erbly in the foreground, he had at
unawares so magnified the creature that it bestrode the whole page of
his drawing-book; while the camp itself, the sandhills, some scattered
houses and a palm-tree in the distance, the very sky, seemed no more
than the pattern of a carpet upon which it stood. There was something
wrong, he perceived--something to do with that perspective which,
despite instructions from the Sitt Hilda, he could never rightly
comprehend.

But his pride in the monster camel condoned everything. He just
lengthened all the tent-ropes a little with his smallest paint-brush,
thereby imparting to the black pavilions a look of spiders squashed by
the triumphant beast, and laid aside his work, well pleased. There
were many groups abroad, of people enjoying the cool evening; he saw
them stalking ghostlike in the coloured light; but they kept to the
bound sand of the trodden pathways, and if any one descried him on his
perch, none laboured up to see what he was after.

At ease upon the ground, with chin on palm, he tried to judge what
colours would be needed in order faithfully to reproduce the sunset
glow. He compared that glow to the insurgent blood ever ready to
mantle in the cheeks of the Sitt Hilda; but this was a warmer,
swarthier flush than ever dyed the white skin of a Frank. Then,
looking east, he watched the blue increase on the horizon, its drowsy
glimmer radiating thoughts of rest, as if a hovering spirit whispered
"Hush!" A star glanced out above the distant palm-tree; in that
direction it was night already behind the crimsoned earth. A flash
from the grand glass windows of the Mission, ruddy with the last of
daylight, caused him to wag his head and sigh:

"Would to Allah I were rich like one of them!" The English youth from
the hotel had laughed at missionaries. Though here so great and
powerful, it seemed they were little thought of in their own country.
When Iskender eagerly inquired whether a famous painter would take rank
before them, the Englishman had said: "Yes, rather!" with his merry
laugh.

"O Allah, help me," was Iskender's prayer now, "that I may travel to
the countries of the Franks, and reap the honour they accord to
painters!"

This with a fond glance at his drawing-book, which contained a
camel--ah, but a camel such as Allah made him!--a camel worthy to be
framed in gold and hung in king's palaces!

"Is--ken--der!" A shrill, trailing cry disturbed his reverie; when,