Page:Alien Souls by Achmed Abdullah (1922).djvu/91

raised earthen platform in the communal council hut of the village where his ancestors had been hereditary rulers since before the shining adventure of Shikandar Khan, he whom the Christians call Alexander the Macedonian, his rifle across his knees, and a naked, pot-bellied boy of ten fanning him with a silver-handled yak tail, stolen during some raid into Tibet. He was holding a perfumed, daintily embroidered handkerchief to his nose.

On the bare mud floor, below the platform, squatted the men of the village, some thirty in number, in a confused heap of sun-and-dirt-browned arms, legs and patched multi-colored garments.

Ebrahim Asif, remembering the days of his childhood when his father had occupied the seat of chief which to-day was his, turned slightly to the left. Directly in front of him squatted an old man whose name was Jarullah. His face was like a gnarled bit of deodar wood beneath a thatch of bristly, reddish hair.

Ebrahim Asif pointed at him.

"Jarullah," he said, "you are the oldest. Let me hear what wisdom, if any, the many years have brought you."

"It is not money we want," muttered Jarullah.

Then, embarrassed he knew not why, he checked himself. His roving eyes sought his knees and he coughed apologetically, until a young man, lean, red-haired, with pock-marked vulpine features and bold gray eyes, stepped forward, pushed Jarullah unceremoniously aside, and squatted down in his place.

Over his shoulder, he pointed through the doorway, at the River of Hate, and the hissing whirlpool of the Black Rock, and beyond, at the Red Village, that