"There is a dead body near," said the Sheikh calmly.

"What, on in front?" said the professor quickly; "for goodness' sake,
then, let's go another way!"

The Sheikh looked at him half-protestingly, and shrugged his shoulders a
little.

"Does his Excellency mean to go back the way we came?" he said. "It is
very bad, and if we go by here we shall soon be outside upon the wide
plain where we can ride round to the gate near the Emir's palace."

"Then by all means let's go on," said the professor.

"There may be nothing dead," said the Sheikh. "I think not, for the
birds are waiting."

There was evidently, though, some attraction, for the numbers of the
birds were increasing as they pushed on, to ride out into an opening all
at once--a place which had probably been a garden surrounded by
buildings, now fast crumbling into dust, and here upon one side, not a
dozen yards away, lay the attraction which had drawn the scavenger birds
together, at least a hundred more that they had not previously seen
dotting the ruins in all directions.

"What a place!" said the professor, halting the beast he rode, which,
like its fellows, instead of paying the slightest heed seemed to welcome
the rest; and they all stood bowing their heads gently as if it were a
mere matter of course, and no broad hint of their fate in the to-come.

For there, crouched down with its legs doubled beneath, was a large
camel, evidently in the last stage of weakness and disease, its ragged
coat and flaccid hump hanging over to one side, bowing its head slowly
at the waiting vultures, that calm, bald-headed and silent, sat about
with their weird heads apparently down between their shoulders--a great
gathering, waiting for the banquet that was to be theirs.

Frank had hard work to repress the words which rose to his lips, and he
signed to the Sheikh as he urged his beast forward.

"Hold hard a minute," said the professor; "it is not nice, but I want to
see in the cause of natural history. I never saw a camel die."

Frank knit his brows, and in the cause of natural history felt glad that
the loathsome birds refrained from attacking the wretched beast until it
was dead.

The poor animal had, however, nearly reached what was for it that happy
state of release, for as the professor watched, the camel slowly raised
its head, throwing it back until its ears rested against its hump, gazed
upwards towards the sky, shivered, and was at rest.

"Poor brute!