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When Abraham sent his servant to seek a wife for Isaac, it was on camels that he travelled, and shaded, no doubt, by her canopy of shawls, it was on camel-back that Rebekah returned with him to the tent of his master.
The whim seizing her, she would bid the Arab to her presence, sometimes to her evening repast, sometimes to sweet coffee and still sweeter music, sometimes to wander on foot or on camel-back through the oasis, to the desert stretching like a great sea beyond, and still beyond.
None, indeed, for the lips of those who alone knew his guilt would be hopelessly sealed. Africa never gives up her slaves. To the wretched captives that day's journey over the scorching desert was a fearful experience. Nothing is more painful to the novice than riding camel-back, and when at last a halt was made at sunset every man was aching from head to foot.
Thus we journeyed in the centre of a square whence any escape would have been impossible, for I forgot to say that our keepers Harût and Marût rode exactly behind us, at such a distance that we could call to them if we wished. At first I found this method of travelling very tiring, as does everyone who is quite unaccustomed to camel-back.
There was peace, too, where the Brig o' Doon arched its camel-back over a clear brown, rippling stream. There, through the singing of the water, through the playing of an old blind fiddler scraping the tune of "Annie Laurie," I could hear the true Burns song, the music of his thoughts sweetly ringing on, to keep the world young, as the bright water leaps on forever to give its jewels to the sea.
And the scandal was very great in the city that such a precious thing should be between the hands of an Ouled Naïl, a girl of no repute, come thither in a palanquin on camel-back to earn her dowry, and who would depart into the sands of the south, laden with the gold wrung from the pockets of loose livers. Only Ben-Abid smiled gently when he heard of the matter.
Thereupon he called halt, and the caravan turned back to re-find the road, Spinoza prying on camel-back foremost, clad now in the caftan and white robes of the Orient. But all day the caravan wandered out of the track in a white sea of mist: no farmstead, nor cot, but the wild vine, and the wild fig, and twice a telegraph-tree, still with its bark on, and the abandoned hold of a bandit-sheik.
The main part of the camp had already gone forward, and must have reached Arba, the first halting stage outside Beni-Mora; tents, the horses for the Roumis, the mules to carry necessary baggage, the cooking utensils and the guard dogs. But the Roumis themselves were to depart from the church on camel-back directly the marriage was accomplished.
Michael was inarticulate; his thoughts were like a flaming bush. In half an hour's time they would halt for lunch; until that time Millicent held her soul in patience. Nothing was to be gained by a broken conversation on camel-back. A delicious excitement exalted her; her plans had succeeded; the very devil of insolence danced in her veins.
I never troubled about that," said the plain man. "But do you mean to tell me," the traveller exclaimed, "that you are putting yourself to all this trouble, peril, and expense of trains and steamers and camel-back without having asked yourself why, and without having satisfied yourself that the thing was worth while, and without having even ascertained the most agreeable route?"
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