“Ah, my son,” he cried, in French, when he was within distance, “you travel light this time.  Whom have you with you, another mistress, or, at last, a wife?”

“Hush,” said Abdullah, “she is a little damsel who has ridden twelve leagues and is cruel tired.”

“God help her,” said the man of the goats; “shall I give her some warm milk—­there is plenty?”

“No,” said Abdullah; “let us go to thy house,” and the goats, at the whistle of their master, turned, and followed the camels under the palms of the oasis of Zama.

They halted before a little hut, and Abdullah held up his hand.  The camels stopped and kneeled.  The girl did not move.  Abdullah ran to her, took her in his arms, lifted her, turned, entered the hut, passed to the inner room, laid her upon a low couch, beneath the window, put away her veil, kissed her hand, not her lips, and came out.

In the outer room he found his host.  Upon the table were some small cheeses, a loaf of bread, a gourd of milk.  Abdullah fell upon the food.

“Well, my son,” said his host, after Abdullah began to pick and choose, “what brings you to me?”

“This,” said Abdullah, and he felt in his bosom, and drew out the invoice of his passenger.

His host took from a book upon the table a pair of steel-bowed spectacles—­the only pair in the Sahara.  He placed the bow upon his nose, the curves behind his ears, snuffed the taper with his fingers, took the invoice from Abdullah, and read.  He read it once, looked up, and said nothing.  He read it a second time, looked up, and said:  “Well, what of it?”

“Is it legal?” asked Abdullah.

“Doubtless,” said his host, “since it is a hiring, merely, not a sale; and it is to be executed in Biskra, which is under the French rule.”

“The French rule is beneficent, doubtless?” asked Abdullah.

His host did not answer for some minutes; then he said:  “It is a compromise; and certain souls deem compromises to be justice.  The real men of this age, as of all others, do not compromise; they fight out right and wrong to a decision.  The French came into Algeria to avenge a wrong.  They fought, they conquered, and then they compromised.  Having compromised, they must fight and conquer all over again.”

“You are a Frenchman, are you not?” asked Abdullah.

“No,” replied his host, “I am a Parisian.”

“Ah,” exclaimed Abdullah, “I thought they were the same thing.”

“Far from it,” replied his host.  “In Brittany, Frenchmen wear black to this day for the king whom Parisians guillotined.”

“Pardon,” said Abdullah; “I have been taught that Paris is French.”

“Not so, my son,” rejoined his host; “Paris is universal.  If you will go to the Museum of the Louvre, and take a seat before the Venus of Milo, and will remain long enough, everybody in this world, worth knowing, will pass by you; crowned heads, diplomats, financiers, the demimonde; you may meet them all.  They tell me that the same thing happens to the occupant of the corner table of the Cafe de la Paix—­the table next to the Avenue de l’Opera; if he waits long enough, he will see every one—­”