Part 2

His mother was weeping now and she did not answer, so he ran his fingers lightly over the strings and began singing in a sad beautiful voice through the night.

“We have seen many colors together, The color of the dying moon, the turquoise of men’s lips in death, So we need wear no colors; We can draw our shaggy coats around us And sleepily, sle-e-e-e-e-pily, sleep-i-i-i-i-i-ly, dr-o-w-s-i-l-y, _d-r-o-w_-sily, s-m-i-i-i-i-i-le.

“At the halting places We drink at bright pools by the trees; Our coats are the color of drought and sand. Does it matter? Oh, child, does it matter? In our humps we carry a treasure of crystal and diamond-white water; Jewel box of the desert, my son, you hold dreams Of topaz and emerald, ruby and pearl, Like nothing at all in your h-e-a-r-t, in your _h-e-a-r-t_.”

No sooner had he finished than two camel drivers came to where they were seated under the trees, and without speaking a word one of them put a rope around the youngest camel’s neck. He was so surprised that he simply stood there looking at them in amazement, but his mother understood at once what was taking place, and she raised herself quickly from her knees and said to him in a soft voice:--

“Do not resist them. Go quietly.”

As they led him away, she hurried after him, calling:--

“Be brave, my son. Think of me and remember all I have told you.”

To stop the noise she was making, one of the men turned and raised his whip and struck her sharply on the soft part of her nose. She jumped back with a little cry of pain, but long after they had started out across the dark desert, the bewildered little camel could hear her voice calling and calling to him:--

“Go quietly! Do not struggle! Do not forget me! Perhaps one day we shall find each other again!”

_III_

The two men led the youngest camel far, far out into the desert, and after a long time, when they seemed to be out of sight and hearing of any living thing, they gave him the command to lie down. He kneeled obediently before them, and then they unwound the ropes from around their waists and pushed him over on his side, and while one camel driver sat on him, the other began hastily to bind him. They drew his hind legs roughly forward and knotted them tightly to his forelegs, and he never dreamed of kicking or protesting. He had been brought up to look on man as master, for his mother had always told him this was one of the unalterable truths.

So he lay there very meekly on one side and allowed them to pass the ropes around his body and draw them fast. He did not utter a sound, but his heart was filled with fear. He was fastened so firmly that he could scarcely breathe, and his ankles seemed almost cut in half, but still he did not think to struggle. When their work was done, the camel drivers each gave him a parting kick or two and then went off in the direction from which they had come. He tried to raise his head a little from the sand and with his eyes follow their retreat through the starlit night. But after a moment the two shapes muffled in their flowing robes were lost in the darkness, and as the little camel realized he was alone, he uttered one sudden terrible scream.

He had no intention of making a fuss or calling a lot of attention to himself, but now he knew beyond any doubt that this was the ordeal of loneliness at last and he could not control the shaking and the quaking and the sobs which shook his frame. All about him lay the warm desert silence, and there was no smell anywhere of other camels or of man. He strained his ears until he thought they would fall from his head for some sound of bells or perhaps the faintest echo of his mother’s voice still calling out to him, but everything was as quiet as the tomb.

After some time had passed like this, he began kicking with all his strength. This was not such an easy matter, either, because his feet were very firmly tied. But he doubled up his legs as best he could and then shot them savagely out. All this served no purpose, however. In fact, it seemed to draw the cords tighter and tighter around his neck and shoulders and it certainly made the knots cut deeper into his anklebones. So presently he gave that up and tried lifting himself by pushing one shoulder and one hip hard against the ground. But this got him no further, and added to everything else he had now got sand into both his eyes, and his mouth was filled as well. In his misery, he tried to remember all the things his mother had told him as they lay under the oasis trees at night. Once she had said to him:--

“If a camel falls ill or is overcome with old age while crossing the desert, the men unsaddle and unload him and divide his pack among the others, and then he is abandoned. They leave him alone there to die, kicking hour after hour against death, while his friends are forced on, screaming aloud with terror and despair and trying to look back over their shoulders at him as they go.”

“If the truth is so terrible as all that,” he had said to his mother, “I don’t see why anyone pays any attention to it. I think it would be much better to make up something else instead.”

And another night his mother had said to him--

“If a camel does not have the smell of his own kind about him, he is horribly frightened. But this is such a foolish thing, if you really stop and think about it, that wise camels have taught themselves to master their fear.” And another time his mother had said: “If we camels have silence in our ears, that is another thing that drives us out of our minds with fright. Perhaps that is the reason they hang bells around our necks or perhaps that is why you like to sing so loud at night when everything is still.”

Remembering her words, the little camel began to sing in a high quavering voice. He was in such a state of nerves that he didn’t know what words he sang, and the tune kept changing from one thing to another, and he couldn’t manage to keep on the right key. But still he went on singing and singing, making up songs about nothing lasting forever, and about the swiftness of time passing.

“All the time I am singing [was what he sang], Time is passing, passing, passing. The ordeal of loneliness will be over before I know it. The camel drivers will come back and fetch me And I’ll run as fast as I can to Aqsu and find my mother--”

But when he reached the word “mother” his voice rose to a high wail and the tears rushed into his eyes and down his cheeks. Very soon after this, he must have cried himself to sleep, and when he awoke the sun was already rising. He rolled his eyes around in bewilderment a moment, and then he felt the ropes fast on his legs and neck still and the sand gritting in his teeth, and he knew where he was and why he was there. As the sun rose, it beat hotter and hotter on him and the sky seemed to be on fire above him and the sand on fire underneath him, and it is very probable that he became delirious as noon approached.

At one moment he thought he heard the faraway tinkling of camel bells and he tried to call out, but he could not. A little later, he thought he saw pomegranate flowers and fruit hanging on cool leafy branches before his eyes. Hour after hour passed and he lay there gasping under the sun, and at times he believed that icy pools of water were just within reach, and at other times he thought that fresh ripe figs were just about to melt on his tongue. His eyes were glazing as his fever rose, and his mind was filled with visions of strange and beautiful things. With his parched black lips he kept repeating:--

“Music’s invisible, memory’s invisible, love’s invisible,” and in the same faint voice he whispered: “Even hope’s invisible, but it must be there just the same--”

As he uttered these words, he heard a gentle sigh like a breeze stirring the air, and the next instant a hand was laid on his forehead. He looked up through the blinding waves of heat and he saw a man standing beside him and leaning over to stroke him, but strangely enough there was no smell of man in his nostrils.

“This must be another vision,” he said to himself, but at once the man began speaking to him in a sweet musical voice.

“I’ve been waiting around for seventeen hours for you to say that,” said the man, and for some inexplicable reason he spoke a language which the youngest camel understood with ease.

“Say what?” he murmured, and the man crossed his legs under him and sat down on the sand. Then he lifted the little camel’s head and laid it on his silk-clad knees and stroked back his hair as a mother might have done.

“I’ve been waiting for you to say the word ‘hope,’” he answered, “because as soon as you said that you proved you hadn’t given up, and then I was able to become visible and rescue you.”

“Who are you?” asked the little camel. He was almost too weak to keep his eyes open now, but he felt the man loosening the ropes that bound him and this gave him courage to speak.

“Oh, I’m one of Mohammed’s sons,” the man said casually. “I’m one of the youngest and not one of the important ones. This year I’ve been given all the camels to keep an eye on. That’s why I’m here.” All the time he talked he kept undoing the ropes and drawing them from under the little camel’s hot body and shaking them off his ankles. “If only you’d mentioned the word ‘hope’ sooner I could have let you free hours and hours ago. You see, ‘hope’ is the one word that lets me become human for a little while and help camels when they have been bound up like this by men. I had to stick around here quite invisible until you said that one particular word. One of the laws is that I’m not allowed to make any suggestions, no matter how much else I have to do. So you can see what a lot of time I have to waste just waiting.”

“Why is the word ‘hope’ magic?” asked the youngest camel, stretching out one stiff leg to see if it still could move. And now Mohammed’s son lifted the little camel’s head up again and laid it against his shoulder while he shook the remaining cords away. When he did this, the little camel saw that he was young and very handsome. He was wearing a silk turban with pearls and turquoises embroidered on it, and carved gold ornaments hung from his ears, and there was a look of great gentleness in his face.

“Well, you see, _h_ stands for ‘help,’ and _o_ stands for ‘O,’ and _p_ stands for ‘power,’ and _e_ stands for ‘eternal,’” he said so lightly and merrily that he seemed to be making fun of something. He took out a little ivory flask from his garments and poured some fresh water between the little camel’s burning lips. “So when you say ‘hope’ like that, you’re really saying ‘Help, O power eternal!’ And that means me because I’ve been appointed your patron saint this year.”

The youngest camel was feeling so much better by this time that, assisted by Mohammed’s son, he was able to get to his knees and look around him. But there was nothing at all to see as far as the eye could reach but the empty sky and the wastes of sand. Feeling a bit dizzy still, the little camel looked up into the young man’s face and tried to smile.

“I’m sorry I can’t give you anything to eat,” Mohammed’s son went on as he patted the little camel’s cheek affectionately. “But it’s really too difficult to travel around invisible with a lot of mimosa branches and bones and things hanging on me. But if you feel strong enough now, I can start you off in the direction for Aqsu. I’m sure you won’t have any trouble at all in finding your way.”

“Oh, please, don’t leave me alone! Please stay with me until I find my mother and the caravan again!” the youngest camel pleaded. But Mohammed’s son shook his head at him and gently smiled.

“I can’t run around after you like a nursemaid,” he said. “You see, there are lots and lots of other young camels in just the same situation as you were in when I came along, and I have to rescue them too if it’s not too late. Only most of them are so stupid or have been so obstinate about not listening to what older camels say that I can’t do anything for them. They just won’t use the word ‘hope,’ so I usually have to leave them there bound up.” The little camel thought to himself that certainly no one had ever been able to call him stupid in his whole life, and he began to feel rather pleased with himself again. “My father made a rule,” Mohammed’s son went on, “that the guardian of the camels could only bring help to those whom men had tied up in knots; therefore, no matter what happens to you, I won’t be able to help you any further. But I’m sure nothing can possibly happen to you now if you listen carefully to my directions and do exactly what I say.”

The little camel was able to stand now and even to walk without too much difficulty, and Mohammed’s son led him a little farther into the desert. All the time he talked lightly and happily to him as they went.

“Now, the thing to keep in mind is that you must follow the sun,” he said. “If you do that, and run very fast, you will be in Aqsu just as night is beginning to fall. Remember not to let the sun show either over your right shoulder or over your left, and don’t let the heat of the sun fall warm on your tail. That will mean you are going in quite the wrong direction. About twenty miles from Aqsu you’ll come to a lovely oasis with hundreds of herons bathing in the waters and flamingos flying through the luxuriant glades. When you reach that oasis, you will know for certain that you haven’t much farther to go. If you do as I say,” said the young man, stopping and putting one arm around the youngest camel’s neck, “you can’t possibly make a mistake.”

The little camel began to wonder if he had ever in his entire life made a mistake, and he really couldn’t think of a single time he had. But now Mohammed’s son was saying farewell, and the little camel cried out:--

“Oh, thank you a thousand times! Thank you, thank you!”

“Now you must repeat after me the word which restores me to godhead,” the young man said. “For it is past time for me to go.”

“What is the word?” the youngest camel asked, and the other replied:--

“Pernod.”

“What does it mean? What does per--” the little camel began, curiously, but Mohammed’s son interrupted him:--

“Don’t say it or I’ll disappear at once and then I won’t be able to tell you! _Pe_ stands for ‘power eternal’ just as before, and _rnod_ stands for ‘reign near our dreams.’ I never liked the word ‘reign’ much, but my father thought it added dignity to the formula so we let him have his way. So now repeat it after me--_P-e-r-n-o-d_.”

“Oh, please let me thank you again,” the little camel said, “and, please, wouldn’t it be possible for you to let my mother know that I’m--”

“Good gracious,” said the young man, “you mustn’t think about yourself all the time the way you do! I have so much work to do I really haven’t the time to rush around with personal messages to camels’ mothers--”

“I’m sorry,” said the youngest camel, and this time when Mohammed’s son smiled at him and said the word he repeated it at once: “Pernod!”

As soon as the syllables had passed his lips, the handsome youth waved his hand in farewell and vanished from sight. Without wasting another instant, the little camel turned his head towards the sun and, his heart singing with hope in him, began to run as fast as he possibly could across the stretches of white desert in the direction of Aqsu.

_IV_

By four o’clock in the afternoon the little camel was still running hard, but now he had begun to slacken his pace a little, for it seemed to him that some sort of object was appearing on the horizon far, far away. Whatever it was, it was decidedly to one side and not at all in the direction of the sun where the handsome youth had told him the oasis would be. As he ran he kept glancing out of the corner of one eye at the dark object that seemed to be growing bigger and bigger over his left shoulder, and he kept asking himself what in the world it could be.

After a while his curiosity got the best of him and he stopped running entirely and turned halfway around and gave the dark thing a good long stare. And then he really began to suspect it was the oasis. It looked exactly like an oasis. He was sure he could make out the tops of the trees against the sky. It was certainly the oasis. In another minute he had turned all the way around, and even though he felt the light of the sun falling warm on his tail, he was convinced it was the oasis.

He thought he could even make out tiny black specks hovering above it.

“Those are probably the herons and the flamingos,” he said to himself. “Mohammed’s son said there were hundreds of them there.”

So without any further hesitation he started running again, but this time in an entirely different direction from the one in which Mohammed’s son had told him he should go. Faster and faster he sped towards the perfectly clear oasis ahead, and now the sun was shining well over his right shoulder.

“Mohammed’s son certainly didn’t know what he was talking about,” he said with a little snort of laughter. “It’s evident even to an idiot that the oasis is over there right in front of me and not in the direction of the sun in the slightest.”

In half an hour at the most, he thought, he would be snuggling down against his mother among the fresh grasses of the oasis twenty miles this side of Aqsu. He knew he was absolutely right and he began complimenting himself on his quick eyes and wits. Most young camels would have gone right on and never noticed what fools they were making of themselves, he thought with satisfaction.

“It just shows,” he said to himself, “that it doesn’t pay to believe everything you’re told.”

He was so pleased with himself that he began to whistle as he ran. He whistled treble and bass and, by curling his tongue up against his lower teeth, managed to do some double-stops. And now that he made out what looked exactly like branches of palm trees waving against the sky ahead, he gave a few little hops and skips of joy.

Before he had gone much farther a flock of herons came flying across the heavens towards him, and as they came near to him they circled lower, so low in fact that he could see their long legs dangling in the air behind them as they flew. The sight of such a baby camel running so fast and quite alone across the sands made them circle closer and closer above him in wonder, and at last the leader of the herons called down:--

“Where are you going so fast, four-footed child?”

The youngest camel was a bit annoyed at being called a child by birds he had never laid eyes on before, and he tossed his head rather insolently as he answered:--

“I’m going to the oasis which my mother is passing through with her caravan. If they’ve started on by the time I get there, I’ll run straight on to Aqsu.”

“You’ve lost your way, four-footed child!” the herons called down in chorus. “We’re going to the oasis for the night. Watch us and follow where we go.”

“But I can see the oasis as clear as day ahead!” the little camel cried out impatiently. “You must be blind as bats, old birds! Can’t you see the palms and the--”

“You’ve lost your way!” the leader of the herons called down to him again as she swept above him and beckoned with one wing. But the youngest camel went running on in his own direction as fast as he could go.

“They’re just as stupid as I always thought,” said the little camel to himself. “They can’t see two inches in front of their big beaks, the silly-looking creatures!”

The flock of them swerved over him once more, calling to him to come, and then they flew off, their legs floating on the air behind them. He glanced around to watch them go, and in a few moments they were nothing but tiny specks against the sky, and presently they were lost completely in the sun’s dying light. When the little camel looked back at the oasis again, he saw to his surprise that for some reason it was not a bit nearer than it had been before. He could see the palms clearly enough, and the birdlike shapes hovering above, but he certainly was no closer to it, though all the time he had been running fast.

His legs were beginning to feel tired now, and his feet hot and sore, and he suddenly felt angry with everyone and everything. He kicked viciously at the sand as he ran, and after another little while, as if he must put the blame on someone, he looked back over his right shoulder and stuck out his tongue and wrinkled his nose up at the sun. The whole world was turning pink now at the end of day, and the wide desert was glowing with the sun’s last light. There was the oasis still, not so very far away, and yet mysteriously just as far as it had ever been.

As the youngest camel went running on in discouragement, a flock of flamingos came winging towards him, their feathers and their legs colored like the petals of a rose. When they saw such a baby camel running so desperately across the wastes of sand, they circled several times above him, their legs hanging down like brilliant satin ribbons, and the leader called down:--

“Where are you going so fast, four-footed child?” and he answered in irritation:--

“I don’t see why you have to ask such a stupid question! Can’t you see I’m going to the oasis?”

But he was so tired now that he stopped running while he talked to them, and stood stamping his foot in the sand.

“You have lost your way, four-footed child!” the flamingos all called out to him in chorus. “We are going to the oasis! Follow us and we will show you!”

They wheeled once above him, calling out to him to follow, and then they flapped slowly off in the direction of the setting sun. He stood looking after them rather wistfully for a moment, and then he tossed his head and turned back towards the oasis. It seemed to him now to be even farther away than ever, and tears came into his eyes.

“I’m _sure_ I couldn’t have made a mistake,” he said stubbornly. “I’m sure I couldn’t be wrong. It’s absolutely impossible.”

“Why in the world should that be impossible?” asked a clear little trilling voice very close to his ear, and when he looked quickly around him he saw that scores of brightly feathered little birds were flying and darting in the air about his head. From the feeling of it, some of them had certainly alighted on his hump and some on the back of his neck, and there they were all chattering and chirping together. The bird who had spoken to him was no bigger than a pear leaf, but its feathers were brighter than a peacock’s. In company with others just like it, it spun and darted on the air before him, humming and whistling and eying him sharply and curiously.

“I haven’t made any mistakes yet in my life,” he said boldly. “I can’t think of a single time I’ve been wrong.”

At this, all the little birds uttered tiny shrieks of laughter and swayed back and forth on their perches on his spinal column and on his neck and on the top of his head. To his annoyance he realized that some of them were swinging and shrieking with laughter on his tail, and he thrashed it angrily from side to side.

“Well, if you’re so smart and know so much about me,” he said furiously, “tell me once when I’ve done something I shouldn’t! I’m sure you can’t think of a single time. I know I’m a very good singer because everyone I ever met said I was, and I’m a very good poet and I’m--”

“Oh, good heavens!” screamed the dozens and dozens of little birds all together, and their shrill laughter trilled and whistled all around him.

“There’s nothing at all to laugh at!” the youngest camel cried out, stamping his foot. “I’m simply telling you the truth--”

“Oh, my goodness!” shrieked all the birds again.