f hair which had been shaved off was beginning to grow again.
"Well then, Mandane, in that case--I wanted to say it yesterday, but I
could not get it out.--Tell me: why would you be sorry if I were to leave
you?"

"Because--well, no one can have all their reasons ready; because you have
always been kind to me; and because you came from my country, and talk
Persian with me as my mother used."

"Is that all?" said the man slowly, and he rubbed his forehead.

"No, no. Because--if once you go away, you will not be here."

"Aye that is it; that is just the thing. And if you would be sorry for
that, then you must have liked being here--with me."

"And why not? It has been very nice," said the girl blushing and trying
not to meet his eyes.

"That it has--and that it is!" cried Rustem, striking his palm with the
other huge fist. "And that is why I must have it out; that is why, if we
have any sense, we two need never part."

"But your master is sure to want you," said she with growing confusion,
"and we cannot always remain a burthen on the kind folks here. I shall
not work at the loom again; but as I am now free, and have the scroll
that proves it, I must soon look about for some employment. And a strong,
healthy fellow like you cannot always be nursing yourself."

"Nursing myself!" and he laughed gaily. "I will earn money, and enough
for three!"

"By your camels always, up and down the country?"

"I have done with that," said he with a grin. "We will go back to our own
country; there I will buy a good piece of pasture land, for my eldest
brother has our little estate, and you may ask Haschim whether I
understand camel-breeding."

"But Rustem, consider."

"Consider! Think this, and think that! Where there's a will there's a
way. That is the upshot of it all. And if you mean to say that before you
buy you must have money, and that the best may come to grief, all I can
tell you is. . . . Can you read? No? nor I; but here in my pocket I have
my accounts in the master's own hand. Eleven thousand, three hundred and
sixty drachmae were due to me for wages the last time we reckoned: all
the profit the master had set down to my credit since I led his caravan.
He has kept almost all of it for me; for food was allowed, and there was
almost always a bit of stuff for a garment to be found among the bales,
and I never was a sot. Eleven thousand, three hundred and sixty drachmae!
Hey, little one, that is the figure. And now wh