"Hai! who can strive against fate! But a few days after thou hadst departed, there came in the middle of the night vile robbers, and lo! when I awoke in the morning, thy goods were not. It is kismet."
There was a tone of mockery in the question which apparently escaped the notice of the innkeeper, though it provoked a chuckle from the two traders who were tearing apart with their fingers a well-stewed fowl.
"Hai!" said the innkeeper, with a mournful face; "when thou didst not return, thy camel would not eat, and his hump sank away to flatness, and on the tenth day he died."
"Thou sayest? Of a truth, bhatiyara, he must needs come to life again no later than the morrow's sunrise, and those vile robbers must be pricked in their hearts and restore the goods they have stolen, or assuredly the Kotwal will come and visit this serai, and he will say, since it is so ill a place for man and beast, it must be made desolate. What must be will be."
"Hai! hai!" cried the man, lifting his hands, "how should a dead camel breathe again the breath of life, and evil-doers become good?"
"Even these things are possible, good bhatiyara. And now let me eat, and make ready a good charpoy. These things that I say shall come to pass even while I sleep."
And his two fellow-guests laughed aloud, while the innkeeper muttered in his beard.
Next morning Ahmed found his camel contentedly munching at his stall, with no visible diminution of his hump; and his bales of goods were ranged in decent order along the walls, though when he came to examine them he found that their contents were strangely mixed. But he said nothing of that; he only expressed to the innkeeper his gratification that the night had seen such wonders wrought, and after a simple breakfast he went out and, hiring no coolie this time, took a few of his more costly wares to visit his old friend the darwan of Minghal Khan. Cordial greetings passed between them; the darwan had pleasant recollections of the dainties with which he had been regaled by this excellent Pathan at his former visit. Then he asked why his friend had been so long in hiding the light of his countenance from him. Ahmed told him that he had been ill, and made him laugh heartily at his story of how the rascally innkeeper had brought a dead camel to life and restored stolen goods in the space of one night.