"My father," said Kanana earnestly, "give me a horse, a sack of grain, a skin of water, and I will follow after Raschid Airikat. I will not slay him, but, by the help of Allah, I will bring back to thee thy white camel with my brother seated upon his back."
The old sheik made a gesture of derision: "Thou wisp of flax before a fire! Thou reed before a whirlwind! Get thee back to thy perch and thy birds, and see if thou canst keep awake till sundown. Harvesting will begin with the daylight to-morrow. See that thou workest then."
Kanana rose to his feet. Looking calmly into the old sheik's angry face, he replied:
"My father, I will watch the birds till sundown. Then let others do the reaping. Kanana, whom thou scornest, will be far away upon the desert, to seek and find his brother."
"Did I not say I would not trust a horse to thee?" exclaimed the old man, looking at him in astonishment.
"These feet of mine can do my bidding well enough," replied Kanana. "And by the beard of the Prophet they shall do it till they have returned to thee thy son and thy white camel. I would do something, oh, my father, that I, too, might have thy blessing and not thy curse. It is the voice of Allah bids me go. Now say to me that if I bring them back then thou wilt bless me, too, ay, even though still I will not lift a lance, unless it be for Allah and Arabia."
The aged warrior looked down in a sort of scornful pity upon his boy, standing among the stalks of grain; half in jest, half in charity, he muttered, "Yes, _then_ I will bless thee," and rode away.
The harvesting began, as the old sheik had said, with the next daylight, but Kanana was not among the reapers.
Few so much as missed him, even, and those who did, supposed that he had hidden himself to avoid their jests.
Only the sullen sheik, bowed under his affliction, thought often of Kanana as he rode up and down the line. He remembered his looks, his words. He wondered if he could have been mistaken in the boy. He wished he had given him the horse and that he had blessed him before he went away.
The moment the sun sank into the billows of sand Kanana had left his perch.
From the loaded stalks about him he gathered a goat's-hair sack of grain and fastened it upon his back. There was no one to whom he need say farewell, and, armed only with his shepherd's staff, he started away upon the desert, setting his course to the north and west.