As soon as Azim reached the pilgrim he sprang from his horse, laid his gun down on the sand, and, taking a skin-bottle of water which hung at his saddle bow, proceeded to pour some down the throat of the man, who gave signs of returning life.
Yusef almost instantly joined him; but what were the feelings of the Syrian when in the pale, wasted features of the sufferer before him he recognized those of Sadi, his deadly, merciless foe!
"Let me hold the skin-bottle, Sheik!" exclaimed Yusef; "let the draught of cold water be from my hand." The Syrian remembered the command, "If thine enemy thirst, give him drink."
Sadi was too ill to be conscious of anything passing around him; but he drank with feverish eagerness, as if his thirst could never be slaked.
"How shall we bear him hence?" said the Sheik; "my journey cannot be delayed."
"Go on thy journey, O Sheik," replied Yusef; "I will return to the tents with this man, if thou but help me to place him on my horse. He shall share my tent and my cup,--he shall be to me as a brother."
"Dost thou know him?" inquired the Sheik.
"Ay, well I know him," the Syrian replied.
Sadi was gently placed on the horse, for it would have been death to remain long unsheltered on the sand. Yusef walked beside the horse, with difficulty supporting the drooping form of Sadi, which would otherwise soon have fallen to the ground. The journey on foot was very exhausting to Yusef, who could scarcely sustain the weight of the helpless Sadi. Thankful was the Syrian hakeem when they reached the Bedouin tents.
Then Sadi was placed on the mat which had served Yusef for a bed. Yusef himself passed the night without rest, watching at the sufferer's side. Most carefully did the hakeem nurse his enemy through a raging fever. Yusef spared no effort of skill, shrank from no painful exertion, to save the life of the man who had nearly destroyed his own!
On the third day the fever abated; on the evening of that day Sadi suddenly opened his eyes, and, for the first time since his illness, recognized Yusef, who had, as he believed, perished months before in the desert.
"Has the dead come to life?" exclaimed the trembling Sadi, fixing upon Yusef a wild and terrified gaze; "has the injured returned for vengeance?"