Dumah loves me!' and then I saw him no more. Friend, I know you love
him, too. What is your name?"

"Yusuf."

"Then, Yusuf, you will be my friend?"

"I will be your friend, poor Dumah!"

"Oh, no, Dumah is not poor! He is happy. But his thoughts are going now.
Ah, they throng! The visions come! The birds and the mists and the
flowers are twining in a wreath, a wreath that stretches up to the
clouds! Do you not see it?" and he started off again on his wild,
plaintive song.

Yusuf's eyes filled with tears, and he drew the lad to his bosom, and
looked out upon the grassy plot before the door, where a huge fire was
now shedding a flickering and fantastic glare upon the wrinkled visages
of the Arabs, and lighting up the scene with a weird effect only to be
seen in the Orient.

Caldrons were boiling, and a savory odor penetrated the air. Men were
talking in groups, and a little dervish was spinning around nimbly in a
sort of dance. Yusuf looked at him for a moment. There seemed to be
something familiar about his figure and movements, but in the darkness
he could not be distinctly seen, and Yusuf soon forgot to pay any
attention to him.

He drew the boy, who had now fallen asleep, close to him. What would he,
Yusuf, not give to learn fully of that source from whence the few meagre