Page:Alien Souls by Achmed Abdullah (1922).djvu/41

slow red which mantled his cheeks telling that he had heard.

Dost Ali looked at him, open-eyed, puzzled. It was beyond his comprehension. If the other had thrown himself at his feet, imploring protection and mercy, or if he had run away, he would have understood. He would even have understood a sort of caustic placidity—a silent, minatory contempt which would presently leap into flame.

But—why—this man stood his ground. He stood his ground without fighting, with no answering flow of abuse, and only a throaty "Peace! Peace!" uttered automatically, like the response in a litany, followed by an admonition to the mountaineer not to be impatient—"indeed thou seest through the whirling mists of passion, brother!"—and finally a few stammering, ragged words drawn across his helplessness when the Red Chief burst into another flood of invective.

Dost Ali was a simple man. He could not sift the hadji's heart. He did not see the waves of passion which were lapping beneath the other's smiling countenance and soft words. He did not understand how the hadji, slowly, painfully, had purged his heart of lust and hatred—how even now, with the terrible insults ringing in his consciousness, he was forcing his faith in God and Peace to buffet a road straight through the black wrath which was consuming him; how he was struggling with himself, finally doffing his worldly pride like a dirty garment.

A coward? Only in so far as he did not want realities to brush him too close. And here reality was bulking big—reality as expressed in the Red Chief's squat mightiness, in his screaming abuse, the half-