The big herd of camels would be there, and when Obil had eaten his meal the two would rise and walk with one accord out where the creatures lay, their drivers among them sound asleep, the beasts stirring with moans and complainings at sound of this half-familiar footfall. Then Abdul would open his mouth and speak, while Obil listened thirstily, of this camel and that; one here that was new, another old one there; this ugly one that was seized with the desert-lust every year, so evilly you could do nothing with her till the caravan started--and Obil affectionately patted her rough hide; of the various drivers, and the promise of trade, and bad shiftings in the route. Obil was head of the drivers in those days, and loved to sleep with them in the open air among the camels. It gave him deep content and oblivion for that time to all that lay beyond the horizon. He satisfied his hunger for the limitless skies at night, and soaked himself with unspeakable enjoyment in the passionate sun by day. No huge elemental turmoil of that wide life ever disturbed Obil. Sweeping fires of the wilderness, thunderings, earthquakes, winds, all gave him joy. Often he had wheeled his horse to chase the dry wild artichoke--the cursèd Wheel, when caught in the wilderness flames it was turned into a ball of fire, and, lifted and tossed in the fierce wind, eagerly kindled new fires in its wild flight. Other men feared this fiery thing which maddened horses and camels and set vast tracts of wilderness on fire, but not Obil. It was true that he had listened with awe to the Chazzan reading from the Psalmist, in the little synagogue at home: “O my God, make them like a wheel, as the stubble before the wind. * * * So persecute them with thy tempest, and make them afraid with thy storm. Fill their faces with shame, that they may seek thy face, O Lord.” For he remembered how he had seen that fierce Wheel suddenly snuffed out before the rushing winds, and he knew by this what must be the angry breath of Jehovah upon the wicked; still Obil feared nothing in those old days, neither the tempests of the desert nor the fires of the wilderness nor the avenging hand of God, for his heart was good then, his hands pure. * * * * * In the year when Barzillai, his son, was ten, Obil said to his wife Miriam, “Next year the boy shall go with me to the desert, that his shoulders may grow broad and his heart strong.” And Miriam bowed her head and answered, “As you will, Obil--next year.” But the child never went with him to the desert. For that year, while Obil was gone deep into the South silence, the long drouth swept out of the wilderness with such terrible heat as no one living had ever known. The fierce beasts came down from the mountains into the tilled fields and upon the herds. And the fiery Wheel came one day and lit Obil’s field of grain and killed the cattle and the sheep that were left, and devoured his little vine-covered home.