"He is wise in horses, indeed." "When he turned away Shakra followed him; he went to his room and came out again, carrying the saddle with which he rode Abra. He put this on her back and a rope around her neck. 'Will the master be angry if I ride her?' he asked. "I told him that she was first ridden only three months before to-day, and that she must not be ridden more than fifty miles now in a day. "He looked a long time at me, then said he would not ride farther than that. Then he went galloping down the road to the south." "Good!" said the master, and sent a long whistle from the patio; it was pitched as shrill and small as the scream of a hawk when the hawk itself cannot be seen in the sky. Zacharias ran into the house, and when he came out again bringing a pad Glani was already in the patio. David took the pad and cinched it on the back of the stallion. "And when Shakra began to gallop," said Zacharias, "Benjamin cried out." "What did he say?" "Nothing." "Zacharias, men do not cry out without speaking." "Nevertheless," said Zacharias, "it was like the cry of a wolf when they hunt along the cliffs in winter and see the young horses and the cattle in the Garden below them. It was a cry, and there was no spoken word in it." The master bit his lip. "Abraham has been talking folly to you," he said; and, springing on the back of the stallion, he raced out of the patio and on to the south road with his long, black hair whipping straight out behind his head. At length the southern wall rose slowly over the trees, and a deep murmur which had begun about them as soon as they left the house, light as the humming of bees, increasing as they went down the valley, now became a great rushing noise. It was like a great wind in sound; one expected the push of a gale, coming out from the trees, but there was only the river which ran straight at the cliff, split solid rock, and shot out of sunlight into a black cavern. Beside this gaping mouth of rock stood Connor with Shakra beside him. Twice the master called, but Connor could not hear. The tumbling river would have drowned a volley of musketry. Only when David touched his shoulder did Connor turn a gloomy face. They took their horses across the bridge which passed over the river a little distance from the cliff, and rode down the farther side of the valley until the roar sank behind them. A few barriers of trees reduced it to the humming which on windless days was picked up by echoes and reached the house of David with a solemn murmur. "I thought you would rest," said David, when they were come to a place of quiet, and the horses cantered lightly over the road with that peculiar stride, at once soft and reaching, which Connor was beginning to see as the chief characteristic of the Eden Gray. "I have rested more in two minutes on the back of Shakra than I could rest in two hours on my bed." It was like disarming a father by praise of his son. "She has a gentle gait," smiled David.