s the reason why the two have such a liking
for each other. And the old priest told Al Hafed that if he had a
handful of diamonds he could purchase a whole country, and with a mine
of diamonds he could place his children upon thrones through the
influence of their great wealth. Al Hafed heard all about diamonds and
how much they were worth, and went to his bed that night a poor man--not
that he had lost anything, but poor because he was discontented and
discontented because he thought he was poor. He said: "I want a mine of
diamonds!" So he lay awake all night, and early in the morning sought
out the priest. Now I know from experience that a priest when awakened
early in the morning is cross. He awoke that priest out of his dreams
and said to him, "Will you tell me where I can find diamonds?" The
priest said, "Diamonds? What do you want with diamonds?" "I want to be
immensely rich," said Al Hafed, "but I don't know where to go." "Well,"
said the priest, "if you will find a river that runs over white sand
between high mountains, in those sands you will always see diamonds."
"Do you really believe that there is such a river?" "Plenty of them,
plenty of them; all you have to do is just go and find them, then you
have them." Al Hafed said, "I will go." So he sold his farm, collected
his money at interest, left his family in charge of a neighbor, and away
he went in search of diamonds. He began very properly, to my mind, at
the Mountains of the Moon. Afterwards he went around into Palestine,
then wandered on into Europe, and at last when his money was all spent,
and he was in rags, wretchedness and poverty, he stood on the shore of
that bay in Barcelona, Spain, when a tidal wave came rolling through the
Pillars of Hercules and the poor afflicted, suffering man could not
resist the awful temptation to cast himself into that incoming tide, and
he sank beneath its foaming crest, never to rise in this life again.

When that old guide had told me that very sad story, he stopped the
camel I was riding and went back to fix the baggage on one of the other
camels, and I remember thinking to myself, "Why did he reserve that for
his _particular friends_?" There seemed to be no beginning, middle or
end--nothing to it. That was the first story I ever heard told or read
in which the hero was killed in the first chapter. I had but one chapter
of that story and the hero was dead. When the guide came back and took
up the halter of my camel ag