Page:A Picture-book without Pictures and Other Stories (1848).djvu/101

 his eye and by his beautiful form, rode thoughtfully upon his white and spirited charger. Perhaps he was thinking of his young and lovely wife. It was only two days since the camel, adorned with skins and costly shawls, bore her, a beautiful bride, around the walls of the city; drums and bagpipes resounded, women sang, and shouts of joy were sent forth from those who surrounded the camel, the bridegroom shouted the gayest and the loudest of them all, and now—now he rode with the caravan across the desert. I accompanied them for many nights; saw them rest beside the wells, among the crested palm trees; they stabbed with a knife the fallen camel and cooked the flesh with fire. My beams cooled the burning sand; my beams showed them the black masses of rock, islands of death in the immense ocean of sand. No hostile power had they met with upon their trackless path; no storm was abroad; no pillars of sand carried death over the caravan.

The lovely wife prayed to heaven for her husband and father. “Are they dead?” inquired she from my gilded horn. “Are they