The other wore a red cap tied around his head with a piece of chamois skin. A brilliantly colored head-dress fell over his shoulders. He was completely enveloped in a burnoose of white cashmere, which, when it opened, revealed a rich Oriental caftan of green velvet embroidered with gold. He had a party-colored silk belt, its shades arranged with that marvellous taste which is only to be found in Eastern stuffs. Two pistols with silver-gilt handles wrought like the finest lace were stuck into this belt on one side. His sword alone was of French make. He had wide trousers of red satin tucked into green boots embroidered like the caftan, and of the same material. Besides all this he carried a long, slender lance, light as a reed and strong as a bar of iron, tipped at the end with a bunch of ostrich feathers.
The two young men halted in a bend of the river, in the shade of a little grove of palms; and there, laughing pleasantly together as befitted travelling companions, they began to prepare to eat their breakfast, which consisted of a few pieces of biscuit which the young Frenchman took from his holsters and dipped for a moment in the river.
As for the Arab, he began to look around and above him. Then without saying a word he attacked one of the palm-trees, whose tender porous wood yielded readily to the sharp steel.
"In truth that is a good sword which the commander-in-chief gave me a few days ago," he said; "and I hope before long to try it on something besides palm-trees."
"I should think so," replied the Frenchman, munching the biscuit with his teeth; "that was a gift of Versailles manufacture. But are you destroying that poor tree just to try the temper of the blade?"
"Look!" replied the Arab, pointing upward.
"Faith!" replied the Frenchman, "we shall have a better breakfast than I thought, for it is a date-palm."
And just then the tree fell with a crash, bringing enough fully ripened dates for two or three meals within their reach. They began to attack with the appetites of twenty-five the manna which the Lord had sent. They were in the midst of their meal when the Arab's horse began to neigh.
The Arab uttered an exclamation, darted out of the little grove and scanned the plain of Esdrelon, in the middle of which they had paused to breakfast.