Page:A Picture-book without Pictures and Other Stories (1848).djvu/102

 dead?” inquired she from my beaming crescent. The desert now lies behind them; on this very evening they rest under the tall palm trees, around which circle the storks with their long wings; the pelican rushes down upon them from the branches of the mimosa. The luxuriant vegetation is trampled down by the many feet of the elephants; a troop of negro people come onward from a distant fair; women with copper buttons in their black hair, and in indigo-colored petticoats drive on the laden oxen on which the naked black children lie asleep. One negro leads in a thong a lion’s cub, which he had purchased; they approach the caravan; the young merchant sits immoveable, silent; he thinks upon his lovely wife, dreams in this negro land of his white fragrant flower on the other side the desert; he lifts his head—A cloud passed over the Moon, and again a cloud. I heard no more that night.