And ever the thorns tore him more sorely, and the lonely silence of the night weighed upon him. Many a time he would have left his task had not the shadowy form of his camel, kneeling outside by the fountain, seemed to whisper to him through the starlight, “Patience, Shapur! Patience!”
Once, far in the distance, he saw the black outline of a merchant caravan, passing along the horizon, where day was beginning to break. He did no work until it had passed from sight. Gazing after it, with a fierce longing to follow, he pictured the scenes it was moving towards—the gilded minarets of the mosques, the deep-toned ringing of bells, the cheerful hum of the populace, and all the life and stir of the market-place. When the shadowy procession had passed the great silence of the desert smote him like a pain. Again looking out he saw his faithful camel, and again it seemed to whisper, “Patience, Shapur, Patience! So thou, too, shall fare forth some day to the City of thy Desire!”
One day in the waning of summer Omar called him into a room in which he had never been before. “Now, at last,” said he, “thou hast proved thyself worthy to be the sharer of my secrets. Come! I will show thee. Thus are the roses distilled, and thus is gathered up the precious oil floating on the tops of the vessels. Seest thou this tiny vial? It weighs but the weight of one rupee, but it took the sweetness of two hundred thousand roses to make the attar it contains, and so costly is it that only princes may purchase. It is worth more than thy entire load of salt that was washed away at the fountain.”
Shapur worked diligently at this new task, until there came a day when Omar said to him, “Well done, Shapur! Behold the gift of the desert, its reward for thy patient service in its solitude!”
He placed in Shapur’s hands a crystal vase, sealed with a seal, and filled with the precious attar.
“Wherever thou goest this sweetness will open for thee a way and win for thee a welcome. Thou camest into the desert a common vendor of salt, thou shalt go forth an Apostle of my Alchemy. Wherever thou seest a heart bowed down in some Desert of Waiting, thou shalt whisper to it, ‘Patience! Here if thou wilt, in these arid sands, thou mayst find thy garden of Omar, and even from the daily tasks that prick thee sorest, distil some precious attar to sweeten all life.’ So like the bee that led thee to my teaching, thou shalt lead others to hope.”
Then Shapur went forth with the crystal vase, and the camel, healed in its long time of waiting, bore him swiftly across the sands to the City of his Desire. The Golden Gate, that would not have opened to the vendor of salt, swung wide for the Apostle of Omar. Princes brought their pearls to exchange for drops of his attar, and everywhere he went its sweetness opened for him a way and won for him a welcome.
Wherever he saw a heart bowed down in some Desert of Waiting he whispered Omar’s words and tarried to teach Omar’s alchemy, that from the commonest experiences of life may be distilled its greatest blessings. At his death, in order that men might not forget, he willed that his tomb should be made at a certain place where all caravans passed. There at the crossing of the highways he caused to be cut in stone that symbol of patience, the camel, kneeling on the sand. And it bore this inscription, which no one could fail to see as he toiled past toward the City of his Desire:
“Patience! Here, if thou wilt, on these arid sands, thou mayst find thy Garden of Omar, and even from the daily tasks which prick thee sorest distil some precious attar to bless thee and thy fellow man.”
A thousand moons waxed and waned above it, then a thousand more, and there arose a generation with restless hearts, who set their faces ever Westward, following the sun towards a greater City of Desire. Strange seas they crossed. New coasts they came upon. Some were satisfied with the fair valleys that tempted them to tarry, and built them homes where the fruitful hills whispered stay.