Then Abu the gazelle let go; to her dear young she went, ‘Quick, children, take my breast,’ she said, ‘my life is almost spent; ‘The Master of the Universe for me a pledge I gave, But I must swift return and then no man my life can save.’ Then said the little ones to her, ‘Mother, we dare not eat; Go swiftly back, redeem the pledge, fast as can fly thy feet.’ One hour had scarce run fully out when, panting, she was there; Now, Abu, son of Abu, thou mayest take her life or spare! Said Abu, ‘In the Prophet’s name, depart, I set you free ... But thou, our Helper, at God’s throne, do thou remember me!’ So have I told, as long ago my father used to tell, How Pagan Abu Moslem turned and saved his soul from hell.” This brief sketch will suffice to show that if the Moslem is not humane to animals it is his own fault, as I think it is his own fault if he is not humane to man. Teaching humanity to animals must always imply the teaching of humanity to men. This was perfectly understood well by all these Oriental tellers of beast-stories: they would all have endorsed the saying of one of my Lombard peasant-women (dear, good soul!), “Chi non è buono per le bestie, non è buono per i Cristiani”; _Cristiano_ meaning, in Italian popular speech, a human being. Under the most varied forms, in fiction which while the world lasts, can never lose its freshness, the law of kindness is brought home. Perhaps the most beautiful of all humane legends is one preserved in a poem by Abu Mohammed ben Yusuf, Sheikh Nizan-eddin, known to Europeans as Nizami. This Persian poet, who died sixty-three years before Dante was born, may have taken the legend from some collection of Christ-lore, some uncanonical book impossible now to trace; it is unlikely that he invented it. As Jesus walks with His disciples through the market-place at evening, He comes upon a crowd which is giving vent to every expression of abhorrence at the sight of a poor dead dog lying in the gutter. When they have all had their say, and have pointed in disgust to his blear eyes, foul ears, bare ribs, torn hide, “which will not even yield a decent shoe-string,” Jesus says, “How beautifully white his teeth are!” No story of the Saviour outside the Gospels is so worthy to have been in them. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ XII THE FRIEND OF THE CREATURE