_The Youngest Camel_
[Illustration: “_Now we have brought you to the pathway between the
winds._”]
THE YOUNGEST CAMEL
By Kay Boyle
[Illustration]
With illustrations by
FRITZ KREDEL
BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY
1939
COPYRIGHT 1939, BY KAY BOYLE
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THE RIGHT
TO REPRODUCE THIS BOOK OR PORTIONS
THEREOF IN ANY FORM
FIRST EDITION
_Published August 1939_
THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS BOOKS
ARE PUBLISHED BY
LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY
IN ASSOCIATION WITH
THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
_For Pegeen, Bobby, Apple-Joan,
Kathe, and Clover Vail_
ILLUSTRATIONS
“_Now we have brought you to the pathway between the
winds._” Frontispiece
_The little camel said nothing at all, but simply
followed in her footsteps_ 22
_He lay there very meekly on one side_ 28
_And then they flew off, their legs floating on the air behind
them_ 44
“_It’s much wiser to be polite to everyone I meet, because one
never knows._” 54
_The little camel took another uncertain step towards the tent_ 68
_The Youngest Camel_
[Illustration]
_I_
The beginning of the caravan’s trip was made through lovely country,
through regions in which flowers such as tea roses and white and purple
iris bloomed. When the caravan came through villages, boys ran out
barefoot and half-naked to sell fruit to the travelers: baskets of
peaches, pears, and melons. All the forty camels wore bells, each one
several little silver-tongued bells attached to the harness he wore
around his neck. The youngest camel was the only one who did not carry
a bell, nor a load on his back. This was the first trip he had ever
made across the desert and he followed close behind his mother. As long
as she was there before him, he felt quite pleased with himself and not
at all fearful of all the sights he saw.
After several days the caravan, like every other caravan that took this
route, entered the badlands. Here the older camels fell into sudden
rages and spat if anyone approached them. If the camel drivers jerked
their nose cords, they flung their legs about and tottered as if they
were about to faint. Now and then, towards sundown, when the hour to
halt seemed near, they screamed aloud like humans. But the camels grew
quieter as soon as the desert began and they felt their feet deep in
the hot slipping sand.
The early mornings were now a clear icy blue, but as the day advanced
the heat blazed up as if a fire were sweeping across the heavens
towards them. The youngest camel didn’t mind how hot it was and he
had such a good opinion of his own strength that he thought he could
never possibly get tired. He came skipping and jumping along behind
his mother, playing games with himself and laughing out loud when the
dry sand ran swift as water between his toes. But when his mother
complained of the terrible heat and the long way they had to go, he
lifted his soft dark eyes and looked at her long legs before him, and
her tail, and he thought: I love her. I love her elbows with the hair
worn off them, like the old carpet the snake charmer sits on in the
market place; I love the way her hump slumps when she has no more water
in it, and I love the way her tail is eaten by the moths because she
forgot to put it in camphor once about fifty years ago.
He was a very poetic young camel and rather musical besides. He had a
beautiful singing voice, and in the evenings when they halted at an
oasis he liked to play the harp and sing to her. Most of his songs were
about himself and his own beauty and grace, but sometimes at night his
songs were so tender in his love for her that she had to rise from her
knees and break off great leaves from the banana trees and dry the
tears from her aging face.
On the fifteenth night they halted at an oasis where the poplars and
mimosas grew in great profusion, and where hares and antelope moved
shyly in the cool green gorges. The stars were sprinkled out as fine as
salt across the bluish night sky. The youngest camel lay close beside
his mother in the moist grasses, and she said to him:--
“Flower of my heart, this trip you have followed close beside me, for
you are my baby still, but soon you must prepare yourself for what will
surely come. Perhaps when we reach the end of our journey you will be
taken from me, and from then on you will travel with strange camels,
carrying a load of your own.”
“A baby?” said the youngest camel in surprise, feeling a little
annoyed. “Me, a baby?”
“Yes,” said his mother sadly, “and so, my earliest leaf, you will have
to undergo the ordeal of loneliness.”
“What in the world is that?” asked the young camel, and he reached out
for his harp and lightly touched its strings.
“The ordeal of loneliness is the thing we camels fear the most,” said
his mother, and he sat listening to her rather impatiently, swinging
his little golden chin back and forth as he chewed on a bit of grass.
“Men have found out,” she went on, lowering her voice, “that what we
fear above everything else is being left alone. So they take us one by
one when we are very young like you, and they tie us fast and leave
us in solitude three days and three nights in the desert. If we live
through that and keep our reason, then we’re cured. After that we no
longer fear the terrible sight of nothingness around us. But sometimes
we do not live through it. You must be prepared for that.”
“What, me?” said the youngest camel with a laugh. “Do you think I’ll
mind? Why, not at all. I’m a little bit afraid of fire, and I don’t
quite like things that lie still and refuse to move any more. But
generally I’m much more brave than other young camels, and I couldn’t
possibly be afraid of being alone!”
He was so close to his mother’s side that this seemed like a fairy
story she told him. And all around them the oasis was filled with
sleeping life. Near the trees, the mules stood tethered, their tails
swinging back and forth in the warm night air. Against the starry sky,
the necks and heads of the forty kneeling camels stood out, peaceful as
statues. Danger seemed a thing too far away to think of, even.
“Yes,” his mother went on as she smoothed his hair back from his brow.
“At first you will be very much afraid, but you must try to remember
there is nothing really to fear. Remember, it is only the beating of
our own hearts that makes us tremble.”
The young camel laughed a little in contempt at the idea of being
afraid of anything at all, and then he began to draw music from his
harp. No one moved, nothing stirred except the mules’ tails slowly
waving in the tall grass, but his mother began to cry silently while he
sang.
_The Youngest Camel’s Song_
When I am fourteen I shall wear tassels on my cheeks,
And I shall dance for the Shah and the Lamas and the Raj
With a tambourine tied to my tail.
When they sprinkle coins before me and wash my hoofs in milk,
I shall return to you rich from their palaces,
Running fast as a king deer to you with jewels in his antlers.
I shall know you at once, no matter how many years have passed over,
Because you have no upper teeth any more
And because you have sores on your shoulders.
I shall bring you patches to wear on your old knees, Mother,
And ivory and basalt stronger than teeth
To fill up your naked mouth.
[Illustration]
_II_
The next morning the youngest camel awoke in high spirits and ran
quickly to brush his teeth in the oasis pool. He felt so reckless that
he swallowed all his toothbrush water on purpose, a thing his mother
had told him particularly he should never do. Then he gargled so loud
that nobody could hear the waterfall any more; so loud, in fact, that
the mules craned their heads around and looked critically over their
shoulders at him. Next he caught sight of a group of melancholy waders,
some of them looking in the water for frogs and some of them standing
mournfully on one leg in the shallows. So he crept along behind the
bushes and then jumped out at them with such a shout that he scared
them into fits before they collected themselves enough to spread their
wings and fly away.
His mother was not at all pleased at the way he was going on. The sun
was rising beyond the tamarisk trees and a day’s travel lay before
them, so naturally she was not feeling in quite such a sentimental mood
as on the night before. She kept darting black looks at him all the
time she was being saddled and packed, but she couldn’t get near enough
to him to say a word. He was dancing foolishly around with his harp and
making a spectacle of himself before the mules, who, although they did
not usually see anything funny in anything, had begun to show their
teeth in quick unhappy smiles.
And now the caravan started off again across the sand, accompanied by
the music of the camels’ silver bells. The young camel ran lightly
along beside his mother, humming under his breath something about
“love” and “the afternoon I met you” and “a love nest for two,” which
were words from a song everybody was singing that year.
“The trouble with you is that you just can’t see things as they really
are,” his mother said severely to him.
She reached out and tried to nip his ear, but he skipped quickly behind
her and there he began to play with her tail, leaping and skidding, the
way a kitten will bound after his mother’s tail if he is feeling full
of milk and bold as brass.
“Whoops!” he cried, making another flying leap after her tail as she
tossed it in irritation into the air. “And, anyhow, how _are_ things
_really_?”
“Don’t be absurd,” snapped his mother as she ambled along behind the
next camel’s hind legs and tail. “Things _are_ exactly as they _are_.”
The sun was rising higher above them, and every instant it grew hotter
until the heat seemed to have bleached all the color out of the sky.
“For instance, this sand is getting unbearably hot,” his mother went
on, “and there is no stopping place until we reach the oasis, which
will be about sundown. Also, there is a sore on my right hip which is
being rubbed at every step by my haunch strap. And, last but not least,
you are behaving like a perfect ninny. Such things _are_. Whether you
like it or not, you have to admit they’re _there_.”
“Where is _there_?” asked the youngest camel smartly, and his mother
answered:--
“_There_, of course, means _here_.”
“I don’t see how _there_ can be _here_ when _there_’s over there
somewhere,” said her son, and she answered shortly:--
“Don’t waste your time talking so ridiculously. One of the things that
doesn’t exist is the green vale I had always hoped to settle in. At my
time of life I ought to have a place like that where I could stretch
out and eat all the fresh vegetation I wanted and drink as much cool
water as I wanted--” The camel driver gave her mouth such a jerk that
she had to stop speaking for a moment, and then she added bitterly:
“That’s just one of the things that can never possibly be.”
“Why can’t it?” asked the youngest camel.
“Because it can’t,” snapped his mother. “Because your father didn’t
take out any life insurance. Because things _are_ or else they _are
not_.”
“What about the caravan of white camels with solid gold hoofs that goes
right around the earth like a belt?” asked the little camel, shifting
his harp on his shoulder.
“Hooey,” said his mother. “A lot of hooey.”
“But a llama told me that back in Hindustan,” her son insisted. “They
go right around the world through everything--cities, oceans, railway
carriages, skyscrapers. They keep on going all the time and nothing can
stop them and nobody except camels can see them. And whenever a camel
is lost anywhere in the world he only has to join the caravan of white
camels and in the end he’s bound to pass through his own country and
find his family again--”
“Don’t be an ass,” said his mother. Her feet were beginning to hurt her
very much. “You can be sure that’s one of the things that decidedly _is
not_.”
“The llama said he knew a camel who--” he began, but his mother
interrupted:--
“Llamas are notoriously untruthful.”
They went on in silence for a while, but presently the little camel
began asking questions again.
“What about the two sides of the weather that Mohammed has for a fan?”
he said to his mother. “The light blue side is turned towards him when
he feels like dancing and singing, and then the dark side is turned out
to us. And when he is in thought he fans himself with the dark side so
the light won’t disturb him. That’s how we have good and bad weather.”
“Absurd!” snapped his mother. “Sometimes the sun shines and sometimes
it doesn’t. That’s all there is to that story.”
“What about the sun being a pineapple with its skin taken off?” said
the youngest camel rather sadly.
“Bunkum!” said his mother as she ambled along before him.
“The peacock I met in Kerbela said bad weather came when the wind
blew hard and broke the pineapple off the branch and split it in five
hundred pieces,” the little camel said.
“There’s not a word of truth in that story either,” his mother said.
“You’re old enough now,” she added as the camel driver jerked up her
nose, “to begin recognizing the truth when you see it--”
But before she could say any more, the little camel cried out:--
“Oh, I’ve found the most wonderful thing you’ve ever seen! Oh, it’s so
marvelous! I found it--lying--right--here--in--the--sand--”
Because his voice grew fainter and fainter, she knew he must have
stopped behind her to pick up whatever it was, but when she tried
walking slower to give him time to catch up with her again, the camel
driver pulled fiercely at her reins. She could not so much as turn her
head to see what had become of the youngest camel, but she had to go
loping on with that queer human-looking smile on her lips which camels
usually wear.
But they had not gone very far before she heard her child panting
behind her, and in another moment he called out:--
“This time I’ve found a fortune! We’re going to be rich and happy
forever and you’ll never have to work again! It’s a string of wonderful
beads,” he said, dropping into step behind her. “Some of them are
carved and they’re all different colors, and they’re strung together on
a solid-silver chain. It must have been a prince who lost them on his
way to his wedding,” his excited voice went on. “I’m sure they must be
very valuable indeed.”
The sun was growing hotter and hotter in the heavens, and now his
mother, who was much older than anyone would have believed, was feeling
more than a little impatient. She couldn’t crane her neck around and
see what the youngest camel was up to, and her feet hurt her, and her
hip was rubbed quite raw.
“In the first place, they don’t belong to you,” she said to him in
annoyance. “You’ll have to turn them over to the police as soon as we
reach civilization.”
“Oh, but look!” cried the little camel, just as if it were possible for
her to turn her head and see. “There’s a bit of paper tied to them.
It says--let me see a minute,” he said, as if trying hard to make the
letters out--“it says, ‘Whoever finds these magic beads may keep them.’
So you see!” he cried out joyfully. “Now they belong to us and we can
sell them in the next city and you can have everything you want to
make you happy. You can have a parasol to keep the sun off you, and a
litter with curtains at the sides to be carried in by slaves, and you
can wear a solid gold ring in your nose every day, and I can have a big
mirror to watch myself in while I’m dancing, and--”
“Tell me what they look like,” said his mother, beginning to be a
little curious. “This brute is holding the cord so tight that I can’t
look around, but describe them to me.”
“Well, one is bright red,” said her son, following quickly behind her.
“The one next to it is green, and the next after that shines like a
diamond.” He talked very slowly, as if he were examining the necklace
closely as he came along. “And now I see something else!” he cried out
in fresh excitement. “Each one has a sort of message written in it,
carved right inside it in beautiful tiny lettering.”
“Ho, ho,” said his mother. “That’s probably why they’re called magic
beads.”
“Oh, yes, that must be it. I hadn’t thought of that,” said the youngest
camel in an innocent-sounding voice. “The jade one has written inside
it,” he went on slowly, as if he were having difficulty in making out
the words, “‘I am the green valley you long for. You may live in me
forever.’ And the topaz bead says, ‘I am a silk tent to protect you
from sandstorms and from winter and from the midday sun.’ And the ruby
one says, ‘I am blood to flow in your veins and the veins of those you
love. Thus you may live forever.’ And the--”
“Do any of them say anything about bones?” asked his mother, and the
little camel looked up with surprise.
“Bones?” he repeated.
“Yes, bones,” said his mother. “Perhaps I haven’t told you about that
yet, but if you don’t know it’s certainly high time you did. Although
we camels dread the smell or sight of death, there’s really nothing
nicer than being able to crunch the bones of a fallen relative later,
say three or four months after his demise when the flesh has fallen
quite off his bones. They taste very good,” she continued, almost
smacking her lips. “Like pretzels or salted almonds. It’s a great
comfort if you’ve lost someone dear to you to be able to munch him up
like that, and very good for the teeth and hoofs.”
“Oh, yes,” said the youngest camel, as if he had been searching
all this time for it and just found it in the string. “Here is a
pure-white bead, like ivory, and all around it there is written
something in gold. Yes--bones,” he murmured. “I do think it says
something about bones.”
“Read it quickly!” said his mother, and after a moment of hesitation
the little camel began reading aloud very slowly and uncertainly:--
“If it’s bones you want,
No longer hunt.
Just rub my--rub my cheek
And bones will creak.”
“Well, that’s really wonderful,” said his mother, and now she had
entirely forgotten about the heat and how sore her hip was and how long
a way they had still to go. “I’m half tempted to have you try it here,
only it might be a bit embarrassing--”
“Oh, I wouldn’t try it now, would you?” cried the little camel. “I
think it would be much better if we waited until this evening, because
if bones suddenly started creaking now the whole caravan would stop and
then they’d all see the beads around my neck--”
“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” said his mother. “But I can scarcely
wait to try. Now, tell me what’s written inside the diamond, darling.”
“Oh, the diamond,” said her son slowly and thoughtfully, exactly as if
he were having a good look for it among the other beads. “Well, it’s
rather difficult to make it out.”
“I should think it would be very easy,” said the mother camel. “It
must be as clear as water, if it’s a real diamond, so that you can see
what’s written in it without any trouble at all.”
“Well, you see, the diamond takes the rays of the sun on every one of
its points,” said the little camel, “and so it practically blinds me,
it dazzles so. But I think I can see something about ‘drink’ or ‘water’
written in it. Oh, yes,” he went on presently, during which time his
mother concluded he had been studying the jewel. “Oh, yes. Now I can
see. I’ve got in the shadow of your tail and I can make out the words
quite well. It says--let me see--yes, it says:--
“When you would drink
Just cease to think
And bend your knee at my brink.”
“Wonderful!” exclaimed his mother, joyfully, and he could see by the
way she ran youthfully over the sand that she had completely forgotten
all her troubles and discomforts. So through the entire blazing hot
day, as they crossed the desert, he told her one by one the endless
colors and verses of the beads. His little throat grew hoarser and
hoarser, and his tongue drier and drier from talking so much, but the
excited jerk of her shabby tail before him was enough to urge him on
and on. The amethyst was the jewel of memory, he told her, and you
only had to hold it for a minute in your ear for all the nice things
that had happened in the past to become the present. The moonstone was
the bead of the future, and after you had rubbed it hard you could see
reflected in it all that was going to happen, and so you could avoid
any coming danger. The sapphire was the bead of purity, and when you
were old you need only press it for an instant against your forehead to
have all your years drop from you like the petals from a flower.
“And the opal,” he ended, as the blue light of evening began to fall.
“It is the bead for those who have told a lie. All you have to do is to
hold it under your tongue for half an hour and the lie you have told
becomes the truth.”
“Ah, there’s the oasis at last!” his mother cried out. The youngest
camel lowered his head and peered through her legs, and there on the
horizon, which had not altered the entire day, he saw the distant dark
points which must be the oasis trees growing. “The time passed very
quickly, although I was so impatient to see the necklace every minute,”
his mother said. “But now in no time at all we can settle down and undo
our packs and then we can try the magic beads. The first one I’m going
to try is the sapphire, so I need not be old any longer, and then the
amethyst, so that all the nice things that happened to me before will
come true again, and your father will be alive with us, and then--”
Strangely enough, the little camel said nothing at all, but simply
followed in her footsteps, and once they had reached the green island
in the vast white sea of sand, the mother camel turned eagerly to her
son.
[Illustration: _The little camel said nothing at all, but simply
followed in her footsteps_]
“Quickly now, darling, come with me behind the trees here and show me
the necklace,” she whispered, and she hurried him off out of sight
of the others. But now that they were quite alone, the youngest camel
only hung his head. “Quickly, quickly, where is it? I’ve never been so
anxious to see anything in my life--”
“Mother,” said her child miserably, “there is no necklace.”
“What?” she cried, tottering back under the tamarisk trees. “Do you
mean to say--oh, can it be possible--oh, good heavens, it can’t be all
a lie?”
“I don’t know if it’s a lie or not,” said the little camel, and he
turned unhappily away from the sight of her grief and fingered the
tall grasses absent-mindedly. “I made it up so you would forget about
the heat, so perhaps that isn’t quite so bad as lying. I kept thinking
perhaps the necklace was really there, although I couldn’t see it, like
the caravan of white camels that girdles the earth, and like Mohammed--”
“Oh, this is too much!” moaned his mother, covering her face with her
arms. “I never would have thought you could--I never dreamed--oh dear,
oh dear--”
“But music’s invisible, isn’t it?” said the little camel in a gentle
voice. “I kept on saying things like that to myself to make the
necklace seem all right. I said, ‘Music’s invisible and history’s
invisible and memory’s invisible and love’s invisible and still they’re
all really there.’”
His mother had now sunk down on the ground in despair, and realizing
she was on the verge of tears, her son took his harp off his shoulder
and shyly touched the strings.
“I wasn’t sure if you’d feel like singing me to sleep tonight,” he said
in a low voice. “After all that happened, I thought you might rather
not. So I made up the words of a lullaby myself, and if you feel too
badly I’ll sing them instead.”
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!”
[Illustration]
_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.
[Illustration: _He lay there very meekly on one side_]
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.
[Illustration]
_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.
[Illustration: _And then they flew off, their legs floating on the air
behind them_]
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.
“You speaking the truth!” cried the first little bird as she cavorted
on the air before him, and all the birds’ tongues tinkled like little
bells with laughter. “Do you remember the terrible lie you told your
mother about finding the necklace?”
Either the very last crimson rays of the sun on him or his own
conscience turned the little camel’s face bright red and he hung his
head between his legs and looked hard at the sand.
“You’ve always made the mistake of being conceited,” one clear sweet
bird’s voice sang to him, and immediately the other voices went on with
it, one by one, as if it were so many verses of the same song they were
singing as they fluttered about him in the evening air.
“You always made the mistake of not believing what your mother told
you,” rippled the notes from one feathered throat, and the next one
sang:--
“You always bullied creatures smaller than yourself.”
“You were wrong not to do what Mohammed’s son told you,” whistled
another, and still another trilled:--
“You were always a coward except when you were with your mother.”
“You were so pleased with yourself you wouldn’t listen to the herons,”
sang the next, and one, swinging far back on the youngest camel’s tail,
chirped:--
“You have always been the most conceited camel on the desert,” and
another sang clearly to him:--
“You made the mistake of insulting the flamingos when they tried to
help you! Now they’re your enemies for life!”