Page:Alien Souls by Achmed Abdullah (1922).djvu/104

"When, heart o' me?" she whispered.

And the answer came low and triumphant. "To-morrow, Crusher of Hearts!"

And, the next day, in the White Village, the conches brayed and the gongs were beaten; the young men danced over crossed daggers, and the unmarried girls drowned their heads with the dowers of the hillside and the forest.

For that morning, Ebrahim Asif had called the villagers to full durbar and had given them the good news. There had been uncouth rejoicing.

Only Jarullah had struck a discordant note.

"Beware, young Chief," he had said, following Ebrahim from the council hut. "Yar Zaddiq has a forked tongue. His father was a hyena, and his mother a she-devil," so he warned.

"Possibly," the other had laughed. "But, whatever his ancestry, his curse has not descended to his daughter. She is a precious casket filled with the arts of coquetry. Too, she is strong and well turned of hip and breast. She will bear me stout men-children."

And now he was in his house, adorning himself as becomes a bridegroom; for he had decided that he would wed Kurjan that very night.

He curled and oiled his beard; he drew broad lines of antimony down his eyelids; he heightened the color of his lips by chewing betel; he stained his finger tips crimson with henna; he wound an enormous green muslin turban around his fur cap; he arranged well the folds of his waistband; he perfumed his body from head to toes with pungent oil of geranium, a small bottle of which had cost him a year's pay to Kabul.

Then he threw a peach-colored silk khalat, embroidered with cunning Persian designs in gold thread,