Most of the camels were on their feet by this time, and their masters
were preparing to go forward again. At last they started, but before
they had gone many yards the caravan stopped to wait for a camel who
had lingered behind and was making cries of distress.

It was Camer's mother. On the sand, lying in a limp, unnatural
position, was Camer. No longer the bright, little baby-camel that Cara
had known, but a quiet, inanimate thing, which neither answered nor
moved in response to its mother's pitiful entreaties.

One of the Arabs, seeing that Camer was dead, tried to lead the mother
away with gentle pats and caresses, but the mother-camel would not
leave the little one. It was true that she had been thinking for the
last few weeks of relaxing some of her motherly duties, and insisting
on her baby getting its own food with the other camels, for Camer was
then ten months old, and no mother-camel cares to keep her babies
trotting after her for a much longer time than that.

But the sight of the little, dead body aroused all her motherly
feelings, and she yearned after her baby as though it had just been
born. In vain she fondled and caressed it; in vain she felt its head,
its limbs, and the small body which was fast growing cold, but no
response came to her motherly cries and no notice was taken of her
tempting offers of food. The little camel lay limp and still, and when
the Arab, finding that coaxing and caressing were of no use, tried
harsh words, Camer's mother turned savagely on him and bit him through
the arm.

The Arab knew camels too well to attempt further persuasion, and, with
angry words, for his arm burned and smarted, walked off and left