“The first, as they hurried along, was saying in fearful undertones:
“ ‘They have not yet a camel among them! Yet camels they must have or the terrible sentence will be pronounced!’
“ ‘Yes!’ returned his companion in a horrified whisper, ‘I fear greatly for my relatives in that town, and I am proceeding there to make certain that they shall have at least one camel in so terrible a time! For if a sufficiency of camels is not there by tomorrow noon I hear they are all to be impaled!’
“So speaking in subdued accents of terror, little knowing they were overheard, they walked on while I followed and noted every word.
“My mind was immediately made up. I continued, with stealthy feet, to follow these two anxious beings who were so engrossed in the coming misfortunes of their native place. At last, when we had come to an empty space where three streets met, I caught them up and faced them. Accosting them I said:
“ ‘Sirs, are you bound for such and such a place?’ (naming a town of which they could never have heard—for indeed it did not exist).
“They stopped and looked at me in surprise.
“ ‘No, sir,’ they answered me together, ‘we are bound in all haste for our native place which is threatened with a great calamity. Its name is Mawur, but, alas, it is far distant from us—a matter of some twenty leagues—the desert lies between, and we shall hardly reach it within the day that remains. For we are poor men, and only with fast camels’ (at this word they glanced at each other and shuddered) ‘could the journey be accomplished in the time.’
“I thanked them politely, regretted that I had disturbed them for so little, proceeded with the utmost haste to my caravan, inquired the road for Mawur (the track for which lay plain through the scrub and across the sand), and hastened with the utmost dispatch all that burning day and all the succeeding night without repose, until at dawn I passed with my exhausted train through the gates of the city. I had covered in twenty hours twice as many leagues.
“Five of my beasts I left upon the road; and some few of my slaves—how many I had not yet counted—had fallen out and would presumably die in the desert. But there was a good remainder.
“Unfortunately I was not alone in my venture, for I discovered that early as was the hour another man had arrived already with two camels and was standing with them under the dawn in the marketplace. Poor beasts they were, and bearing every mark of fatigue. But I was determined upon a monopoly. I had hoped from the conversation I had overheard that not a single camel would be present in the place. I would secure myself against even the slightest competition. I approached the leader of the two sorry camels and asked him there and then what he would take for his cattle. He stared at me for a moment, but to my astonishment when I offered him for a beginning the derisory price of ten pieces of gold, he accepted at once, put the coins into his pouch, smiled evilly, and moved off at a great pace.
“To my chagrin there approached within a very few moments yet another peasant, leading this time but one camel, a rather finer beast than the others. I hoped, I believed, he would be the last. I made haste to follow the same tactics with him as with the first. Like the first he took the five gold pieces without so much as bargaining, but he looked me up and down strangely before shrugging his shoulders and taking himself off hastily down a side lane.
“And then (the people beginning to drift into the street as the day rose) appeared a man leading not less than ten camels in a file. I was seriously alarmed, but I bethought me of my reading: how all great fortunes had been acquired by speculation, how caution and other petty virtues were the bane of true trade. I boldly approached him and offered him my remaining gold for the whole bunch. Instead of meeting my offer with a higher claim, he asked to look narrowly at the pieces, and then looked as narrowly into my face. He took one of the gold pieces and bit it. He stooped and rang it upon the cobblestones. He determined apparently that it was good, and without another word took my gold, appealed to those around us as witnesses to the transaction, handed me the leading cord, and with a burst of laughter ran off at top speed.
“Here, then, was I with my thirteen new camels and what was left of my original caravan. I will not deny that I was somewhat disturbed in mind; but I could only trust in Allah. I did so with the utmost fervour, and implored Him to consider His servant, and to see to it that not another camel should reach the town before I began to sell.
“But what is man? What is he that he should order the movements of the Most High?
“I lifted up my eyes and saw approaching down the narrowness of the street a file of certainly not less than one hundred camels led by a great company of ragged men and walking with that insolent and foolish air which this beast affects and which at such a moment provoked me to rage.
“Then a slave, trembling lest he should give me offence, bade me come apart with him where steps led up the city wall. These I climbed, and from the summit I saw a sight that broke my heart.
“For there, across the
