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Also Taffadaln, which means welcome, a name given to her after her mother had foaled three he-camels, has a special guard both day and night, for there are many who covet her, for she is the queen of camels, with her blood and breeding enhanced by many years of training and special treatment.
"You are tired from unaccustomed travelling, and your limbs must ache, therefore if it pleases you we will wait until to-morrow night, so that with many baths and much refreshing sleep you will feel glad to mount your camel, who is not the begotten daughter of sin, Taffadaln, and come still further into the desert."
Out of one corner of her half-shut, insolent eye, the beautiful Taffadaln watched proceedings, and just as her master, holding Jill gently in his arms, was slipping from the saddle, with a positively fiendish squeal of triumph, and one gigantic effort which beat any record, for swiftness established in any camel's family history, she rose suddenly, and rushing forward once more to the end of her lead, caused the black camel to fall sideways and the dismounting man to stumble, and in order to save her, to place Jill with distinct vigour upon the sand.
Whereupon Taffadaln turned solemnly towards the speaker, and lifting her upper lip laughed, and with no more ado faced towards the palm trees, which to desert-trained eyes showed faintly some miles away, took two steps forward, humped herself together, collapsed on the ground, and stretching out her neck, half-closed her eyes.
Suddenly he halted the animals, and sat contemplating the beautiful Taffadaln, panting and moaning upon the sand. "Get up!" he suddenly cried, with a ring of steel in the usually soft voice, and obediently the brute scrambled to her feet, leaving red patches where had rested her mouth. "Now that I have almost broken thy neck, will I essay to break thy heart."
Crossing to the camels Hahmed considerably lengthened the lead, and attaching the camels Taffadaln and Howesha one on each side of his own, he bade the two former rise, which they did with alacrity, leading one to believe that they heard the flute-like music calling them to the cool of the palm tree's shade, the doubtful bucket of water, and the certain repast, terminating with a handful of luscious dates.
Straining and tugging, with the whip constantly flicking and stinging, they slowly dragged Taffadaln over the sand, until gradually the agony of the tightening muzzle-thong cut not only into the flesh, but into the very soul of the rebellious camel queen.
It was with a feeling of exultation that Jill, from her elevated seat, looked down into the Arab's face, outlined in the scented dimness of the garden by the snow-white head-cloth, and her brilliant mouth widened in a low laugh of pleasure as she pulled down a bough of fluffy mimosa to sniff its perfume, and she also gave a little shriek of dismay as Taffadaln, taking matters into her own enormous feet, and utterly ignoring the frantic tugging of the silken reins, suddenly stalked off towards the gate.
Walking to Taffadaln he stood for some minutes absolutely motionless in contemplation, whilst the object of his thoughts, blissfully ignorant of what was in store, and because it suited her mood of the moment, came meekly to ground on the word of command. In Islamism there are four angels particularly favoured by Allah, who is God.
The camel, lurching and groaning, staggering and heaving, got to its knees in just the same way as Taffadaln had done over twenty years ago; just as the camel will do twenty centuries hence, if it has not become extinct through some button, or wire, or wave, or ray which will have turned the desert into a kind of international piazza into the middle of which, for our post-prandial coffee and cigarette, we shall be conveyed in a few moments by means of something wireless, for so much cash down in advance, which will include the tip to the Bedouin waiter.
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