Passed he then their far horizon, and beyond it rode alone;--
They alone, with Arab patience, lay within its flaming zone.
Day by day the servants waited, but the master never came,--
Day by day, in feebler accents, called on Allah's holy name.
One by one they killed the camels, loathing still the proffered food,
But in weakness or in frenzy slaked their burning thirst in blood.
On unheeded heaps of treasure rested each unconscious head;
While, with pious care, the dying struggled to entomb the dead.
So they perished. Gaunt with famine, still did Haroun's trusty hand
For his latest dead companion scoop sepulture in the sand.
Then he died; and pious Nature, where he lay so gaunt and grim,
Moved by her divine compassion, did the same kind thing for him.
Earth upon her burning bosom held him in his final rest,
While the hot winds of the Desert piled the sand above his breast.--
Onward in his fiery travel Abdel-Hassan held his way,
Yielding to the camel's instinct, halting not, by night or day,
'Till the faithful beast, exhausted in her fearful journey, fell,
With her eye upon the palm-trees rising o'er the lonely well:
With a faint, convulsive struggle, and a feeble moan, she died,
While her still surviving master lay unconscious by her side.
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