ready to go once more about my
business. Give me to eat, I am very hungry; and then I will sleep.
To-morrow I will go forth again with my goods, and maybe I shall find
more ready buyers."

"Hai! who can strive against fate! But a few days after thou hadst
departed, there came in the middle of the night vile robbers, and lo!
when I awoke in the morning, thy goods were not. It is kismet."

"Thou sayest! and my camel--did he die?"

There was a tone of mockery in the question which apparently escaped the
notice of the innkeeper, though it provoked a chuckle from the two
traders who were tearing apart with their fingers a well-stewed fowl.

"Hai!" said the innkeeper, with a mournful face; "when thou didst not
return, thy camel would not eat, and his hump sank away to flatness, and
on the tenth day he died."

"Thou sayest? Of a truth, bhatiyara, he must needs come to life again no
later than the morrow's sunrise, and those vile robbers must be pricked
in their hearts and restore the goods they have stolen, or assuredly the
Kotwal will come and visit this serai, and he will say, since it is so
ill a place for man and beast, it must be made desolate. What must be
will be."

"Hai! hai!" cried the man, lifting his hands, "how should a dead camel
breathe again the breath of life, and evil-doers become good?"

"Even these things are possible, good bhatiyara. And now let me eat, and
make ready a good charpoy. These things that I say shall come to pass
even while I sleep."

And his two fellow-guests laughed aloud, while the innkeeper muttered in
his beard.

CHAPTER THE TWENTIETH

Wolf and Jackal

Next morning Ahmed found his camel contentedly munching at his stall,
with no visible diminution of his hump; and his bales of goods were
ranged in decent order along the walls, though when he came to examine
them he found that their contents were strangely mixed. But he said
nothing of that; he only expressed to the innkeeper his gratification
that the night had seen such wonders wrought, and after a simple
breakfast he went out and, hiring no coolie this time, took a few of his
more costly wares to visit his old friend the darwan of Minghal Khan.
Cordial greetings passed between them; the darwan had pleasant
recollections of the dainties with which he had been regaled by this
excellent Pathan at his former visit. Then he asked why his friend had
been so long in hiding the light of his countenance from him. Ahmed told