“Five of my beasts I left upon the road; and some few of my slaves—how many I had not yet counted—had fallen out and would presumably die in the desert. But there was a good remainder.
“Unfortunately I was not alone in my venture, for I discovered that early as was the hour another man had arrived already with two camels and was standing with them under the dawn in the market-place. Poor beasts they were, and bearing every mark of fatigue. But I was determined upon a monopoly. I had hoped from the conversation I had overheard that not a single camel would be present in the place. I would secure myself against even the slightest competition. I approached the leader of the two sorry camels and asked him there and then what he would take for his cattle. He stared at me for a moment, but to my astonishment when I offered him for a beginning the derisory price of ten pieces of gold, he accepted at once, put the coins into his pouch, smiled evilly, and moved off at a great pace.
“To my chagrin there approached within a very few moments yet another peasant, leading this time but one camel, a rather finer beast than the others. I hoped, I believed, he would be the last. I made haste to follow the same tactics with him as with the first. Like the first he took the five gold pieces without so much as bargaining, but he looked me up and down strangely before shrugging his shoulders and taking himself off hastily down a side lane.
“And then (the people beginning to drift into the street as the day rose) appeared a man leading not less than ten camels in a file. I was seriously alarmed, but I bethought me of my reading: how all great fortunes had been acquired by speculation, how caution and other petty virtues were the bane of true trade. I boldly approached him and offered him my remaining gold for the whole bunch. Instead of meeting my offer with a higher claim, he asked to look narrowly at the pieces, and then looked as narrowly into my face. He took one of the gold pieces and bit it. He stooped and rang it upon the cobble-stones. He determined apparently that it was good, and without another word took my gold, appealed to those around us as witnesses to the transaction, handed me the leading cord, and with a burst of laughter ran off at top speed.
“Here, then, was I with my thirteen new camels and what was left of my original caravan. I will not deny that I was somewhat disturbed in mind; but I could only trust in Allah. I did so with the utmost fervour, and implored Him to consider His servant, and to see to it that not another camel should reach the town before I began to sell.
“But what is man? What is he that he should order the movements of the Most High?
“I lifted up my eyes and saw approaching down the narrowness of the street a file of certainly not less than one hundred camels led by a great company of ragged men and walking with that insolent and foolish air which this beast affects and which at such a moment provoked me to rage.
“Then a slave, trembling lest he should give me offence, bade me come apart with him where steps led up the city wall. These I climbed, and from the summit I saw a sight that broke my heart.
“For there, across the plain that surrounded the city, came such a mass of camels as I hardly thought the universe contained. They came in batches of twenty, fifty, two hundred, herds and flocks of camels, driven, led, ridden, conducted in every shape from one direction and another, through the desert and cultivated land, from track and path, a very foison and cataract of camels. It was as though all the camels of Arabia, India, Bactria, and Syria had been summoned to this one place.