“O father of mercy!” he blubbered. “Long have I desired to make such a present to her I love. Allah comfort thee, O my dear lord! Despair not for thy girl. There be workers of miracles in the land nowadays. Hear what befell myself awhile since. As I journeyed to the Holy City in the train of certain Franks, having charge of their baggage, death seized me round my belly and flung me from my mule whereon I sat, and laid me upon the stones of the path, and there knelt on me with such weight that I shrieked aloud for the pain in my midst. It had been the end of me, had not one of the infidels, who was a physician, jumped down off his horse, and producing something from his clothes, forced me to swallow a part of it. Its taste was bitter as gall, so that I screamed the more and cursed the poisoner. But after a little, death fled and my health returned to me, and I went forward singing upon my way. Great is the science of the Franks. Our physicians are as fools to them. They have a fine hospital in El Cûds. Take thy daughter thither....” “Ya I-bra-hìm!” came a cry out of the distance. “Where art thou? Make haste! We tire of waiting.” “The companions call me. In thy grace, I go. Forget not my counsel. What is the journey to El Cûds for one like thee? Three days, or four at the most; and the girl can ride comfortably in a palanquin between two mules. There, with Allah’s leave, she will be healed.... I come! I come!” Tucking the bottle into his waistband, he turned and would have run, had not the camel, refusing to be hurried, pulled him up with a jerk. The rope between them was taut as a lute string as they passed from sight. The jangle of bells had sunk once more beneath the roar of the torrent ere Shems-ud-dìn perceived that his prayer was answered. Then great awe fell upon him, and he said in his heart, “I have sinned.” It shamed him to know that Allah had heard his wayward moaning. He, an old man whose beard was white, had prayed blindly, senselessly, as a child prays, to be shown a little hope, some remedy yet untried. Now that his request was granted, he felt as that camel driver had felt on finding the attar his at the price first offered. While he sat thus between great hope and fear, a face looked in upon him out of the sunlight, and a youthful voice exclaimed: “May thy day be happy, O my master. How fares the beloved?” It was Shibli, his favorite pupil and the bridegroom designate of Alia. “Enter, O my son, and welcome,” said Shems-ud-dìn; and he straight described to his disciple all the happenings since sunrise, from the departure of the city physician to the advice so strangely proffered by a simple camel driver. At the end, Shibli cried: “It is the best advice. Let us go to El Cûds. Apart from the virtue of a pilgrimage to the Dome of the Rock, I thirst to behold so famous a city. My father will grant me leave to travel with thee. O happy day!” Shems-ud-dìn smiled upon the boy’s excitement. To rebuke it, he said: