"Yes, but these strangers want to do more than that, for Mustapha says they may stay in our country for many weeks. One of these strangers is a boy like ourselves, and did you ever hear of a boy walking when he could ride?" asked Nabul triumphantly.
"But this boy may be different," said Abdal doubtfully; "however, if Mustapha has promised—"
"Well, he has," interrupted Nabul, "so to-morrow we must take care to be the first to show ourselves before them."
The two boys talked it over awhile longer as they ate their bread and dates and bit of cheese which they each took from a big pocket inside their long gowns. Abdal then ran across the square and bought a melon from a fruit merchant who sat there on a round, straw mat with his stock of melons heaped about him. After they had finished this the two cousins mounted and galloped away, each in a different direction.
Nabul and Teddy Pasha did some business that afternoon, carrying a few people up and down the busy streets in the centre of the city, but in such an absent-minded fashion on Nabul's part that he very nearly let the Pasha rub a fat old gentleman, who was riding him, off against a wall. The streets in the older part of Cairo are very, very narrow and crooked.
Usually it was quite dark when Nabul came home in the evening, but to-day he was anxious to tell the good news to his mother and the little sisters, so at sundown he and Teddy Pasha turned toward home.
As the little donkey trotted into the narrow street by the river where he and Nabul lived, Nabul's two little sisters came running to meet them. They had been watching for their brother as was their habit every evening, for often if he and Teddy were not too tired when they got home, they would be given a little canter to the end of the street and back, and they knew also that there were usually cakes or sweets in Nabul's pockets for them.
Nabul was very fond of his little sisters and good to them, better than little Egyptian boys often are to little girls; and as for the two little girls, they thought there was nobody in Cairo like their big brother.
The little girls were dressed in long blue cotton gowns and each wore a black veil wound around her head and hanging down to her waist. One of their greatest pleasures was to go out into the crowded city with Nabul, for they seldom went far away from their home by themselves.
This evening they hung close to their brother as he led Teddy into his stable, which was on the ground floor of the house. Nabul laughed as he caught Zaida peeping into his pocket. "Yes, I have brought thee a sweet morsel," he said, taking a little stick out of his pocket, on which were threaded a row of small cakes, "but I have brought you something better than sweetmeats, a piece of good fortune—maybe it may mean new dresses—who knows?" and he ran up the stairs laughing, with the little girls close behind and asking all sorts of questions.