"No," said the Bedouin, "they took the road to the desert."
"Then you think they will cross the frontier of El-Hejaz?"
"I am sure of it."
"Can we overtake them easily?" asked the interpreter, by order of M. de Morin.
"No, their camels are first-rate."
"Good ones, I admit, but overladen," observed Ali.
"True," replied the Bedouin, looking round him on every side, "but I do not see an unladen camel to go in pursuit of them."
Ali translated this reply.
"Tell this man," said the painter, "that if I have not a camel, I have, at all events, a horse."
The interpreter, in astonishment, looked at his master without understanding in the least what he meant.