Then Moti started off one early spring morning with his thick
staff over his shoulder, singing gaily to himself as he walked
along.

In one way and another he got along very well until a hot evening
when he came to a certain city where he entered the travellers'
'serai' or inn to pass the night. Now a serai, you must know, is
generally just a large square enclosed by a high wall with an
open colonnade along the inside all round to accommodate both men
and beasts, and with perhaps a few rooms in towers at the corners
for those who are too rich or too proud to care about sleeping by
their own camels and horses. Moti, of course, was a country lad
and had lived with cattle all his life, and he wasn't rich and he
wasn't proud, so he just borrowed a bed from the innkeeper, set
it down beside an old buffalo who reminded him of home, and in
five minutes was fast asleep.

In the middle of the night he woke, feeling that he had been
disturbed, and putting his hand under his pillow found to his
horror that his bag of money had been stolen. He jumped up
quietly and began to prowl around to see whether anyone seemed to
be awake, but, though he managed to arouse a few men and beasts
by falling over them, he walked in the shadow of the archways
round the whole serai without coming across a likely thief. He
was just about to give it up when he overheard two men
whispering, and one laughed softly, and peering behind a pillar,
he saw two Afghan horsedealers counting out his bag of money!
Then Moti went back to bed!

In the morning Moti followed the two Afghans outside the city to