pillars of Hercules, and the poor, afflicted,
suffering, dying man could not resist the awful
temptation to cast himself into that incoming tide, and
he sank beneath its foaming crest, never to rise
in this life again.

When that old guide had told me that awfully
sad story he stopped the camel I was riding on
and went back to fix the baggage that was coming
off another camel, and I had an opportunity to
muse over his story while he was gone. I remember
saying to myself, ``Why did he reserve that
story for his `particular friends'?'' There seemed
to be no beginning, no middle, no end, nothing
to it. That was the first story I had ever heard
told in my life, and would be the first one I ever
read, in which the hero was killed in the first
chapter. I had but one chapter of that story,
and the hero was dead.

When the guide came back and took up the
halter of my camel, he went right ahead with the
story, into the second chapter, just as though
there had been no break. The man who purchased
Ali Hafed's farm one day led his camel
into the garden to drink, and as that camel put
its nose into the shallow water of that garden
brook, Ali Hafed's successor noticed a curious
flash of light from the white sands of the stream.
He pulled out a black stone having an eye of light