All the night he heard it beating, while his sleepless, anxious eyes
Watched the shining constellations wheeling onward through the skies.
When the glowing orbs, receding, paled before the coming day,
Abdel-Hassan called his servants and devoutly knelt to pray.
Then his words were few and solemn to the leader of his train:—
"Thirty men and eighty camels, Haroun, in thy care remain.
"Keep the beasts and guard the treasure till the needed aid I bring.
God is great! His name is mighty!—I, alone, will seek the spring."
Mounted on his strongest camel, Abdel-Hassan rode away,
While his faithful followers watched him passing, in the blaze of day,
Like a speck upon the Desert, like a moving human hand,
Where the fiery skies were sweeping down to meet the burning sand.
Passed he then their far horizon, and beyond it rode alone;—
They alone, with Arab patience, lay within its flaming zone.
Day by day the servants waited, but the master never came,—
Day by day, in feebler accents, called on Allah's holy name.
One by one they killed the camels, loathing still the proffered food,
But in weakness or in frenzy slaked their burning thirst in blood.
On unheeded heaps of treasure rested each unconscious head;
While, with pious care, the dying struggled to entomb the dead.