Page:Alien Souls by Achmed Abdullah (1922).djvu/69

would ask him about his dead father, about Cairo, and—yes—they would ask him about himself and give him a fair measure of honor. For he was coming among them, not as a beggar asking for asylum and bread because of kinship, but as a rich man bearing gifts bought with the red gold of Egypt.

"Home—Allah be praised!" he thought as he dropped into the dreamless sleep of youth.

"Ho, cousin mine! Ho, great lord out of Egypt!" …

The voice seemed to come from a far distance, and Yar Khan thought that he was dreaming, perhaps of his cousin, Jehan Hydar—he who had addressed him as "Egyptian"; so he stretched his body luxuriously for a second sleep—and then he felt a hand touch his shoulder and shake him gently.

At once he was wide awake. It was high day, with the cool golden mountain sun already in the upper arc of the heavens and weaving a lacy, ever-shifting pattern into the drab emptiness of the little hut.

"Ho, cousin mine!" again came the voice from the head of the bed. Slowly he raised himself upright. He turned and he—saw. A young girl was standing there, looking down at him with a smile, her narrow hand on his shoulder. And Yar Khan blushed and closed his eyes.

For be it remembered that all his life he had lived in Egypt and that, while he had seen foreign women walk about unveiled as well as old Moslem hags who were considered too old to spread the soft scent of temptation, he had never seen a young girl of his own race and faith without a veil. Nor had he ever spoken to such a one. He had dreamt of it—as boys dream—