“Oh, let me go! Please let me go,” he pleaded, but his words were drowned out by the whistling and scolding of the scores and scores of birds.
Now that he had stopped, they settled at once on his head and on his hump, while others flew furiously before his eyes. If he turned in desperation to the right or to the left, they pursued him, chattering, while still others swung like tiny sharp-clawed monkeys on his tail. He spun around, but they were everywhere, increasing in numbers and in fury with every instant that passed. Finally one single brilliant bird poised herself before him on the air and spoke these words:--
“Listen to us once again. You have lost a great deal of your conceit since we last met, and you have almost entirely ceased to lie. Moreover, you have learned to be polite to everyone you meet.”
“Yes, yes, yes!” trilled all the birds in chorus.
“You are much braver now, as well,” the single bird’s voice went on, “and much humbler than you ever were before.”
“Yes, yes, yes!” cried all the shrill little voices again.
“So now, go back,” warbled the bird as she dipped and winged before him on the air. “Go back, go back before the white leader wakes up and sees.”
“Yes, yes, yes!” cried all the little birds at once, and suddenly the youngest camel’s knees began to shake under him as he asked himself if it was true that this was just one more temptation which had been put to him.
“But--but--but I’m sure--I’m sure--I’m sure I saw my mother,” he protested, and as he said this all the birds rose up from his back and from his head and from his tail with a great rush of tiny wings.
“Look, four-footed child!” sang the single bird’s voice to him. “Look ahead and look well at her. She’s nothing. She’s just a reflection on the mists of evening. Can’t you see she’s a mirage like the oasis you followed?”
“Yes, a mirage, a mirage, a mirage!” trilled the hundreds of birds around him.
The youngest camel looked very hard at the figure of his mother jogging along ahead, and now it seemed to him indeed that there was something rather hazy and misty about her such as he had never noticed before. He turned in his tracks, with just enough breath left to call out his thanks to the birds, and then he made his way back to the caravan as quickly as he could. His knees were still quaking under him when he reached the litter’s side, and from there he saw the flock of tiny bright birds disappear like a sunset cloud into the sky.