Page:Alien Souls by Achmed Abdullah (1922).djvu/17

there be greater proof of love than the pain of giving birth?

No, Bibi Halima did not weave words of love, cunning and soft. Perhaps she thought her husband's spoken love-words in keeping with his henna-stained finger-nails, an effeminacy of the city, smacking of soft Persia and softer Stamboul, the famed town of the West.

She did not speak of love, but the time was near when she was about to give answer, lusty, screaming answer. She expected a child.

"May Allah grant that it be a man-child," she said to her husband and to her mother, a strong-boned, hook-nosed old hag of a hillwoman who had come down into the city to soothe her daughter's pains with her knowledge—"a man-child, broad-bodied and without a blemish!"

"Aye, by God, the holder of the scale of law! A man-child, a twirler of strength, a breaker of stones, a proud stepper in the councils of fighting men!" chimed in the old woman, using a tribal saying of the Moustaffa-Khel.

Ali-Khan, as was his wont, snapped his fingers rapidly to ward off the winds of misfortune. He bent over Bibi Halima's hands, and kissed them very gently, for you must remember that he was a soft man, city-bred, very like a Persian.

"Let it be a man-child," he said in his turn, and his voice was as deep and holy as the voice of the muezzin calling the faithful to prayer. "Allah, give me a son, a little son, to complete my house, to give meaning and strength to my life; and to yours, blood of my soul," he added, again kissing Bibi Halima's hands. "And you, beloved," he continued haltingly, for a great fear