Page:Alien Souls by Achmed Abdullah (1922).djvu/16

naked tear their clothes? Can a dead horse eat grass?"

So month after month he went into the hills, and he came back, his soul filled with the sights he had seen, his spirit peopled with the tales and the memories of the hills. Often I spent the evening with him, and he would digest his experiences in the acrid fumes of his bamboo pipe. He smoked opium in those days.

Then one day he came back from the hills a married man.

She was a hillwoman of the Moustaffa-Khel tribe, and her name was Bibi Halima. She was a distant cousin of his on his mother's side.

Tall, hook-nosed, white-skinned, with gray-black, flashing eyes and the build of a lean she-panther, not unbeautiful, and fit mother for a strong man's sons, I saw her often. For these hillwomen despise the customs of the sheltered towns; they will not cover their bodies with the swathing farandjés, nor their faces with the chasband, the horsehair veil of the city women.

Ali-Khan loved her. He loved her with that love which comes to fortunate men once in a lifetime—once and not oftener. His spoken love was as his hands, soft and smooth and courtly and slightly scented. He would fill those hands with gifts for her adornment, and he would write poems to her in the Persian manner.

And she? Did she love him?

Assuredly, though she was silent. The women of Afghanistan do not speak of love unless they are courtezans. They bear children,—sons, if Allah wills,—and what else is there for woman in the eyes of woman or of man? Also, since love is sacrifice, can