“Yes, yes, yes!” cried all the shrill little voices again.
“So now, go back,” warbled the bird as she dipped and winged before him on the air. “Go back, go back before the white leader wakes up and sees.”
“Yes, yes, yes!” cried all the little birds at once, and suddenly the youngest camel’s knees began to shake under him as he asked himself if it was true that this was just one more temptation which had been put to him.
“But—but—but I’m sure—I’m sure—I’m sure I saw my mother,” he protested, and as he said this all the birds rose up from his back and from his head and from his tail with a great rush of tiny wings.
“Look, four-footed child!” sang the single bird’s voice to him. “Look ahead and look well at her. She’s nothing. She’s just a reflection on the mists of evening. Can’t you see she’s a mirage like the oasis you followed?”
“Yes, a mirage, a mirage, a mirage!” trilled the hundreds of birds around him.
The youngest camel looked very hard at the figure of his mother jogging along ahead, and now it seemed to him indeed that there was something rather hazy and misty about her such as he had never noticed before. He turned in his tracks, with just enough breath left to call out his thanks to the birds, and then he made his way back to the caravan as quickly as he could. His knees were still quaking under him when he reached the litter’s side, and from there he saw the flock of tiny bright birds disappear like a sunset cloud into the sky.
“So here you are after all!” exclaimed the old white camel as he woke up with a start. “So you came around to my way of thinking in the end?”
“Yes, I did,” said the little camel, so tired by this time that he could hardly stand. And as soon as these words had passed his lips, the last pure-white camel with golden hoofs joined the caravan and the sun set with a jerk and a thousand torches suddenly sprang alight the whole length of the magic caravan. He could see the endless line of camels girdling the earth with the torches carried flaming on their heads and their gold hoofs shining wondrously across the sand.
“It’s rather effective, isn’t it?” said the old white leader, looking rather pleased at the whole display. There were four tall torches lit about him now, two at his head and two at his feet, and the diamonds in his ornaments glittered in their light. “This is the part I like the best of the whole business because it’s so near the end,” he said.