Abdullah, the iconoclast, made
thirty-three. Ali came to him at two o'clock.

"Shall we camp, master?" he asked.

"When I give the word," replied Abdullah. "You forget that the wells at
Okba are choked. We shall camp at El Zarb."

"El Zarb," exclaimed Ali. "We should camp there to-morrow."

"Must I continually remind you," said Abdullah, "that to-morrow may
never dawn? We camp at El Zarb to-night."

At nine o'clock they marched under the palms of El Zarb. Abdullah held
up his hands; Ali ran to the head of the dun leader; the caravan
halted, groaned, and knelt. The first day's journey was over.

III

The moment that the halt was accomplished, Abdullah went about, loosing
the surcingles of his camels. Then he began to pitch his tent. It was
of camel-skins, stretched over eight sticks, and fastened at the edges
with spikes of locust wood. It was entirely open at the front, and when
he had the flaps pinned, he gathered a little pile of camels' dung,
struck a match, and began to make his tea. He had no thought for his
passengers. His thoughts were with his heart, and that was back at the
house beyond the bazaar--the house with the green lattices. Before the
water boiled, Ali came up, eager, breathless.

"Master," he said, "the passengers are cared for, and the mistress
wears a flower like--like _that_; the one you showed me;" and he
pointed to Abdullah's bosom. "You are either a faithful servant," said
Abdullah, "or you are a great liar. The morrow will tell." And he
started toward the passengers' tent. He found it closed. Being a
woman's tent, it had front flaps, and they were laced. He walked back
and forth before it. He was master of the caravan, more autocratic than
the master of a ship. He might have cut the laces, entered, and no one
could have questioned. That is the law of the desert. He could more
easily have cut his own throat than that slender cord.

He wandered back and forth before the tent. The twilight faded. The
shadows turned from saffron to violet, to purple, to cobalt. Out of the
secret cavern of the winds came the cool night-breeze of the Sahara.

Still he paced up and down, before the little tent. And as he measured
the sands, he measured his life. Born of a camel-driver by a slave;
working his way across the desert a score of times before his wages
made enough to buy one bale of hides; venturing the earnings of a
lifetime on one voyage--making a profit, when a loss would have put him