The story centers on two world-traveling Jewish bandits who style themselves with the euphemism "gentlemen of the road." Amram is a hulking Abyssinian (African) who is equally proficient with an axe as a game of shatranj; he is haunted by the disappearance of his daughter many years ago. His companion is Zelikman, a Frankish (German) physician who uses an oversized bloodletting lancet as a rapier. Zelikman has a morbid personality due to the trauma of watching his family slaughtered in a pogrom.