To stop the noise she was making, one of the men turned and raised his whip and struck her sharply on the soft part of her nose. She jumped back with a little cry of pain, but long after they had started out across the dark desert, the bewildered little camel could hear her voice calling and calling to him:—
“Go quietly! Do not struggle! Do not forget me! Perhaps one day we shall find each other again!”
III
THE TWO men led the youngest camel far, far out into the desert, and after a long time, when they seemed to be out of sight and hearing of any living thing, they gave him the command to lie down. He kneeled obediently before them, and then they unwound the ropes from around their waists and pushed him over on his side, and while one camel driver sat on him, the other began hastily to bind him. They drew his hind legs roughly forward and knotted them tightly to his forelegs, and he never dreamed of kicking or protesting. He had been brought up to look on man as master, for his mother had always told him this was one of the unalterable truths.
So he lay there very meekly on one side and allowed them to pass the ropes around his body and draw them fast. He did not utter a sound, but his heart was filled with fear. He was fastened so firmly that he could scarcely breathe, and his ankles seemed almost cut in half, but still he did not think to struggle. When their work was done, the camel drivers each gave him a parting kick or two and then went off in the direction from which they had come. He tried to raise his head a little from the sand and with his eyes follow their retreat through the starlit night. But after a moment the two shapes muffled in their flowing robes were lost in the darkness, and as the little camel realized he was alone, he uttered one sudden terrible scream.
He lay there very meekly on one side
He had no intention of making a fuss or calling a lot of attention to himself, but now he knew beyond any doubt that this was the ordeal of loneliness at last and he could not control the shaking and the quaking and the sobs which shook his frame. All about him lay the warm desert silence, and there was no smell anywhere of other camels or of man. He strained his ears until he thought they would fall from his head for some sound of bells or perhaps the faintest echo of his mother’s voice still calling out to him, but everything was as quiet as the tomb.
After some time had passed like this, he began kicking with all his strength. This was not such an easy matter, either, because his feet were very firmly tied. But he doubled up his legs as best he could and then shot them savagely out. All this served no purpose, however. In fact, it seemed to draw the cords tighter and tighter around his neck and shoulders and it certainly made the knots cut deeper into his anklebones. So presently he gave that up and tried lifting himself by pushing one shoulder and one hip hard against the ground. But this got him no further, and added to everything else he had now got sand into both his eyes, and his mouth was filled as well. In his misery, he tried to remember all the things his mother had told him as they lay under the oasis trees at night. Once she had said to him:—