EBNO’L AMED.

on with his thought: “If the famine lasted longer than the jewels, mamma,
‘couldn’t I help some?”

“A coward is like the south wind; bringing sand instead of rain,” said
Umdhabai fiercely.

“Tf Tam near youl can help you,” Ebno’l Amed insisted. “ Only for that
I wouldn’t be afraid to go to the Khan alone, to sell the fruit; but I heard men
say that the caravan this morning was led by the terrible Abu’] Hasham.”

“ Abw1l Hasham!” Umdhabai exclaimed, with a startled shudder. “Come,
let us go back.”

“No, no, mamma,” the boy pleaded. “Only keep your hand on me. Then
he cannot steal me, and I shall not be afraid. I am too small to fight him, and |
if he carried me far away and sold me for a slave, I could not help you, mamma.
Come!” and he tugged upon her sarai.

After what she had been saying about bravery, Umdhabai did not dare to let
ibno’| Amed see how thoroughly she herself was frightened by that name of
Abul Hasham — the terror of every tribe and village of North Africa; so lay-
ing a trembling hand upon his shoulder, she reluctantly started toward the Khan
_ to sell her fruit in the caravan of the brigand slave-collector.

It was a miserable desert town they entered; but it boasted a mud wall,
with two gates, bearing their names in great letters on the arch: “Gate of
the Desert ” and “ Gate of the Sea.”

Ebno’l Amed was chatting fearlessly enough, now, but his mother’s face
grew very anxious as the bedlam of voices greeted them from the Khan, where
men, women and children, in the inevitable fashion of an Oriental caravan, were
shouting and wrangling in different languages, and camels and dromedaries were
grunting and groaning as they went through the laborious task of lying down.

It was not the confusion which disturbed Umdhabai, however, for ordinarily
‘she would have hurried to the noisiest quarter, sure that there the people would
be the most wide awake, and in a moment she would have been shouting and
wrangling with the rest, selling her fruit faster than any of her neighbors.
‘To-day she would have given it all away rather than go near the place.

Upon the very outskirts of the Khan she sat down, with the basket in front
‘of her, and one arm about her boy.

“ Why don’t you shout, mamma?” he asked; but receiving no reply he, too,
lapsed into silence, and sat watching the camels and playing with the silver
‘bands upon his mother’s ankle.

There had only been a few customers when Ebno’l Amed felt the arm
tighten about him and tremble, and, looking up, he saw a tall Moor, with a white
beard and a scar on one side of his face. The man paused, and asked the price
‘of all the fruit left in the basket.

“Take it without money. It has no price,” Umdhabai replied, pushing the
basket toward him with her foot. It was the same form which the Prophet