odly place. But as I rode it vanished from my sight. Then
did I mourn. Yet once again I saw the trees, and flocks of pigeons and
waving fields, and I was hungry and thirsty, and longed exceedingly. Yet
got I down, and, upon my sheep-skin, once more gave thanks to Allah. And
I mounted thereafter in haste and rode on; but once again was I mocked.
Then I cried aloud in my despair. It was in my heart to die upon the
sheep-skin where I had prayed; for I was burned up within, and there
seemed naught to do but say malaish, and go hence. But that goodly sight
came again. My heart rebelled that I should be so mocked. I bent down
my head upon my camel that I might not see, yet once more I loosed the
sheep-skin. Lifting up my heart, I looked again, and again I took hope
and rode on. Farther and farther I rode, and lo! I was no longer mocked;
for I came to a goodly place of water and trees, and was saved. So shall
it be with us. We have looked for his coming again, and our hearts
have fallen and been as ashes, for that he has not come. Yet there be
mirages, and one day soon David Pasha will come hither, and our pains
shall be eased."

"Aiwa, aiwa--yes, yes," cried the lad who had sung to them.

"Aiwa, aiwa," rang softly over the pond, where naked children stooped to
drink.

The smell of the cooking-pots floated out from the mud-houses near by.

"Malaish," said one after another, "I am hungry. He will come
again-perhaps to-morrow." So they moved towards the houses over the way.

One cursed his woman for wailing in the doorway; one snatched the lid
from a cooking-pot; one drew from an oven cakes of dourha, and gave them
to those who had none; one knelt and bowed his forehead to the ground in
prayer; one shouted the name of him whose coming they desired.

So was David missed in Egypt.

CHAPTER XXIII. THE TENTS OF CUSHAN

"I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction, and the curtains
of the Land of Midian did tremble."

A Hurdy-Gurdy was standing at the corner, playing with shrill insistence
a medley of Scottish airs. Now "Loch Lomond" pleaded for pennies from
the upper windows:

"For you'll tak' the high road,
and I'll tak' the low road,
And I'll be in Scotland before ye:
But I and my true love will never meet again,
On the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond!"

The hurdy-gurdy was strident and insistent, but for a long time no
response came. At last, however, as the str