He heard their rough talk. He heard one man call attention to the last tortoise-egg on the last camel; but no one actually molested him.
Clankety-clank went the camels. The stone-bridge was far behind before he dared move even so much as an eyelash. Then at last he boldly looked behind. They were turning a corner—safe. Here the narrow street was absolutely deserted. No soldiers. He slipped to the ground like a flash and disappeared into a twisting lane.
CHAPTER XIX
He knew this part of the outer city very accurately; for the great grain markets were here, and the farriers and the horse-doctors clustered thick where thousands of draft animals were daily at work in times of peace. In days gone by he had often come to have his master's ponies cupped or otherwise medicated by these men whose science was mainly a hoary tradition handed down from father to son, and who yet had a wonderful if empirical knowledge of all animals and their ailments.
He had greatly loved these excursions which had sometimes consumed the best part of a day. Violent discussions always accompanied every case which called for treatment; for the grooms considered that their reputations would be imperilled if they did not cavil at every diagnosis. Although they treated the aged horse-doctors with respect, they wished to show that they, too, had knowledge. Sallies of wit, which attracted half the idlers in the street, made these disputations memorable things: every one gave tongue to what was in them and the talk was endless.
How changed it had all become! There was not a soul abroad and of all the thousands of animals there was not a single team to be seen. Every door was closed, every caravanserai shuttered. Commerce had been frightened away, killed by the fear of bullets. On went the boy yawning and feeling hungry and tired and thirsty, and increasingly alarmed by the dead silence. There was not even a drop of water to drink—nothing. The very street watering-troughs were dry; all the buckets had been removed from the common wells. Not a drop of water for man or beast. What a condition!
The more he thought of it the more consumed he was by thirst. But as a horse in the desert infallibly makes for water, so now he made his made his way towards certain fields. He had often noted how melons grew in patches almost alongside the trading city, cut off from the roadway by low mud walls. A longing for the big, luscious water-melons, which he had not tasted that year, became so overwhelming that he could hardly wait. He ran on, thinking only of this one thing, no longer caring whether he was seen or not. At last he saw green ahead. There were the fields and the fruit gardens.
A dog ran and barked furiously at him as he boldly jumped over a low mud boundary wall, but he threw a clod of earth at it and drove it off. He ran through some buckwheat standing almost man-high, crushing down the growing grain and wondering whether this year they had forgotten to plant the melons. No—here were the melon-patches, great quantities of the succulent gourds lying ripe on the ground, each on its own little bed of straw. With the skill of the country-boy he picked out the biggest and ripest one there was; broke it open with two or three savage stamps of his foot; and then sat down indifferent to everything so as to enjoy it.
Oh, the good red fruit! He completely devoured the whole melon in less than fifteen minutes, eating right down to the rind and not wasting a particle. Then as he sat with his face and bared chest bathed in the juice, he wondered whether he could attempt another. Lazily reclining on the ground among the fragments of his feast, he debated the problem idly as he looked at his swollen paunch. But finally he made up his mind that he had eaten to the uttermost limit of man. Now reluctantly he rose to his feet and determined to resume his journey.