Following her directions, Phil steered his course by the blue smoke that he had seen in the distance, and presently found the house that she had described. It was roughly built and very old; it looked as if it had been there for centuries. The door of the shed was open, and Phil slipped quietly in. A slender Camel, resting on the ground in a kneeling position, looked solemnly up at him from beneath his long thick lashes, and waited for him to speak.
"Are you Maherry?" he said, touching the reddish-grey coat that for all its thickness was as soft as silk.
"I am Maherry," the Camel answered, stirring a little so that Phil might find room beside him on his couch of date leaves. "I have just come a long journey across the desert, and my limbs are weary, or I would rise."
"Why do they call you the Heirie? You look just like the one-humped
Camel I saw in my picture book, and he was a Dromedary."
Maherry raised his head.
"I am sometimes called that too. Dromedaries or Heiries are one and the same animal. Heiries are more slenderly built and far more fleet than ordinary Camels, whether they are one-humped and Arabian, or Bactrian, with two humps. To an Arab 'Fleet as the Heirie' means 'fleet as the wind.' We are the Camels of Oman, and can travel through the desert without stopping for several days and nights. Thus we reach the end of our journeys quickly, and our masters cry: 'It is well!' In days of old the Arabs said: 'When thou shalt meet a Heirie and say to the rider 'Peace be between us,' ere he shall have answered 'There is peace between us,' he will be far off, for his swiftness is like the wind.'"
"Are they kind to you, these masters of yours, Maherry?"
The Heirie laughed softly.
"Ay," he said, "or we should not serve them half so well. The service of love is swifter than the service of fear; the Turks, who treat their Camels more as you do the Ass in England, find them neither so willing nor so tractable, though all Camels are by nature patient, and strong to endure. Here in Arabia a young Camel is fondled as if it were a baby. 'A child is born to us,' cry our master's family; and silver charms are hung on our heads and about our necks, while we are encouraged to take our first steps by music and song."
The Heirie paused. The tinkling of bells came softly through the open door, and Phil, looking eagerly round it, saw a long procession of Camels wending its way through the town. They were heavily laden, and trod as if they were very tired. As they reached an open space behind the market their masters called a halt.