“The Wandering Players,” she answered, “and I wish that we had not met them.”
“Why not?”
“Because they bring ill fortune, Bey.”
“Nonsense!” he exclaimed. “You mean that they want baksheesh.”
“Then offer it to them and see,” she said.
Now they were passing a fold in the sand-hills, and on the crest of one of these hills, that to the right, Rupert perceived the Wandering Players. There were five of them, all seated upon the sand, and all so wrapped up that nothing could be seen of them, at any rate, in that light. The three who faced the caravan were playing upon bell-mouthed pipes, and the two who squatted opposite to them kept time upon drums which they beat with wonderful rapidity. As the caravan approached, this savage music grew very weird and moving; indeed its quality was such that once heard it could scarcely be forgotten. It seemed to cry and wail, yet there were notes in it of surprising sweetness.
“Give those players ten piastres for their trouble,” said Rupert to his sergeant, Abdullah; and muttering something, the man guided his camel up the slope towards them, then offered them the money.
They took not the slightest notice of him, only played on more wildly than before, till at length he threw the coins upon the ground and left them.
“I think they are ghosts, not men,” he reported to Rupert, “since there are no people in this country who will not take baksheesh.”
“Ripe fruit does not remain unplucked,” answered Rupert, in the words of the Arab proverb, “and that which falls the children gather.”