The road led along a dike raised above fields which, at this season of the year, were under water, and Hermon’s companion knew it well.

For a time both riders allowed themselves to be drenched in silence.  The water ran down upon them from their broad-brimmed hats, and their dripping horses trotted with drooping heads and steaming flanks one behind the other until, at the very brick-kiln where Ledscha had recalled her widowed sister’s unruly slaves to obedience, the guide stopped with an oath, and pointed to the water which had risen to the top of the dam, and in some places concealed the road from their eyes.

Now it was no longer possible to trot, for the guide was obliged to seek the traces of the dike with great caution.  Meanwhile the force of the pouring rain by no means lessened—­nay, it even seemed to increase—­and the horses were already wading in water up to their fetlocks.

But if the votive stones, the little altars and statues of the gods, the bushes and single trees along the sides of the dike road were overflowed while the travellers were in the region of the marsh, they would be obliged to interrupt their journey, for the danger of sinking into the morass with their horses would then threaten them.

Even at the brick-kiln travellers, soldiers, and trains of merchandise had stopped to wait for the end of the cloud-burst.

In front of the farmhouse, too, which Hermon and his companion next reached, they saw dozens of people seeking shelter, and the Midianite urged his master to join them for a short time at least.  The wisest course here was probably to yield, and Hermon was already turning his horse’s head toward the house when a Greek messenger dashed past the beckoning refuge and also by him.

“Do you dare to ride farther?” the artist shouted in a tone of warning inquiry to the man on the dripping bay, and the latter, without pausing, answered:  “Duty!  On business for the King!”

Then Hermon turned his steed back toward the road, beat the water from his soaked beard with the edge of his hand, and with a curt “Forward!” announced his decision to his companion.  Duty summoned him also, and what another risked for the King he would not fail to do for his friend.

The Midianite, shaking his head, rode angrily after him; but, though the violence of the rain was lessening, the wind began to blow with redoubled force, beating and lashing the boundless expanse of the quickly formed lake with such savage fury that it rolled in surges like the sea, and sweeping over it dense clouds of foam like the sand waves tossed by the desert tempests.

Sometimes moaning, sometimes whistling, the gusts of the hurricane drove the water and the travellers before it, while the rain poured from the sky to the earth, and wherever it struck splashed upward, making little whirlpools and swiftly breaking bubbles.

What might not Myrtilus suffer in this storm!  This thought strengthened Hermon’s courage to twice ride past other farmhouses which offered shelter.  At the third the horse refused to wade farther in such a tempest, so there was nothing to be done except spring off and lead it to the higher ground which the water had not yet reached.