Page:Stories after Nature.pdf/71

Rh thought him that his time was come, and that heaven would at length release him. So he unloaded his camel, that it might go whither it would, and cast himself on the sand.

The night came on, and was very dark; his bowels grew fevered, and raged with heat, and he passed the night in horrible torture. When the morning was come, his eyes were starting forth; and he was bent double with pain: his tongue was parched, and clave to the roof of his mouth, and was dry and pursed like a fig. He saw the camel lying beside him, and bethought him of the way among the Arabs, who when they are in danger for want of water, slay these beasts, and open the pouch that is in the chest, which nature has provided for them to store their drink for many days. When he arose to do the same, he thought upon the service that this gentle creature had done him, and of the love his dear wife bore to it; and notwithstanding his physical agony, the tenderness of his mind was above the act, and he could not do it. He again threw himself down, and soon died.

The camel staid by him three days; but when the water was gone, and the pain of thirst came on, he made madly for the desert to find some spring, but as there was none there he must have perished.