‘What is the matter with thee, O Abu Said? Why doust not speak to thy friends? Art thou possessed by a jinn?’

‘It is Nura...’ whispers Abu Said -- and after a while, when the hot coffee has loosened his tongue, he tells us about Nura, a girl from Najdi town of Ar-Rass (he mentions her father's name and it happens that I know him well). He had observed her secretly over the garden wall when she was drawing water in the company of other women - ‘and I felt as if a glowing coal had fallen in my heart. I love her, but her father, that dog, wouldn’t give me his daughter in marriage, the beggar - and said that she was afraid of me! I offered a lot of money as her dower, also a piece of my land; but he always refused and in the end married her off to her cousin, God's curse be upon him and her!’

His strong, dark face is illuminated from one side by the campfire, and shadows which flicker across it are like the shadows of a hell of torment. He cannot bear to remain sitting for long; driven by his restlessness, he jumps up, busies his hands for a moment with his saddle, returns to the fire and, suddenly, dashes of into the empty night. We can hear him as he runs in wide circles around our camping place and shouts, shouts:

‘Nura’s fire burns me! Nura’s fire burns in my breast!’ -- and again, with a sob: ‘Nura, Nura!’

He approaches the campfire again and runs in circles around it, with his kaftan fluttering like a ghostly night bird in the light and darkness of the flickering fire.

Is he mad? I do not think so. But it may be that out of the dark recesses of his soul rise up some primeval, atavistic emotions - ancestral memories of the African bush, the memories of people who lived in the midst of demons and weird mysteries, still very close to the time when the divine spark of consciousness changed the animal into man; and the spark is not yet strong enough to bind the unchained urges together and to weld them into a higher emotion... For a second it seems to me that I can really see Abu Said’s heart before me, a lump of flesh and blood smoking in the fire of passion as if in real fire -- and somehow it appears quite natural to me that he should cry so terribly, cry and run in circles like a madman until the hobbled camels raise themselves, frightened, on three legs...

Then he returns to us, and throw himself on the ground. I can discern the repugnance in Zayd’s face at the sight of such an un restrained outburst -- for to the aristocratic disposition of a true Arab there is nothing more contemptible than such an unleashing of emotions. But Zayd’s good heart soon gets the better of him. He tugs Abu Said by the sleeve, and while the other lifts his head and stares at him with blank eyes, Zayd gently pulls him close to himself:

‘O Abu Said, how canst thou forget thyself like this? Thou art a warrior, Abu Said... Thou has killed men and often have men nearly killed thee -- and now a women strikes thee down? There are other women in the world besides Nura... O Abu said, thou warrior, thou fool...’

And as the African groans softly and covers his face with his hands, Zayd continues:

‘Be silent, O Abu Said... Look up; thou see the lighted path in the heavens?’

Abu Said looks up in astonishment, and I involuntarily follow Zayd’s pointing finger and turn my eyes to the pale, uneven path that runs across the sky from one horizon to the other horizon. You would call it the Milky Way: but the beduins in their desert wisdom know that it in nothing but the track of that heavenly ram which was sent to Abraham when, in obedience to his God and in his heart’s despair, he raised the knife to sacrifice his first born son. The path of the ram remained visible in the heavens for time eternal, a symbol of mercy and grace, remembrance of the rescue sent to heal the pain of one human heart -- and thus a solace to those who were to come after: to those who are lonely or list in the desert, and to those who were stumble, weeping and desolate, through the wilderness of their own lives.

And Zayd goes on, his hand raised towards the sky, speaking solemnly and at the same time unassumingly as only an Arab can speak:

‘This is the path of the ram which God sent to our Master Abraham when he was about to kill his first-born; thus God showed mercy to His servant... Dost though think He will forget thee?’

Under Zayd’s soothing words Abu Said’s dark face softens in childlike wonderment and becomes visibly quieter, towards the sky trying to find in it an answer to his despair.

... The night is far advanced, but we continue to sit around the glimmering campfire. Abu Said has now emerged from the raging tempest of his passion; his eyes are sad and somewhat tired; he speaks to us of Nura as one might speak of a dear person that has died long ago.