was exactly what he knew would happen.'
'You are not alone,' Hui pointed out cheerfully. 'You have me.' This was the first time that my feelings began to warm towards the young swaggerer. We divided the load of ropes and the leather bags of crushed corn, and we went on.
By this time the tracks of the horses were three days old, but they had stayed together in a single herd and so had beaten a road that was easy to follow. Hui assured me that the herd instinct was strong amongst them, and that with such lush grazing along the river-bank, they would not have wandered far. He was certain they would not have gone out into the desert, as I had feared that they might.
'Why would they do that? There is no food or water for them out there.' And in the .end Hui proved right.
With the coming of the Hyksos, the peasants had deserted their farms and gone into the shelter of the walled towns. The fields were untended and the com half-grown. We found the herd before noon the second day. It was spread out and grazing peacefully in one of the fields. Even after my experience with the wounded stallion, I was still rather nervous of these mysterious creatures.
'It will surely be a difficult and dangerous matter to capture a few of them,' I confided in Hui, seeking his reassurance and advice. At this stage, the notion of capturing all three hundred horses had not even occurred to me. I would have been satisfied with twenty, and delighted with fifty of them. I imagined that we would be forced to run each of them down and bind it with the ropes we had brought with us for that purpose.
'I have heard that you have the reputation of being a very clever slave,' Hui grinned at me, cocky and delighted by his superior understanding of the subject. 'Clearly, it is a reputation that is ill-founded.'
He showed me how to twist and braid a halter from the ropes. We made a dozen of these before he was satisfied. Then each of us armed himself with one of these and a leather sack of crushed corn, and we started towards the grazing herd. Following Hui's example, we never walked directly towards them, but strolled obliquely at a leisurely pace past the animals in the fringe of the herd.
'Slowly now,' Hui cautioned me, when they flung up then-heads and studied us with that peculiarly frank and almost childlike gaze that I would come to know so well.
'Sit down.' We sank into the standing corn and remained motionless, until the horses started feeding again. Then we moved forward until they became restless once more.
'Down,' Hui ordered, and when we were crouched in the corn, he went on, 'They love the sound of a gentle voice. When I was a child, I sang to my horses to quieten them. Watch this!' He started to sing a refrain in a strange language, which I presumed was the barbaric tongue of his childhood captors.
Hui's voice was as melodious as the squawking of crows squabbling over the rotting carcass of a dead dog. The nearest horses stared at us curiously. I laid my hand on Hui's arm to quieten him. I was certain that the herd must find his efforts at song as distressing as I did.
'Let me try,' I whispered. I sang the lullaby that I had composed for my prince.
Sleep, little Mem, who rules the dawn,
sleep, little prince, who will rule the world,
rest that curly head, filled with wondrous dreams,
rest those arms, make them strong for sword and bow.
One of the mares closest to us took a few steps towards me, and when she stopped, she made that same soft fluttery sound with her lips. She was inquisitive, and I sang on softly and seductively. She had a foal at her heels, a lovely little bay-coloured creature with an appealing head and pricked-up ears.
With my special feeling for and understanding of birds and animals, I was already beginning to recognize the desirable points of breed in these new animals. I was learning swiftly and instinctively how to deal with them. I was no longer completely reliant on Hui to instruct me.
Still singing gently, I scooped up a handful of the crushed cornmeal and held it out to the mare. I could see at once that she had been hand-fed before, and that she understood my offer. She blew noisily through wide nostrils, and took another few paces towards me. Even now I can remember the thrill that almost stopped the beating of my heart when she took the last pace up to me, and delicately lowered her muzzle into my hand to taste the white meal. It powdered her whiskers as she ate, and I laughed with the joy and excitement of it. She made no effort to pull away from me as I slipped my other arm around her neck and laid my cheek softly against hers to inhale the strange, warm smell of her hide.
'The halter,' Hui reminded me softly, and I slipped it over her head, as he had shown me.
'She is yours,' Hui said.
'And I am hers,' I replied without thinking, but it was true. We had captured each other.
The rest of the herd had watched all this. As soon as the halter was on the mare, they settled down and trustingly allowed Hui and me to walk freely amongst them. They came to eat from the hand and allowed us to lift their hooves and stroke their necks and massive shoulders.
All this seemed to me at the time to be miraculous, but after only a little consideration I realized that it was quite natural. They were accustomed from birth to being handled and petted, to being fed and harnessed. They had lived always with the close and constant presence of man. The true miracle came later, when I realized that they recognized affection, and that they were able to return it in full measure.
Hui had selected and haltered one of the other mares, all the time lecturing me and displaying his learning and experience in matters equine. I was in such a euphoric mood that for once his bumptiousness did not annoy me.
'Very well,' he said at last, 'we will mount up now.' And to my utter astonishment he placed both hands on his mare's back, drew himself up and flung one leg over her, to sit astride her back. I gawked at him in disbelief, expecting the mare to react violently; $o rear up and dash Hui to earth, or, at the very least, to seize his naked leg in those powerful white teeth and drag him from his perch. She did none of these things, but stood quietly and subserviently.
'Hi up, my darling!' he called to her, and dug his heels into her ribs. The mare started forward obediently; and when he urged her on again she broke into a trot and then a gallop. Hui guided her effortlessly in a manner that was not then apparent to me. Horse and rider traced out elegant patterns of movement across the field, and then circled
