Page:Alien Souls by Achmed Abdullah (1922).djvu/108

Stumbling, falling, cursing, he ran through the night. His withered lungs beat like a hammer. But he kept on, along the southern bank, towards his house that sprang out at him with warm, golden lights.

With his last ounce of strength he hurtled across the threshold—and there, by the side of Kurjan, one arm around her waist, the other gesturing some flowery words of love he was whispering in her ear, sat Ebrahim Asif, in the ragged clothes of Babar, drenched to the skin, but happy, serene, supremely sure of himself.

Languidly he looked up and greeted the old man who was speechless with rage and fatigue.

"Have the women prepare me a meal," he said, "a khirli fish, carefully boned, and spiced with tumeric, also a goblet of tea, steaming hot. For it was cold swimming the River of Hate above the whirlpool of the Black Rock, and it is not right that the bridegroom should sit shivering at the wedding."

Then, casually, he asked:

"Did you by any chance kill that youth of my village—ah—Babar who changed clothes with me in the acacia clump below the bridge?"

"No—no—" stammered Yar Zaddiq; and Ebrahim Asif sighed contentedly.

"Good, by Allah and by Allah!" he said. "There are the makings of a man in that youth—once I shall have taught him the shining wisdom I learned at Kabul—"

And, dreamily, with Kurjan's head on his shoulder, he looked through the open door where the night was draping the River of Hate in her trailing cloak of purple and black.