Page:Alien Souls by Achmed Abdullah (1922).djvu/149

Clinton McGarra, the great skin specialist, and had picked up the Kurd in Smyrna. For Mohammed Yar had left his native village shortly after Krelekian and Aziza had departed for America, drifting on the trail of the Armenian with the instinct of a wild animal, serene in his belief that presently Fate would send him across the other's path.

The Arab, being an Arab, thus an ironic observer of living things, had taken an interest in the savage tribesman, who took him completely into his confidence, telling him about Zado—and Aziza.

"Come with me to America," El-Touati, the Arab, had said. "You say he has gone there. It will not be hard to find him. Armenians are a clannish folk, herding together like sheep."

And thus Mohammed Yar became cook, bottle-washer, valet, and half a dozen other useful things to the smiling, bearded Arab, receiving in exchange a small wage and certain lessons in medicine—certain lessons which, when first mentioned, had sent both the Arab and the Kurd into fits of high-pitched, throaty laughter.

El-Touati laughed now as Mohammed Yar came into the room, returned from his morning's expedition to West Street.

"Did you find him?" he asked.

"Yes, Haakim."

"Did you bridle your tongue and your temper?"

"Yes. I spoke honeyed words, sweet words, glib words."

"And," pursued the Arab, "did you speak forked words, twisted words, words filled with guile and worry?"

"Yes. I planted the seed of worry, Haakim."