tered
on for a hundred yards, and then sank exhausted on the sand.

But the Bedouins had seen the poor, solitary stranger, and as
hospitality is one of their leading virtues, some of these wild sons of
the desert now hastened toward Yusef. They raised him, they held to
his parched lips a most delicious draught of rich camel's milk. The
Syrian felt as if he were drinking in new life, and was so much revived
by what he had taken, that he was able to accompany his preservers to
the black goat's-hair tent of their Sheik or chief, an elderly man of
noble aspect, who welcomed the stranger kindly.

Yusef had not been long in that tent before he found that he had not
only been guided to a place of safety, but to the very place where his
presence was needed. The sound of low moans made him turn his eyes
toward a dark corner of the tent. There lay the only son of the Sheik,
dangerously ill, and, as the Bedouins believed, dying. Already all
their rough, simple remedies had been tried on the youth, but tried in
vain. With stern grief the Sheik listened to the moans of pain that
burst from the suffering lad and wrung the heart of the father.

The Syrian asked leave to examine the youth, and was soon at his side.
Yusef very soon perceived that the Bedouin's case was not
hopeless,--that God's blessing on the hakeem's skill might in a few
days effect a wonderful change. He offered to try what his art and
medicines could do. The Sheik caught at the last hope held out to him
of preserving the life of his son. The Bedouins gathered round, and
watched with keen interest the measures which were at once taken by the
stranger hakeem to effect the cure of the lad.

Yusef's success was beyond his hopes. The medicine which he gave
afforded speedy relief from pain, and within an hour the young Bedouin
had sunk into a deep and refreshing sleep. His slumber lasted long,
and he awoke quite free from fever, though of course some days elapsed
before his strength was fully restored.

Great was the gratitude of Azim, the Sheik, for the cure of his only
son; and great was the admiration of the simple Bedouins for the skill
of the wondrous hakeem. Yusef soon had plenty of patients. The sons
of the desert now looked upon the poor deserted stranger as one sent to
them by heaven; and Yusef himself felt that his own plans had been
defeated, his own course changed by wisdom and love. He had intended,
as a medical missionary, to fix his abode