So I ate my fill of the fruits and slaked my thirst
with the water of the streams till I could no more, and I returned
thanks to the Most High and glorified Him, after which I sat till
nightfall hearing no voice and seeing none inhabitant. Then I lay
down, well-nigh dead for travail and trouble and terror, and slept
without surcease till morning, when I arose and walked about under the
trees till I came to the channel of a draw well fed by a spring of
running water, by which well sat an old man of venerable aspect,
girt about with a waistcloth made of the fiber of palm fronds. Quoth I
to myself. "Haply this Sheikh is of those who were wrecked in the ship
and hath made his way to this island."
So I drew near to him and saluted him, and he returned my salaam
by signs, but spoke not, and I said to him, "O nuncle mine, what
causeth thee to sit here?" He shook his head and moaned and signed
to me with his hand as who should say, "Take me on thy shoulders and
carry me to the other side of the well channel." And quoth I in my
mind: "I will deal kindly with him and do what he desireth. It may
be I shall win me a reward in Heaven, for he may be a paralytic.
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