Page:Alien Souls by Achmed Abdullah (1922).djvu/30

This page needs to be proofread.

house, and there was the moaning of women, and the ringing of the death-gong.

Ali-Khan was alone in his room, smoking opium.

"A son has been born me, praise Allah!" was his greeting.

"Praise Allah and the prophet and the prophet's family, and peace and many blessings on them all!" I laid my left hand against his, palm to palm, and kissed him on both cheeks.

There was no need to ask after Bibi Halima, for still from the inner rooms came the moaning of women and the ringing of the death-gong. But another question was in my heart, and he must have read it. For he turned to me, smiling gently, and said:

"Heart speaks naked to heart, and the head answers for both. And I am an Herati and a soft man."

There was peace in his eyes, at which I wondered, and he continued:

"Once I spoke to you of feud. I said that an unfinished feud is a useless thing, as useless as horns on a cat or flowers of air. For, if I kill my enemy, my enemy's son, knowing my name and race, will kill me, and thus through the many generations. A life for a life, and yet again a life for a life. And where, then, is the balancing of lives? Where, then, is the profit to me and mine? So I have made peace between Ebrahim Asif and myself, cunningly, declaring him a madman, beloved by Allah, thus sacrosanct. And I shall sell my house here, and take my little son and go north to Bokhara. I shall sit under the shadow of the Russian czar, and I shall prosper exceedingly; for I know central Asia and the intrigues of central Asia, and I shall sell my knowledge to the czar. I shall be not without honor."

This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.