Page:Alien Souls by Achmed Abdullah (1922).djvu/20

"Live forever, most excellent cousin!" he said, bowing with clasped hands. "Live in the shadow of happiness." He took a step nearer. "I have brought you presents, dispenser of delights."

Bibi Halima laughed, knowing of old Ebrahim Asif's facility for turning cunning words. She spoke to her mother.

"Open the blinds, Mother, and let me see what my cousin has brought from the hills."

The old woman drew up the blinds, and Bibi Halima looked.

"See, see, Mother!" she exclaimed with delight, "see the gifts which my cousin has brought me—gifts to adorn the house!"

"Aye, Daughter," the old woman replied, "gifts to adorn the house." And then she added, with the pride of age greedy for grandchildren, "but there will be a gift yet more fit to adorn this house when you lay a man-child into your lord's arms."

Then the terrible rage of the Afghans rose suddenly in Ebrahim Asif's throat. He had come in peace, bearing gifts, as I said; but when he heard that the woman whom once he had loved would give birth to a child, the other man's child, he drew his cheray.

A slashing, downward thrust, and he was out of the house and off to the hills again.

The blow had struck Bibi Halima's temple with full force. She was half dead, but she forced back her ebbing strength because she wanted to hold a man-child in her arms before she died.

"Stop your crying!" She turned to her mother, who had fallen into a moaning heap at the foot of the couch. "Allah el-Mumit—God the dispenser of justice-will not let me die before I have laid a son into my lord's arms. Call a doctor of the English."