The Three Hundredth and Thirty First Night, and Dunyazad said to her sister, Allah upon thee! As thou are other than tired, finish for us thy tale. She replied, With love and good will! It hath reached me, Ô Auspicious King!, that the Cameleer came forward before the Sultan’s hands and said, Ô My Lord!, Verily these men have carried away the camel that belongeth to me…
-One Thousand and One Nights, trans. Richard Burton
And here begins Scheherazade’s night long tale of recovering the stolen camel. The excellent mimic KhairAllah told a similar story at the campfire about one of his drovers on night watch, a man with a severe stutter, who had fallen asleep and allowed a thief to unhobble and steal a camel, and the next morning KhairAllah realized the theft and told the drover to remain with the herd while he rode a day and a night tracking the thief, and upon catching him paid the usual finder’s fee in order to avoid violence, and when he returned to camp at dawn the following day with the recovered camel found the drover again fallen asleep and yet another camel stolen, ending the story in the voice of the sleepy headed drover, Anā Āsif, I am Sorry, Ô Kh-, Kh-, Kh-, KhairAllah!