"I do not know, my master," replied Ali, "but I shall tell you in the morning."
"Good," said Abdullah; "and there is a damsel who sits behind the lattice, and always wears a flower in her hair, a red flower, a flower like this," and he put his hand into the folds of his burnoose and brought out a faded, crumpled, red oleander. "Who is she?"
"Tomorrow," said Ali.
"Good," said Abdullah, and he went away.
"Slama" said Ali, and then he added, to himself, "There goes a masterful man, and a just one, but love has caught him."
And he hurriedly eased the red camel of her load.
II
The next morning the departing caravan had many visitors. The merchants from the arcades came to see that their ventures were properly loaded. They passed comments upon the camels as Englishmen and Americans do upon horses in the paddock or the show-ring. Some they criticised, some they praised, but they were of one mind as to their condition.
"Their humps are fat," they all agreed; and, as a camel draws upon his hump for food as he draws upon the sacs surrounding his stomach for water, the condition of the caravan was declared to be mleh, which is the Arabic equivalent for "fit."
Abdullah was a busy man. He signed manifests, received money, receipted for it, felt of surcingles, tightened them, swore at the boys who were teasing the camels, kicked Ali whenever he came within reach, and in every way played the rôle of the business man of the desert.