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 of them. Thirty miles
the first day, he said, and fifty the second day; for by this division
he would leave twenty-five miles for the third day; and Joseph learnt
that the captain had arranged the journey in this wise for the sake of