“‘The beneficent fairy of whom I told you once has been here,’ said she, ‘and has given your son this present.’ [Illustration: _“There is your gift.”_ (P. 280.)] “‘Perhaps she was the witch who made the weather fine and left behind her this scent of roses and carnations?’ I asked jokingly. ‘She might have given him something better than a silver whistle, a purse of gold or a fine horse would have been more acceptable.’ Your mother begged me not to make fun, as fairies are easily offended and their blessings then turn to curses. “So to please her I said no more; but six years later she mentioned it to me again, for in spite of her youth she felt that she was at the point of death. She gave me the whistle and told me to give it to you when you were twenty years of age, and on no account to let you out of my sight before you were that age. There is your gift,” proceeded Benezar, taking a silver whistle attached to a long gold chain from a casket, “I give it to you in your eighteenth year, instead of your twentieth, as you are starting on your travels, and before you return I may be gathered to my fathers.” “I do not see any reason for your remaining another two years with me as your mother wished, for you are a good, sensible young fellow, and understand how to handle weapons as well as though you were four-and-twenty years old at least, and therefore there is no reason why you should not be declared of age to-day as though you really were twenty. And now depart in peace, and in happiness or misfortune, from which Heaven defend you, remember your father.” Said took an affectionate and touching farewell of his father, hung the chain around his neck, stuck the whistle in his girdle, swung himself upon his horse, and rode to the place from which the caravan for Mecca started. In a short time eighty camels and a large number of riders had assembled; the caravan was in motion, and Said rode out of the gates of Balsora, his native town, which he was not to see again for a long time. The novelty of the journey and the different circumstances in which he found himself distracted his thoughts at first, but when they approached the desert and the surroundings became more desolate and barren, he had time to think of many things, especially his father’s last words to him.