camel cried out, by this time very near to tears. “It’s so plain
anybody can see it if they simply look--” He swung around to point out
to them the far waving palms and the birds hovering over the trees
against the horizon ahead, and then he stopped short and stared in
amazement, for nowhere in sight was there any sign of anything at all.
“But--but--what’s happened--but--there was--but--I don’t understand--”
he stammered, and with a loud sweet trill of laughter the scores of
bright small birds took wing from his back and his tail and from the
crown of his head and the tips of his ears and paused a moment with a
rush of wings above him.
“There wasn’t any oasis!” one shrill musical bird voice called down to
him, and all the other voices sang in chorus together:--
“You saw a mirage! A mirage! You saw a mirage!”
“You’re lost!” cried the first bird’s clear little voice. “You thought
you knew better than anyone else, and now you’re lost!”
They all gave another burst of laughter, and then they called out:--
“A mirage, a mirage! You saw a mirage!”
In another instant, the flock of them had risen straight above him and
vanished into nothing in the graying sky.
Now that the youngest camel found himself alone in the falling night,
he sank down upon his knees in despair. He laid his quivering chin upon
his forelegs and sobs shook his bowed little shoulders. He was alone,
he was lost, with nothing to eat or drink and not even his harp to
comfort him. Which way Aqsu lay he no longer knew, and in his grief he
believed that he would never find his mother or any other living thing
again.
“Hope, hope, where are you?” he cried out in desperation. But he knew
that magic word was powerless now to bring Mohammed’s son to his side.
As complete darkness fell around him, his terror grew and he rose to
his feet again and stumbled blindly on. “Oh, why, why did I let the sun
fall warm on my tail?” he wept aloud. “It was just what he told me not
to do.”
[Illustration]
_V_
During that night the youngest camel must have dropped in his tracks
and fallen asleep from sheer exhaustion, for the next thing he knew the
sun was shining on his face again. He jumped to his feet quickly in the
early day and, as if his life depended on it, he began running towards
the rising sun. But in a moment he stopped short, saying to himself:--
“But it wasn’t in the morning when Mohammed’s son said I should run
straight in the direction of the sun’s face. Perhaps that makes a
difference. Perhaps I should run with the sun behind me now if I want
to find my way to the oasis.”
So he turned around and began running as fast as he could in the
opposite direction, thinking to himself that everything would surely be
all right now. All he need do was to run away from the sun until the
noon hour came and it was exactly in the middle of the sky, and then
as it came down the other side he would race straight towards it, and
perhaps he wouldn’t be too late to catch up his mother and the caravan
if they had taken their time about setting out from Aqsu. He was
feeling quite comforted by these thoughts, and at the same time he was
trying very hard not to feel too self-satisfied because he had worked
out the movements of the sun without any help from anyone older and
wiser than himself. He was hungry and he wanted a drink very badly, but
somehow he was filled with new hope and courage now that another day
had dawned.
He kept up his pace for an hour or more without seeing any sign of life
either on earth or in the sky, and there was no doubt that he did not
mind the nothingness and the loneliness nearly as much as he had the
day before. With every step he took, he felt a little bit braver and
a little bit surer that he was going in the right direction at last.
So when he saw two black shapes on the desert far ahead, he said to
himself:--
“I’m certain they’re nice friendly sort of creatures who will tell me
how many miles the oasis lies ahead.”
On he went with eager, flying feet, and soon he saw that the two black
forms were those of birds. Two enormous birds were apparently seated on
the sand having a conversation together, their backs turned to him and
their heads nodding and shaking as they talked. But as he came nearer,
he ran less quickly towards them, for he saw their heads were bald as
ostrich eggs and reddish in color, and that they were not conversing at
all but tearing fiercely with their curved beaks and their great claws
at something they held between them on the sand.
[Illustration: “_It’s much wiser to be polite to everyone I meet,
because one never knows._”]
“Vultures!” thought the youngest camel, and a little tremor of
fear went through him, for his mother had told him stories enough
of how these creatures lived. He was about to turn to one side and
make a curve to avoid them, but then he remembered all that the
bright-feathered, sharp-tongued little birds had said to him the night
before. “It’s much wiser to be polite to everyone I meet, because
one never knows,” he said to himself, and he stepped a little closer to
them. “Please,” he began in a timid voice, and both vultures were so
startled by the sound that they each gave a squawk and jumped a full
yard into the air.
“Snakes alive!” cried one bird as she came down on the sand again and
with the claws of one foot seized upon the thing they had been eating.
“You ought to give some warning instead of creeping up on people like
that!”
“I thought you must have seen me long ago,” said the youngest camel
apologetically.
“Not at all,” said the second vulture. “We came down to finish eating
this hare in peace and quiet and we had no idea anyone was spying on
us.”
As she said this, she snatched up in her vicious claws the other end of
what was left of the hare and started tearing at it with her beak.
“I didn’t mean to spy,” said the little camel. “I just wanted to ask
you if I am going in the right direction for the oasis and Aqsu.”
When he said this, both birds stopped fighting over their prey and
looked at him with interest.
“Are you lost?” asked the first one in a sharp, rather eager voice.
“Yes, I’m afraid I am,” said the little camel. “But I think by running
ahead of the sun until noon and then running towards it all afternoon
I’m sure to come to the oasis in the end. At least, Mohammed’s son told
me yesterday to keep the sun straight before me--”
“Ah, but yesterday was yesterday,” said the first vulture with a giggle
as she gave her sister a sly glance. “Today is today, so of course
everything is quite different.”
“I don’t see how the sun can be any different,” said the youngest
camel. “The sun always follows exactly the same course, so all I have
to do is follow the sun as soon as it is past the noon hour--”
“Where in the world did you learn that the sun always follows the same
course?” cried the second vulture. “There’s an idea for you!”
“Why, it never does the same thing twice,” said the other vulture,
still giggling behind her wing. “Some days it runs all over the place,
getting behind clouds and hiding behind mountains. Yesterday it was
going from north to south, just for the fun of it, and today, as you
can see for yourself, it’s going from east to west.”
“Don’t imagine you can count on the sun!” said the second sister with
great contempt, and she went back to pulling and tugging at the remains
of the hare.
“You might just as well become acquainted with us now,” said the first
vulture, seizing on one of the best bits for herself. “My name’s Annie
and my sister’s name is Mabel, and if you’re really lost you’ll come to
know us very well indeed in the end.”
“Yes, I am lost,” said the youngest camel, looking from one to the
other of their faces. “I thought perhaps you’d be kind enough to tell
me which way the oasis lies.”
“I must say he’s quite truthful,” said Annie with a gulp as she
swallowed the dead hare’s fuzzy tail.
“I haven’t always been,” said the youngest camel, “but I think I’ve
learned my lesson now and I’m trying very hard not to lie any more. But
now that you tell me the sun isn’t going the same way today as it did
yesterday, I simply don’t know what to do--”
“It would have been better for your sake if you hadn’t told the truth
this time,” said Mabel, ignoring his last remark. Then she turned back
to the business before them and began slicing the hare’s heart into
neat roast-beef-like portions with her beak.
“But why?” asked the youngest camel, rather disgusted at the way the
two sisters grabbed and squawked over their meal.
“Well, as long as you’re lost,” said Annie, “then you can’t find the
oasis, and if you can’t find the oasis then you’re sure to die in
another two or three days--” She paused to pick her teeth reflectively
with the yellow claw of one foot. “You’re small but you’re rather well
covered with meat,” she said in a moment, and at this the two sisters
looked at each other and cackled out loud.
Suddenly, the poor little camel realized what their conversation was
all about and he gave a scream of terror. He reared up on his hind legs
with fright and spun around, and set off as fast as he could across the
desert. He had no idea which way he was going and it didn’t matter much
any more whether he was lost or not. He only knew he must get out of
sight of the two bald sisters, and out of the sound of their chortling
laughter. So he ran at full speed until the midday sun beat down on his
head like fire, and then he slowed into a walk. He hoped that walking
quietly along would make his heart stop beating so fast and loud with
fear, and he tried making up some rhymed poetry so as to steady his
nerves. But nothing sounded right to him, neither the sonnet form, nor
rondos, nor madrigals, nor pastorals, nor odes. The laments and ballads
and elegies were even less successful, so in despair he decided on just
trying to write a letter to his mother in verse, but he couldn’t think
of a single original or even beautiful line.
“Dear Mother [he began], how in the world am I going to get on without
you?
I miss your hump and your sore hip and everything about you.
“That’s just plain statement of fact. That isn’t poetry,” he
interrupted himself severely. “Now see if you can’t think of something
really lyrical the way you used to at the oasis at night.”
But the silly, everyday sort of letter went on:--
“I’ve made a fool of myself with every bird that flies
And with Mohammed’s son, and I’ve told so many lies.”
But he couldn’t help adding at the end:--
“One or two things I’ve said are true:
History, Music, Memory,
Are still the invisible three,
And Love, invisible it’s true,
Still has the shape and smell of you.”
He wasn’t at all satisfied with this, and even when he had repeated
it over two or three times to himself and once out loud he did not
feel the glow of pride which usually suffused his being after he had
composed a poem.
“Perhaps it might be better if I tried putting it to music,” he said.
But the fact that he did not have his harp with him made the biggest
difference, and now when he opened his lips to sing, nothing but a
hoarse whisper came from his mouth. By this time, he knew beyond
any shadow of doubt that he was neither a poet nor a singer, and he
swallowed his pride and said bravely to himself: “Very well, then. Now
I have found out the truth about myself. It’s time I did. I cannot
write poetry and I cannot sing, but perhaps I can dance.”
He remembered the foolish poem he had made up about dancing for the
Shah and the Lamas and the Raj with a tambourine tied to his tail, and
now he tried to execute a few dance steps across the burning sand. But
he only tottered awkwardly from side to side, and if he hadn’t stopped
at once he would certainly have toppled over.
“I am a camel without any gifts of any kind,” he told himself in a
stern voice. “Everything I have believed about myself has been blind,
empty vanity. I have no talent as a poet, nor as a singer, nor as a
dancer, and now that I am much too weak to carry a load and walk in a
caravan with other camels, I am no good to anyone on earth and I might
as well be dead.”
Indeed this might very easily have been the end of the youngest camel,
for there seemed no reason at all why he should not have sunk down
there under the blistering heat and quietly breathed his last. And in
another day or two Annie and Mabel would have come flapping along and
smiled sideways at each other as they wheeled above him, and after
circling over him a few times they would have descended and begun their
meal. Only this isn’t at all what happened, for now that the little
camel admitted that he no longer thought his own voice so beautiful and
his own poetry so fine, and no longer longed for a full-length mirror
so that he could see how lovely he looked while he danced, he seemed to
be able to hear other voices which he had never dreamed existed. The
air that passed his ears seemed now to have the power of speech, and as
he walked he listened.
“There is an oasis in every camel’s desert of despair,” said one
particle of air to him, and another murmured:--
“It cannot be far now, for you have come a long way.”
“Keep a stiff upper hump,” said the soft warm air in his ears. “Be
armed with patience, lamblike, quiet as a mouse, cool as a cucumber.”
“I’ll try,” said the youngest camel meekly, although he was feeling
very hot.
Even the sand under his feet seemed to be endowed with speech now, for
as it ran through his hoofs he heard it whispering:--
“The wind is coming, the wind is coming.”
“The wind is coming,” murmured one grain of sand to another all over
the desert, and the others whispered:--
“In a little while we shall have to rise and dance.”
Before the little camel had gone much farther, he saw a white cloud of
wind advancing rapidly across the clear blue sky, and in another minute
he heard it wailing:--
“Here I am, ow-oooo-ow--oooooo! Here is your master, ow-ooo! Arise,
slaves! A-r-i-i-i-i-se!”
Here and there across the desert the sand began to rise in spirals,
whirling and turning and swaying its arms in the frantic dance. Wild,
ghost-like figures of sand spun up around the youngest camel, reaching
taller and taller above him.
“Dance! Dance!” screamed the wind as he lashed them, and in an instant
the little camel was almost blinded by the gritty veils which were
flung into his eyes. Nothing could he see to the east or the west or
the north or the south except the dervish-like white figures which
spun around him. The sun seemed to have been blown from the sky, and
the gray of twilight closed upon them. As the little camel staggered
blindly on through the swirling skirts of flying sand, he heard the
voices speaking secretly in his ears.
“Close your eyes,” whispered one sand dervish as the wind thrust her
fiercely upon him.
“Close your lips,” said another as the wind blew her savagely against
the little camel’s tender nose.
“Do not breathe deeply,” whispered a third, and still another
murmured:--
“Do not struggle. You will only wear yourself out.”
The force of the wind had blown every thought from his head, and now he
closed his eyes and his lips as the sand dervishes had bade him and he
let himself be guided by their gentle hands. How many hours passed like
this he never knew. All around him spun the tireless dancers, torn this
way and that by the wind’s screaming fury, and when they came near they
whispered words of hope and courage to him.
“When you find the pathway between the winds, you will be saved,” one
sand dervish murmured in his ear, and another one whispered:--
“Believe in us. We will show you the way.”
All through that afternoon, perhaps, and through the night that
followed, the youngest camel staggered blind and spent through the
storm. But now there seemed to be no longer any division of time, no
night or day, no sun or moon, no heat or cold. But finally, when he
thought he could go no farther, the voice of a sand dervish whispered
to him:--
“Now we have brought you to the pathway between the winds. Go quietly
ahead. Farewell.”
Almost at once the gale’s force grew less and less about him and the
screams of the wind grew fainter and fainter until there was nothing
to be heard except a last long parting wail. Then a perfect calmness
fell upon the earth and air around the little camel, and in another
moment he ventured to open his eyes. And there he stood blinking in
bewilderment, for he saw he was no longer on the desert, nor was there
any sign of sand or a distant horizon to be seen. His feet lay on a
carpet of fresh green grasses, and a little rivulet ran chattering
through the rocks beside him. All about stood luxuriant fruit trees
with their boughs laden, and through their thick foliage he saw the
sun was rising. Delicate birds with bright exotic plumage winged from
branch to branch above his head, and shy wood animals moved swiftly in
the glades.
Now that his eyes grew accustomed to these unexpected wonders, he saw
that a few steps before him, just at the edge of the wood, a silk tent
was pitched. Its brocaded doors were caught back with brooches of
shining stones and a thin thread of incense smoke was drawn languidly
upward from its opening onto the quiet air. The youngest camel looked
in amazement about him, and then he fell joyfully on his knees at the
stream’s brink and lowered his head toward the cool running water. But
before he had time to drink, a rather lazy, indolent voice called out
to him from inside the tent.
“Not so fast, not so fast, young camel. Listen first to what I have to
say. You have passed through the third and last night of your ordeal of
loneliness,” it said, “but the third day is just dawning. Twelve hours
lie ahead of you before you may safely eat or drink. The day which is
just being born is the Day of Temptation. Some camels consider it the
most difficult day of all.”
If anyone had said this to the little camel the week before, he would
have paid no attention at all, but would have gone right ahead and
drunk his fill at the brook. Then he would have jumped up and run to
the big trees and started pulling the fruit hungrily down from the
heavily laden boughs. But so much had happened to him in the past two
days that now he rose obediently without so much as wetting his parched
lips, and turned respectfully towards the beautiful silk tent.
“Well, I must say you’ve saved yourself a lot of trouble,” the voice
went on, and the youngest camel stood listening to it with lowered
head. “If you hadn’t done what I told you, all this would have vanished
in the twinkling of an eye and you would be right back in the middle of
the sandstorm again and this time the sand dervishes would never have
helped you to get out.”
“I thought the storm was over, master,” said the little camel, not
daring to lift his eyes towards the tent.
“Oh, it never stops,” the lazy voice went on. “It’s always there for
other camels to get lost in the way you did. It’s always blowing just
as hard as when you were in it, only you can’t hear it any more
because the sand dervishes showed you the pathway between the winds.”
“Why were they so kind as to help me, O master?” asked the little camel
respectfully, and the sleepy voice answered:--
“Probably because you admitted in that poem you made up yesterday that
you were really very conceited and had made a fool of yourself with
everybody you met. The herons and the flamingos gave a very bad report
on you, but apparently you got a little more sensible later. If you
manage to get through today without being childish, you ought to be
having a nice champagne supper somewhere with your mother this evening.”
[Illustration: _The little camel took another uncertain step towards
the tent_]
The youngest camel felt a tremor of joy go through him at these words,
and he felt himself strong enough now to resist any temptation that
might come along. He almost jumped straight up into the air with
delight, but his knees were so weak under him from lack of food and
weariness that he decided not to make any unnecessary movements.
Instead he called out in an enraptured voice:--
“Oh, I know I can get through today all right! I’m absolutely certain
I’ll do everything the way I should!”
“You don’t know anything about it,” said the voice, and it sounded now
as if its owner were stifling a yawn. “You mustn’t start out by being
so sure of anything. Come in and pay reverence to me and I’ll explain
things to you more fully. Come along in, don’t be bashful,” it said as
the little camel hesitated and teetered on one foot near the open door.
“All you have to do is pay homage to me and then you have nothing to
fear.”
The little camel took another uncertain step towards the tent, and then
he halted again and said:--
“Please, I’m afraid I don’t know how to pay homage. You see, nobody
ever taught me how.”
“Oh, just bow down a few times and strike your forehead once or twice
on the floor, and kiss my big toe if you feel like it,” said the
sleepy voice. “It doesn’t really matter what you do as long as you
feel inferior to me inside. It’s just part of the rigamarole and the
sooner you get it over with the better. Some camels are so arrogant
they absolutely refuse to do it, and then it’s really such a bore for
everybody. They have to go right back to Annie and Mabel and be torn to
pieces for dinner.”
When he heard this, the little camel made haste to enter the tent,
and there he fell promptly on his knees and struck his forehead three
times on the richly carpeted floor. After he had done this, he advanced
with lowered head to embrace the unknown person’s toe. The smell of
incense was strong and sweet on the air, and when his eyes had become
accustomed to the dim light he saw that it was a spotlessly clean gold
hoof he kissed. He glanced quickly up and looked shyly and curiously
at the owner of it, and lo! it was an enormously fat and incredibly
ancient camel with a coat as white as snow.
The great kingly camel was lolling back on a divan covered with silk
cushions of every color of the rainbow, and with one hand he lazily
fanned himself with a soft peacock-feather fan. A necklace of opals as
big as alligator eggs hung around his shoulders, and elaborate earrings
of opals and tiny bright diamonds studded his hairy ears. But it was
his eyes which held the youngest camel entranced--they were big and
brown, and heavy lids hung over them like white velvet curtains. Every
time the white velvet curtains seemed about to close completely over
his eyes, the old camel would snap them up again, and then slowly,
sleepily, they again began falling, until the final moment when he
jerked them back. This happened several times before he spoke.
“Stand up,” he said with a yawn. “You don’t have to overdo it. It’s
just as bad to be too humble as it is to be too self-satisfied. There’s
certainly no need to call me master, although I don’t mind at all your
revering and worshiping me.” He leaned up on one elbow, slowly fanning
himself, and examined the youngest camel. “You wouldn’t be bad-looking
if you learned how to carry yourself better,” he said at last. “You let
your head hang down as if you were ashamed of something, and you have a
rather silly smile.”
“I’m sorry,” said the little camel, standing contritely before him.
“Oh, it doesn’t really make any difference,” said the white camel
dreamily, and he raised his fan to hide his yawn behind the peacock
feathers. “Everyone has different ideas about things. Men try to
make their children sit up straight so they won’t have humps on their
backs and mother camels do all they can to make their children hump
themselves for fear their backs will turn out straight. It’s just a
matter of preference. But now you mustn’t keep us dawdling here any
longer, for it’s getting late and we must set out on our journey. Oh,
in case you didn’t recognize me,” he added, “I’m the leader of the
caravan of white camels that circles the earth and we must be getting
started.”
“But my mother told me the caravan of white camels didn’t exist!”
exclaimed the youngest camel in surprise.
“Of course we exist,” said the white leader, and instead of making any
move towards rising he sank farther back into his cushions and gave a
tremendous yawn. “Everything exists somehow, either in the imagination
or really or only at night or simply in the daytime.” His lids sank so
low over his eyes now that the little camel thought the great white
leader had finally fallen asleep. But just at the last moment he jerked
them up again and went on talking. “What was I saying? Oh, yes. Now,
you mustn’t hold us up any longer, for we really have to get started.”
“Where are we going?” asked the young camel respectfully when he saw
the white leader was making no move to rise.