But when he reached the word “mother” his voice rose to a high wail and the tears rushed into his eyes and down his cheeks. Very soon after this, he must have cried himself to sleep, and when he awoke the sun was already rising. He rolled his eyes around in bewilderment a moment, and then he felt the ropes fast on his legs and neck still and the sand gritting in his teeth, and he knew where he was and why he was there. As the sun rose, it beat hotter and hotter on him and the sky seemed to be on fire above him and the sand on fire underneath him, and it is very probable that he became delirious as noon approached.
At one moment he thought he heard the faraway tinkling of camel bells and he tried to call out, but he could not. A little later, he thought he saw pomegranate flowers and fruit hanging on cool leafy branches before his eyes. Hour after hour passed and he lay there gasping under the sun, and at times he believed that icy pools of water were just within reach, and at other times he thought that fresh ripe figs were just about to melt on his tongue. His eyes were glazing as his fever rose, and his mind was filled with visions of strange and beautiful things. With his parched black lips he kept repeating:—
“Music’s invisible, memory’s invisible, love’s invisible,” and in the same faint voice he whispered: “Even hope’s invisible, but it must be there just the same—”
As he uttered these words, he heard a gentle sigh like a breeze stirring the air, and the next instant a hand was laid on his forehead. He looked up through the blinding waves of heat and he saw a man standing beside him and leaning over to stroke him, but strangely enough there was no smell of man in his nostrils.
“This must be another vision,” he said to himself, but at once the man began speaking to him in a sweet musical voice.
“I’ve been waiting around for seventeen hours for you to say that,” said the man, and for some inexplicable reason he spoke a language which the youngest camel understood with ease.
“Say what?” he murmured, and the man crossed his legs under him and sat down on the sand. Then he lifted the little camel’s head and laid it on his silk-clad knees and stroked back his hair as a mother might have done.
“I’ve been waiting for you to say the word ‘hope,’” he answered, “because as soon as you said that you proved you hadn’t given up, and then I was able to become visible and rescue you.”
“Who are you?” asked the little camel. He was almost too weak to keep his eyes open now, but he felt the man loosening the ropes that bound him and this gave him courage to speak.
“Oh, I’m one of Mohammed’s sons,” the man said casually. “I’m one of the youngest and not one of the important ones. This year I’ve been given all the camels to keep an eye on. That’s why I’m here.” All the time he talked he kept undoing the ropes and drawing them from under the little camel’s hot body and shaking them off his ankles. “If only you’d mentioned the word ‘hope’ sooner I could have let you free hours and hours ago. You see, ‘hope’ is the one word that lets me become human for a little while and help camels when they have been bound up like this by men. I had to stick around here quite invisible until you said that one particular word. One of the laws is that I’m not allowed to make any suggestions, no matter how much else I have to do. So you can see what a lot of time I have to waste just waiting.”