The merchant sits under the tree waiting for the ifrit. It is the appointed day, and he did not run. An old man leading a doe comes past him.
The old man thinks it strange, a man sitting weeping in the middle of a desert. So he sits down beside him and asks. The merchant tells him the whole thing from the beginning.
The sun begins to go down. There is nobody in the desert but the two of them. The merchant assumes this man will move on as well.