kept up with the matchless speed of the tall camel only at times, and
Laodice, dully sensing that they were going at hot haste, realized
that a race was on between them and the pestilence. Momus was wielding
the goad for a run to the frosts.

A camel raced up beside Aquila.

"Look!" the woman said to him in a lowered tone, showing back over the
road by which they had come. Aquila turned in his saddle and looked.
Momus rose in his seat and looked. Behind them only one camel rocked
along in their wake. The other and its driver had disappeared.

"Deserted!" Aquila exclaimed under his breath.

"Three!" the woman said.

"A pest on your counting for a Charon's toll-taker!" Aquila whispered
savagely. "We will have no more of it!"

"No?" the woman said with a meaning that made the pagan shiver.

Momus laid goad about his camel.

The way continually ascended toward the east; the soil was no longer
sandy, but rocky; no longer given up to desolate gardens, but black
with groves of cedars and highland shrubs. They swung off a plateau
that would have ended in a cliff, down a shaly sheep-path into a wady.
Under the moonlight, the bottom was seen to be scarred with marks of
hoof and wheel. It debouched suddenly into a Roman road, straight,
level, magnificently built and running as a bird flies on to