He is in a tavern in Damascus and as he is about to take a draught he looks up and sees Death sitting at a table across the room, regarding him. He cries out, ‘No. It is not my time. It cannot be.’ He sets his glass down and flees from the tavern at once.
He mounts his steed and rides, rides like the devil himself, out into the desert in the direction of Samara.
The sun and the sand are unrelenting. He presses on. The desert is endless, as if he has inserted himself and the beast he is upon into an eternal channel of desolation.Still, he does not slow at all until he is at the outskirts of Samara. Only then does he break his horse from a full gallop to a canter and continues on and after a time slows to a trot and, following an interim, to a jog.
Presently, he comes to the first oasis at Samara and he realizes he is gripped with a thirst more parching than one he has ever felt before.
When he approaches the well, standing before him is Death. He cries out, “I’m seeing you for the second time. This cannot be, for I escaped you in Damascus.”
Death lays his hand upon his shoulder and says, “I was more surprised than you when I saw you in Damascus, for my appointment with you was always to be here, in Samara.”