Page:Alien Souls by Achmed Abdullah (1922).djvu/29

will bring him. Safe they are in God's keeping because of their father's madness!"

I drew him to one side, and whispered to him:

""What is the meaning of this? What what—"

He interrupted me with a gesture, speaking close to my ear:

"Do as I bid you for the sake of our friendship; for it is said that the mind of a friend is the well of trust, and the stone of confidence sinks therein and is no more seen." He was silent for a moment, then he continued in yet lower voice: "Hold him safe against my claiming? Assuredly him and his sons—and—" then suddenly. "O Allah, send me a man-child!"

And he strode down the hill into the purple dusk, while I, turning over his last words in my mind, said to myself that he was a soft man indeed: but that there is also the softness of forged steel, which bends to the strength of the sword-arm, and which kills on the rebound.

So, obeying my friend's command, I went to the villages of the Moustaffa-Khel. I delivered Ebrahim Asif safe into the hands of the jirgahs, giving them the message with which Ali-Khan had intrusted me.

There was a little laughter, a little cutting banter hard to bear, and some talk of cowards, of city-bred Heratis turning the other cheek after the manner of the feringhees, of blind men wanting nothing but their eyes; but I kept my tongue safe between my teeth. For I remembered the softness of steel; I remembered Ali-Khan's love for Bibi Halima; and thirdly I remembered that there is no love as deep as hate.

Four days later I knocked at the door of Ali-Khan's