Page:Alien Souls by Achmed Abdullah (1922).djvu/26

The words died in his throat, and he threw himself on the ground, mouthing the dirt like a jackal hunting for a buried corpse.

For a moment I stood aghast. Was the man really mad?

But no; I remembered the cunning look which had crept into his eyes when he had said that perhaps Ali-Khan would show him mercy. He was playing at being mad. There was no other way of saving his life, for in the hills madmen are considered especially beloved by Allah, and thus sacrosanct.

"Blood has reddened the palms of my hands," came the droning chant as Ebrahim Asif jumped up again from the ground and began again his whirling dance.

"What has happened?" Ali-Khan whispered in my ear. "Has there been killing? Where? When?"

Instead of replying, I pressed my rifle into his hands.

"Shoot him!" I cried. "Shoot!"

He looked at me, utterly amazed.

"But why should I shoot him?"

Again the droning chant of Ebrahim rose, swelling and decreasing in turns, dying away in a thin, quavery tremolo, then bursting forth thick and palpable.

"I give thanks to Allah the Just, the withdrawer of the veils of hidden things, the raiser of the flag of beneficence! For He guided my footsteps! He led me into the plains. And there I took toll, red toll!" There came a shriek of mad laughter, then very softly he chanted "Once a nightingale warbled in the villages of the Moustaffa-Khel, and now she is dead. The death-gongs are ringing in the city of the plains—"

"Shoot him," I shouted again to Ali-Khan, "or, by