Page:Alien Souls by Achmed Abdullah (1922).djvu/28

"It is even as Allah wills." he said, and he bowed his head. "Even as Allah wills," he repeated. He turned toward the east, spread out his long, narrow hands, and continued with a low voice, speaking to himself, alone in the presence of God, as it were:

"Against the blackness of the night, when it overtaketh me, I betake me for refuge to Allah, the lord of daybreak."

There came a long silence, the hillman again rolling on the ground, mouthing the dirt after the manner of jackals.

Finally I spoke:

"Kill him, my friend; kill him slowly while I hold him. Let us finish this business, so that we may return to the city."

"Kill him?" he asked, and there was in his voice that which resembled laughter. "Kill a madman, a man beloved by Allah the Just?" He walked over to Ebrahim Asif, touching him gently with the point of his shoe. "Kill a madman?" he repeated, and he smiled sweetly at the prostrate hillman, as a mother smiles at a prattling babe.

"The man is not mad," I interrupted roughly; "he is playing at being mad."

"No! no!" Ali-Khan said with an even voice as passionless as fate. "Assuredly the man is mad—mad by the forty-seven true saints. For who but a madman would kill a woman? And so you, being my friend, will take this madman to the villages of the Moustaffa-Khel. See him safely home. For it is not good that harm should come to those whom Allah loves. Tell the head-man of the village, tell the priest, tell the elders, tell everybody, that there is no feud. Tell them that Ebrahim Asif can live out his life in peace. Also his sons, and the sons which the future