Page:Alien Souls by Achmed Abdullah (1922).djvu/87

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fell, curling up like a sleeping dog. "Ahi! Poor Bibi Bear! Brave Bibi Bear!"

His back bled and hurt. But he jerked the pain away with a shrug of his massive shoulder. The English hakim would have two patients instead of one, he told himself, and, dizzy, a little depressed, he turned to resume his walk across he plateau.

But something seemed to float down upon his consciousness, imperceptibly, like the shadow of a leaf through summer dusk, and he stopped and returned to the fir-tree. Standing on his toes, he reached up and caught the toddling, fluffy cub which was trying hard to back up, to regain the security of the higher branches.

"Come, little Sheik Bear!" he crooned as he might to a frightened child. "Come! There is room for thee in the house of Mortazu Khan! Room and food and water—and soon, if Allah be willing and the hakim's medicine strong, a little man-child to play with thee!"

And, the cub nuzzling his heaving chest with a little grunt of satisfaction, Mortazu Khan walked toward the flat roofs of Ghuzni, leaving behind him a thin trail of blood, but hurrying, hurrying.

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