e rank smell of the camel, and the Arab song
he sang to hasten the tired beast's footsteps. Mahommed Nafar had taught
him the song, saying that it was as good to him as another camel on a
long journey. His Arabic, touched off with the soft brogue of Erin,
made a little shrill by weariness and peril, was not the Arabic of
Abdin Palace, but yet, under the spell, the camel's head ceased swaying
nervously, the long neck stretched out bravely, and they came on
together to the Gilif Hills, comrades in distress, gallant and
unafraid.... Now the rider looked back less than before, for the hills
were near, he was crossing a ridge which would hide him from sight for a
few miles, and he kept his eyes on the opening in the range where a few
domtrees marked the rendezvous. His throat was dry, for before the night
was half over he had drunk the little water he carried; but the Arab
song still came from his lips:

"Doos ya lellee! Doos ya lellee!
Tread, O joy of my life, tread lightly!
Thy feet are the wings of a dove,
And thy heart is of fire. On thy wounds
I will pour the king's salve. I will hang
On thy neck the long chain of wrought gold,
When the gates of Bagdad are before us--
Doos ya lellee! Doos ya lellee!"

He did not cease singing it until the camel had staggered in beneath the
dom-trees where Ebn Mazar waited. Macnamara threw himself on the ground
beside the prostrate camel which had carried him so well, and gasped,
"Water!" He drank so long from Ebn Haraf's water-bag that the Arab took
it from him. Then he lay on the sands hugging the ground close like a
dog, till the sheikh roused him with the word that he must mount another
camel, this time with a guide, Mahmoud, a kinsman of his own, who must
risk his life-at a price. Half the price was paid by Macnamara to the
sheikh before they left the shade of the palm-trees, and, striking
through the hills, emerged again into the desert farther north.

In the open waste the strain and the peril began again, but Mahmoud,
though a boy in years, was a man in wisdom and a "brother of eagles" in
endurance: and he was the second Arab who won Macnamara's heart.

It was Mahmoud's voice now that quavered over the heads of the camels
and drove them on; it was his eye which watched the horizon. The hours
went by, and no living thing appeared in the desert, save a small cloud
of vultures, heavy from feasting on a camel dead in