CHAPTER XLV.
It takes your enemy and your friend, working together, to hurt you to the heart; the one to slander you and the other to get the news to you.
-- Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.
Out of the town again; a long drive through open country, by winding roads among secluded villages nestling in the inviting shade of tropic vegetation, a Sabbath stillness everywhere, sometimes a pervading sense of solitude, but always barefoot natives gliding by like spirits, without sound of footfall, and others in the distance dissolving away and vanishing like the creatures of dreams.

Now and then a string of stately camels passed by--always interesting things to look at--and they were velvet-shod by nature, and made no noise.

Indeed, there were no noises of any sort in this paradise.

Yes, once there was one, for a moment: a file of native convicts passed along in charge of an officer, and we caught the soft clink of their chains.

In a retired spot, resting himself under a tree, was a holy person--a naked black fakeer, thin and skinny, and whitey-gray all over with ashes.
By and by to the elephant stables, and I took a ride; but it was by request--I did not ask for it, and didn't want it; but I took it, because otherwise they would have thought I was afraid, which I was.