Page:Alien Souls by Achmed Abdullah (1922).djvu/55

said the hadji. He approached the stallion sidewise, hand held high and open to show that he carried neither bit nor martingale, soothing with soft voice, then with cunning palm, rubbing the high, peaked withers, the soft, quivering muzzle, the tufted ears, leaning for ward and blowing warm into the dilated nostrils, finally loosing the steel halter chain.

The headstall dropped. The stallion jumped back, and the little boy fell on the ground, flopping grotesquely—and something reached out and touched the hadji's soul, leaving the chill of an undescribable uneasiness.

He bent to pick the boy up. The little body lay still, lifeless.

He looked. He saw a blue mark across the lad's windpipe where the steel chain had pressed—and he thought that his own son was dead, and that dead was the Red Chief's son. He thought that the hand of man had killed the former, the hand of God the latter, thus evening the score.

But—was the score even?

For a full minute he considered.

His mind resisted from the spontaneous passivity bred by long-continued meditations on Peace. But his hand surrendered to the brain's subconscious, driving will. His hand acted.

He drew the dagger from the waist shawl. He cut across the blue mark which the steel chain had graved on the boy's windpipe, obliterating it with torn flesh and a rush of blood. He left the dagger sticking in the wound. His name was cut in the ebony hilt. The Red Chief would find, and read, and—yes!—thus the score would be even!

The hadji never knew how he reached safety. He