to thine it would please me to be allowed to come alone."

"Granted, O Emir, granted--if, on thy side, thou wilt consent to permit
me to give thee of the fare I may yet have at disposal. I can promise
thou shalt not go away hungry."

"Be it so."

Thereupon the Emir remounted, and went back to his stand overlooking the
plain, and the coming of the multitude.




CHAPTER V

THE PASSING OF THE CARAVANS


From his position the Wanderer could see the advancing caravans; but as
the spectacle would consume the afternoon, he called his three
attendants, and issued directions for the entertainment of the Emir in
the evening; this done, he cast himself upon the rug, and gave rein to
his curiosity, thinking, not unreasonably, to find in what would pass
before him something bearing on the subject ever present in his mind.

The sky could not be called blue of any tint; it seemed rather to be
filled with common dust mixed with powder of crushed brick. The effect
was of a semi-transparent ceiling flushed with heat from the direct
down-beating action of the sun, itself a disk of flame. Low mountains,