched him from the slave quarters to walk back to Tingis with me. Many other guests were straggling homeward, too, down the winding road from the castle. The sky was clear and the moon, just past full. It lit up the hillside, showing the recumbent forms of dozens of copulating couples. The Moors practice sexual licence on such occasions, and all the younger women of the vicinity, save those of the royal family, seemed to have turned out to give the Numidian visitors a pleasant memory of their stay.
When the crowd had thinned out, so that nobody was near us, Gnouros said:
"Master! You in danger. King means to kill you."
"What's this, old man?"
"Aye! I hear all the talk in servants' quarters. Servants know everything their masters do, and one who talks Greek got drunk and told me."
"Just what did he tell you?"
"You remember first day we come to castle?"
"Yes."
"Well, after we go back to Tingis, Master Hippalos made king believe he really was Indian seer, like he said. Also, he warned the king that, if you spread story of how Lixus River rises in Atlas Mountains, some enemy—Romans, maybe— might land at mouth of the Lixus, march up it, and take kingdom by surprise, through back door. King's kinsmen and courtiers joined in denouncing you, because they fear that if you make kingdom rich like you say, you will rise in king's favor and they will go down.
"Now, if you only ordinary man, king would have your head off right away, tsk!" He struck his own neck with the side of his palm. "But you are too important and famous."
"I wish I thought so," I said. "Go on."
"King does not want to be blamed for killing a so big man like you. So, Hippalos said to him he should pretend to agree to your plan for voyage. One of his ships will take you down the coast to look for landing places. When they find some little island with nothing but sand, they put you ashore and leave you. Then the king tell people you fell overboard and drowned."
"Well, I suppose I shall have to bribe some fisherman to run us across to Belon," I said.
"Oh, no! The king has sent word to watch ports and roads, in case you try to escape."
'This is a fix!" I said. "By Bakchos' balls, how are we to get out of this damned kingdom?"
Gnouros spread his hands. "How I know? Master has mighty mind; he will think of a way."
"Your confidence touches me, but I wish I could share it Let me think. When do the Numidians leave for home?"
"Day after tomorrow. Tomorrow, everybody have too big hangover to start journey."
Next day, hangover or no, I went again to Bocchus' castle and asked for Varsako. When he came, I murmured:
"Come out for a stroll with me, Varsako. I want to discuss something I don't wish overheard, so we'll talk loudly about something else until we're out of earshot" Then I raised my voice: "By the gods of the underworld, that was some party! I haven't been so drunk since that time we were on the town in Alexandria ..."
He played up to me with noisy anecdotes of his own allegedly bibulous past. When we were well away from the castle wall, I told him of my troubles with King Bocchus.
"You once met this Hippalos," I said. "Do you remember? The night I met you in the Ptolemies' banquet hall, he was the choragus who directed the entertainments, and I think he got you a girl for the night. Have you met him here in his disguise as Sri Hari?"
"Now that you tell me, this Indian did look somehow familiar."
"Well, could you identify him as Hippalos to the king?' "Perhaps, but I do not advise it,"
"Why not?"
"First, from what gossip I heard, the alleged wise man has Bocchus under his thumb. If we accused him, he would merely think up some plausible counteraccusation, and the king would believe him rather than us. Second, Jugurtha warned all of us Numidians to keep aloof from Mauretanian affairs during our visit, and if I took your part he might have my head for it. And third, Bocchus is a king who notoriously hates to admit he is wrong. You prove to his face that he has erred at your peril."
Altogether, Mauretania began to look like a most unhealthy place for me to linger. We discussed the situation at length, Varsako and I, without finding any practical solution but flight. I finally said:
"You're leaving for home tomorrow with the rest of the Numidians, aren't you?"
"Aye."
"Would anybody notice if you had added a couple of servants to your train?"
"I suppose not—if they did not look like anyone the Moors were seeking."
"That will be taken care of."
Next day, when the Numidians set out, nobody observed that Judge Varsako, who had arrived with two servants, departed with five. The new additions were a singularly unkempt, unprepossessing lot, too. Gnouros and I had shaved off our beards, and Pronax, who was a fair-haired, blue-eyed, pimpled youth, we had stained brown all over. We rode mules and led others, which carried our lord's gear and our own.
From Tingis to Tunis is a hard ride of about three hundred leagues, over roads that are mostly mere tracks, without a pretence of grading or paving. By secret communications with friends in Adherbal's part of Numidia, Varsako arranged for us to be passed through this kingdom without trouble. At the frontier of Roman Africa, the guards asked a few questions and waved us through. We reached Tunis a month after leaving Tingis.
At Tunis, I wrote a long letter to my kinsmen in Kyzikos, telling my tale and revealing my plans. Since Gnouros' rheumatism was worse and I did not wish to inflict upon him the pains of another long voyage, I sent him off with the letter on a ship for Peiraieus.
Then I spent a ten-day on the waterfront, looking for ships. I finally bought one aged, leaky coaster, whose owner's new ship had just come off the ways. I had the oldster hauled out, scraped, caulked, tarred, and painted, and then I set out with Pronax and a cargo of African goods.