Presently they appeared round a curve in the road--three men, a woman and a boy--and as they approached I saw Aminé come out from among the trees and hold up a warning finger, saying something to them in a low tone, on which they stopped and apparently questioned her. I sat motionless as a graven image, and, as the strangers advanced slowly along the path, I stared unwinkingly into vacancy as one who sees a vision, and totally ignored their presence. For their part, they halted in a row opposite me and gazed at me with frank curiosity as though I were a museum specimen. This was all very well for a minute or so, but when they all set down their burdens on the ground that they might observe me at greater ease, I felt that my position was becoming untenable. I could not maintain that wooden stare for an indefinite time, in fact, the corners of my mouth were inclined to twitch already; and as it would be fatal to laugh, it was necessary to talk: wherefore I opened my mouth and spake, as though pursuing some profound reflection. “Moreover,” I commenced, by way of encouraging myself, “have not all things their appointed places from which they depart not? Does the river leave its bed and stray up the mountain? Does the moon outpace the sun and the night tread upon the heels of day? Surely it is not so. For if the night should struggle against the day and the stars strive with the sun, then would the earth be confounded and the infidel rejoice in the pride of his heart.” I paused to observe the effect of my performance. The men looked at one another in blank amazement, and one asked in tones of awe: “Dost thou understand this, Isaaku?” “Not I,” replied the other. “I am no scholar, and his words are weighty and deep; but it is profitable to listen to the sayings of the wise.” “It seemeth to me,” broke in the boy--an urchin of about ten--“that this yellow-skinned fellow talketh like an old woman that hath drunk too much pittu,” whereupon one of the men dealt him a hearty cuff on the head, and he hastily retreated behind his mother, from which stronghold he silently defied me by gestures and horrid grimaces. Seeing that my audience was eager for further samples of my wisdom, I took up the thread of my reflections. “And if these things be so; if the hippopotamus may not soar aloft with the hawk, nor the tortoise perch upon the branch and carol to his mate; so is it also with man. The housewife shall not sit in the mosque nor the mallam fetch water from the well. “These things are known unto the wise, but the foolish regard them not, considering only the labour of the day or the profit of the market. For the foolish pile up merchandise and kurdi and gold and cattle that they may grow fat with much eating; but the wise man hearkeneth unto the words of the Prophet and giveth alms of that which is given to him, shareth his plenty with the needy, and giveth shelter and raiment unto those that are houseless and naked.”