Marsyas signed him to speak.
"I pray thee accept my master's apologies," the man said, "for interrupting thy journey. He bids me say that he is a stranger and unfamiliar with the land. We have found no water for the meal. Wilt thou direct us to a pool?"
Marsyas checked his impatience.
"Save that I am in great haste I would tarry to direct him. But let him send hence into the country to the westward, half a league to the hill of the flat summit. There is a grove by a well of sweet water."
"Nay, the country is as obscure to us as the whereabouts of the pool," the servant protested. "We are Alexandrians and as good as lost in these hills. If thou wilt speak to my master, he will understand better than his foolish servant."
Irritation forced its way up through the Essenic calm. The servant salaamed again.
"The Essenes are noted even in Alexandria for their charity," he said deftly. Marsyas turned with him and went back to the fringed tent.
The old aristocrat still lounged gracefully, as no thirsty man does, on his pallet of rugs, but the girl had drawn farther away and her eyes were veiled.
"I perceived by thy garments that thou art an Essene," the old man said, "and therefore a safe guide in this land of few milestones."
Marsyas thanked him and waited restlessly on the inquiry.