He was a very poetic young camel and rather musical besides. He had a beautiful singing voice, and in the evenings when they halted at an oasis he liked to play the harp and sing to her. Most of his songs were about himself and his own beauty and grace, but sometimes at night his songs were so tender in his love for her that she had to rise from her knees and break off great leaves from the banana trees and dry the tears from her aging face.
On the fifteenth night they halted at an oasis where the poplars and mimosas grew in great profusion, and where hares and antelope moved shyly in the cool green gorges. The stars were sprinkled out as fine as salt across the bluish night sky. The youngest camel lay close beside his mother in the moist grasses, and she said to him:--
“Flower of my heart, this trip you have followed close beside me, for you are my baby still, but soon you must prepare yourself for what will surely come. Perhaps when we reach the end of our journey you will be taken from me, and from then on you will travel with strange camels, carrying a load of your own.”
“A baby?” said the youngest camel in surprise, feeling a little annoyed. “Me, a baby?”
“Yes,” said his mother sadly, “and so, my earliest leaf, you will have to undergo the ordeal of loneliness.”
“What in the world is that?” asked the young camel, and he reached out for his harp and lightly touched its strings.
“The ordeal of loneliness is the thing we camels fear the most,” said his mother, and he sat listening to her rather impatiently, swinging his little golden chin back and forth as he chewed on a bit of grass. “Men have found out,” she went on, lowering her voice, “that what we fear above everything else is being left alone. So they take us one by one when we are very young like you, and they tie us fast and leave us in solitude three days and three nights in the desert. If we live through that and keep our reason, then we’re cured. After that we no longer fear the terrible sight of nothingness around us. But sometimes we do not live through it. You must be prepared for that.”
“What, me?” said the youngest camel with a laugh. “Do you think I’ll mind? Why, not at all. I’m a little bit afraid of fire, and I don’t quite like things that lie still and refuse to move any more. But generally I’m much more brave than other young camels, and I couldn’t possibly be afraid of being alone!”