Khian hesitated no longer. He was alone in the chariot, for its driver had descended to give the horses the last of the forage they carried with them and a sup of water that remained, and stood at a distance watching them finish their food as best they could, for the bits in their mouths hampered them. He seized the reins, he smote the stallions with the whip, and the beasts sprang forward.
Now they had come to the low bank of sand and were scrambling over it, dragging the light war chariot after them. Some fifty paces away and as many perhaps from the first of Apepi’s horsemen stood the General of the Babylonians and one officer talking to the Captain of the Shepherds, also accompanied by one officer, a man whom he knew well enough for they had served together in the Syrian wars. They had turned and did not see him coming or hear the chariot wheels on the soft sand. Apepi’s captain had grown angry and cried in a loud voice:
“Hear my last offer. Give up to me the Prince Khian who is with you, and you and your soldiers may go free. Refuse, and I will kill you every one and take him, living or dead, to his father, Apepi the Pharaoh. Answer. I speak no more.”
“I will answer,” said Khian from the chariot, whereon they turned in amaze and stared. “I am the Prince Khian, and you, Friend, know me well. I, too, know you for a man of honour and accept your promise to let these Babylonians go their way unharmed, taking their wounded with them, and in payment I surrender myself to you. Is it sworn?”
“It is sworn, Prince,” said the Captain, saluting. “Yet remember that Apepi is very wrath with your Highness,” he added slowly, as though in warning.
“I remember,” answered Khian. Then he turned to the Babylonian General, who all this while had stood like one transfixed, and said: “Say to the Lord Tau and to the Lady of Egypt that I have gone where my duty calls me and that if it be decreed that we should meet no more, I trust that they will not think ill of me, seeing that what seems false often is the truth and that sometimes ill deeds are done for good ends. For the rest, let them judge as they will of me, who follow my own light.”
“Lord,” exclaimed the General like one who wakes from sleep, “surely you do not desert us for the Shepherds?”
“Am I not a Shepherd?” asked Khian, smiling strangely. “Farewell, Friend. Good fortune go with you and your company, no drop of whose blood shall be shed for me.”
Then he called to the horses and they went forward while the General wrung his hands and muttered the names of strange Babylonian gods.
“I do not understand your Highness,” said Apepi’s captain as he walked by the chariot back towards his horsemen, “which is not strange, since always you were different from other men, and I am wondering whether those Babylonians will write you down as a traitor or as a hero. Meanwhile, I who know you to be honest, ask your promise that even if you see opportunity you will not escape to them lest I should be forced to kill you.”