“He must be back before the second day at sunrise,” said the Moor, and resumed his walk.
So Marzuk set off at daybreak on the following morning with many warnings of the ill that would befall if his return were delayed. He passed through the town, leaving it by the southern gate before anybody but the guard was awake, and was soon knee-deep in the meadows that the Niger keeps ever green.
He tramped along merrily enough, quite unconscious that two Arabs had followed him from the huts beyond the southern wall. The ospreys were everywhere—Marzuk saw nothing but the white birds, and the shining river, and the butterflies, blue and gold, that fluttered over the meadows.
On a sudden he heard footsteps, and saw the Arabs hurrying in his direction. He stood to see them pass, and as they reached him they turned suddenly and flung themselves upon him. There was no struggle, only the white birds heard one choked cry of terror, and some few rose from the meadow to the comparative safety of a neighbouring tree.
His captors carefully gagged Marzuk, and bound legs and arms tightly with cords of palmetto, then he was rolled in sacking and carried back to a hut. When the Arabs returned to the city they carried what seemed to be a bale of raw cotton slung on a pole between them, and they made unchallenged way to the caravan quarter, beyond the city’s northern gate.
Within the vast enclosure of thorn and cactus that inclosed the caravanserai only the last great bales of merchandise remained for the camels, and among these Marzuk was left to pant for breath in an atmosphere that would have stifled any but a negro. Towards the afternoon, when he had seen his latest acquisition safely stored, Hadj Abdullah sought the market-place by the mosque.
“Oh, mother,” said he to Aminah, “has the lad returned with the cheese-fruit?”
“No, my master,” she replied angrily. “I am cursed in the boy. He goes on errands and returns when he likes.”
“I am sorry, mother,” replied Hadj Abdullah, “for by Allah’s grace to-morrow’s sunrise will see us on the road again.”
From the mosques of the city the Mueddin called for the prayer said by devout Moslems at the hour of the false dawn. On walls and battlements the early wakened doves were fluttering sleepily, the guards at the gates still slept, the life of the city had not stirred. But beyond the caravan quarter the camels and mules of Hadj Abdullah were moving out slowly in single file.