was a journey of three days on horseback, he was told,
but of two days only on camel-back, for a camel can walk three miles an
hour for eighteen hours. But what should I be doing on a camel's back
for eighteen hours? Joseph cried, and the driver showed Joseph how with
his legs strapped on either side of the beast he could lie back in the
pack and sleep away many hours. Your head, sir, would soon get
accustomed to the rocking. But I should have to leave my horse behind,
Joseph said. He was fain to see his father and the lake; he was already
there in spirit, and would like to transport his cumbersome body there
in the least possible time; but he could not separate himself from
Xerxes, a beautiful horse that he had brought with him from Egypt--a
dark grey--a sagacious animal that would neigh at the sound of his voice
and follow him like a dog, and when they encamped for the night, wander
in search of herbage and come back when he was called, or wait for him
like a wooden horse at an inn door.

Horse and horseman seemed a match the morning they went away to Galilee
together, Xerxes all bits and bridles, stirrups and trappings, and
Joseph equipped for the journey not less elaborately than his horse. He
wore a striped shirt and an embroidered vest with two veils falling from
his turban over his shoulders, and as he was not going to visit the
Essenes, he did not forget to provide himself with weapons: a curved
scimitar hung by his side and the jewelled hilt of a dagger showed above
his girdle. His escort not having arrived yet, he waited; taking
pleasure in the arch of Xerxes' neck when the horse turned his head
towards him, and in the dark courageous eyes and the beautifully turned
hoof that pawed the earth so prettily. At last the five spearmen and
their captain appeared, and Xerxes, who seemed to recognise the escort
as a sign for departure, presented his left side for Joseph to mount
him. As soon as his master was in the saddle, he shook his accoutrements
and sprang forward at the head of the cavalcade, Joseph crying back: he
must have the sound of hoofs behind him. He could refuse his horse
nothing, and suffered him to canter some few hundred yards up the road,
though it was not customary to leave the escort behind, and when Joseph
returned, the foreman told him, as he expected he would, that it would
be well not to tire his horse by galloping him at the beginning of the
journey, for a matter of thirty miles lay in front o