Next day the villagers fetched a
camel and said to the driver, 'Put this sick man on thy camel
and carry him to Baghdad and set him down at the door of the
hospital, so haply he may be medicined and recover his health,
and God will reward thee.' 'I hear and obey,' said the camel-
driver. So they brought Ghanim, who was asleep, out of the
mosque and laid him, mat and all, on the back of the camel; and
his mother and sister came out with the rest of the people to
look on him, but knew him not. However, after considering him,
they said, 'Verily, he favours our Ghanim! Can this sick man be
he?' Presently, he awoke and finding himself bound with ropes on
the back of a camel, began to weep and complain, and the people
of the village saw his mother and sister weeping over him, though
they knew him not. Then they set out for Baghdad, whither the
camel-driver forewent them and setting Ghanim down at the door of
the hospital, went away. He lay there till morning, and when the
people began to go about the ways, they saw him and stood gazing
on him, for indeed he was become as thin as a skewer, till the
syndic of the market came up and drove them away, saying, 'I will
gain Paradise through this poor fellow; for if they take him into
the hospital, they will kill him in one day.' Then he made his
servants carry him to his own house, where he spread him a
new bed, with a new pillow, and said to his wife, 'Tend him
faithfully.
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