Like one in a dream the lad walked before his captor. From time to time he looked wildly about in the vain hope of rescue, but the few passers-by went about their business with unseeing eyes, and an occasional prick of the knife from behind warned him that instant death awaited him should he venture to cry out. At length they had passed quite out of the city; here Gestas paused for a moment, and seeing that no one was by, he proceeded to bind the lad's hands securely behind his back.
"Thou art such a proper liar," he remarked with a grin, "that I am minded to leave thee alive for a while longer." Seth made no reply, nor did he cry out when Gestas playfully thrust the knife within a hair's breadth of his throat.
"If I must die," he thought, "I will at least die like a man." Then he remembered Anat sitting happily at her spinning at the feet of the gentle Mary; the tears rose to his eyes and brimming over rolled in great drops down his brown cheeks. He shook them off valiantly. "Tears do not become a man," he said to himself sternly.
"Come, come, my lad," cried Gestas, "my business requireth haste as well as diligence. We must be getting on." Then feeling very merry indeed, he put up his knife and fetched out his newly-acquired pouch; shaking it so that all the gold pieces within clinked musically, he strode along, chanting a pagan rhyme of Bacchus and the pleasures of the vine.
After a time they reached one of the narrow denies which wind between the hills on either side of the Valley of Hinnom, and here they presently came upon the encampment, cunningly placed within a copse of low-growing trees on the edge of a stream.
Half a score of men were scattered about upon the greensward, some of them eating and drinking, others playing at dice, and others still stretched out at full length in the shade asleep.
The arrival of Gestas and his prisoner was greeted with a shout of laughter. "Ha! our worthy chief hath made a notable capture," cried one, sauntering up to Seth and looking down at him. "A mighty man of valor is he truly to accomplish the overthrow of such as this. How many bags of gold didst thou take from him?"
Gestas winked significantly. "I shall take three, if the gods prosper me," he replied; then he bound the lad's ankles together, and bidding the man keep an eye upon the prisoner, he threw himself down upon the ground and demanded food and drink. Two or three others gathered about him, and to these he talked rapidly in low tones as he ate; but nothing of what was being said reached the ears of Seth, who was beginning to suffer intense agony from the tightness of the cords with which his wrists and ankles were bound.
He ventured at length to speak of this to the man who had been detailed to watch him; his guard good-naturedly loosened the bonds, then relapsed into a doze, which presently deepened into a heavy sleep.
As the hours crept slowly by, Seth worked cautiously and unceasingly to loosen further the cords at his wrists. Towards evening he found to his intense joy that his hands were free. No one noticed him; the man at his feet still slept heavily; and after awhile he ventured stealthily to undo the thongs which bound his feet together; then he sat motionless, not daring to stir till the shadows should deepen.