Page:Alien Souls by Achmed Abdullah (1922).djvu/19

"O Peacock, cry again," I heard his voice as he passed my house.

Early the next morning Ebrahim Asif came to town. He also was of the Moustaffa-Khel, and a first cousin to Bibi Halima, and upon the blue-misted Salt Hills he was known as a brawler and a swashbuckler. A year before, so I heard afterward, following the custom of the hills, which does not make marriage a matter of jingling silver, he had spoken to her of love, and had been refused. She had married Ali-Khan instead a few months later.

Now he came to her house, and the old mother stood in the doorway.

"Go away!" she shrilled; for being an Afghan herself, she did not trust the Afghan, her sister's son.

Ebrahim Asif laughed.

"I have come to see my cousin and Ali-Khan. See, I have come bringing gifts."

But still the old woman was suspicious.

"Trust a snake before an Afghan," she replied. "Ali-Khan is away to the hills. Go away, filthy spawn of much evil!"

"Spawn of your sister's blood, you mean," he replied banteringly; and the old woman laughed, for this was a jest after her own heart. "Let me in!" he continued. "Once your daughter blinded my soul with a glance of her eye. Once the fringe of her eyelids took me into captivity without ransom. But time and distance have set me free from the shackles of my love. It is forgotten. Let me bring these gifts to her."

So the old woman let him into the zenana, where the windows were darkened to shut out the strong Northern sun. Bibi Halima gave him pleasant greeting from where she lay on the couch in the corner of the room.