Page:Alien Souls by Achmed Abdullah (1922).djvu/180
"I am a beggar and I love a Queen.
'Tis thee, beloved, upon whose braided locks
The fez lies as a rose-leaf on the brook;
Tis thee whose breath is sweetest ambergris,
Whose orbs are dewdrops which the lilies wear.
"Claptrap! Oh, I don't know. You should have heard Hasaballah's own effort. He was going to address her as 'blood of my soul,' but I thought it altogether too extravagant. The time to woo a woman is when you first see her, and the way to woo her is the old-fashioned way. Flatteries never grow old, and I always use the time-honored similes.
"I tell her that she is as beautiful as the pale moon, that her walk is the walk of the king-goose, that the corners of her mouth touch her pink ears, that she has the waist of a lion, and that her voice is sweeter than the song of the Kokila-bird.
"But permit me to continue my tale.
"Two hours later Hasaballah and Ayesha knocked at my gate, and, touching my knee, asked me for hospitality and protection, which I granted them, having always been known as the friend of the oppressed and the persecuted. And early the following morning the Sheik came to my house, and I received him with open arms as the honored guest of my divan.
"After partaking of coffee and pipe he said:
"'Ibrahim, last night when I went to the women's quarter to join my female household in their midnight prayer, the weeping slaves told me that Ayesha had run away. Great was my grief and fervent my prayers, and when sleep at last closed my swollen eyelids I saw in my dreams the angels Gabriel and Michael descend from heaven. They took me on their