"What did I tell the honoured gentleman?" said my man, delighted. But I was obstinate. "Don't shut the beast out," I directed. "It doesn't seem dangerous. I will pay you well to let it in, and for its food—or any damage it may do."
The landlord shrugged his shoulders; and when we had passed into the courtyard, he left the gate standing open. A moment later the white camel walked in, and instead of joining my animals, or another which was squatting on the ground to munch a pile of green alfalfa, it moved with a queer air of purposeful certainty to a window of the inn. The shutters of this window were closed, but the camel pressed its face against them as if it were trying to peer in.
"Ah, that is what the brute always does!" exclaimed the landlord in his patois of Arabic and the worst Marseillais French. "One would say his master was there. But the room is empty."
"Tell me about this animal and what is the matter with it?" I said, when I had got off my mount and it had been led away with the others by my Arab.
"All I know I will tell willingly," replied the man. "This white camel was one of a caravan that stopped here perhaps ten days ago. There was no other mehari. The rest were of the ordinary sort. I noticed this one and wondered, for such fine animals are rare among my clients. But soon I saw it was not right in its head. It was not mad in the dangerous way, which kills; but it was restless and strange. As we say, it had been looked on by the Evil Eye. Perhaps the leader of the caravan had got the brute cheap for that reason. Unless he wished some misfortune to fall upon the person who rode the white camel."
"What sort of person rode it?" I asked.
The man shrugged his shoulders. "I cannot remember which one rode it, coming here. There were several men and several ladies, the family of the leader. They stopped here for the night—a night of simoom."
"One of the ladies may have ridden the mehari?" I suggested.
"May have: yes, monsieur."
"And did one of the ladies occupy that room with the closed shutters?" I persisted.