Story 17 A bareheaded and barefooted pedestrian who had arrived from Kufah with the Hejaz-caravan of pilgrims joined us, strutted about and recited: 'I am neither riding a camel nor under a load like a camel. I am neither a lord of subjects nor the slave of a potentate. Grief for the present, or distress for the past, does not trouble me. I draw my breath in comfort and thus spend my life.' A camel-rider shouted to him: 'O dervish, where art thou going? Return, for thou wilt expire from hardships.' He paid no attention but entered the desert and marched. When we reached the station at the palm-grove of Mahmud, the rich man was on the point of death and the dervish, approaching his pillow, said: 'We have not expired from hardship but thou hast died on a dromedary.' A man wept all night near the head of a patient. When the day dawned he died and the patient revived. Many a fleet charger had fallen dead While a lame ass reached the station alive. Often healthy persons were in the soil Buried and the wounded did not die.
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