Page:Alien Souls by Achmed Abdullah (1922).djvu/96

ancient tribal laws; he had tossed his rifle into the water—and—what did they want him to do?

They supplied him with food and tobacco and bhang as was his right, since he was their chief. But it was all done grudgingly, as a drab matter of duty.

Yet there was little open complaint; just an undercurrent of muttering and whining. Only the young man, Babar, put it into words one day.

"You are the Chief," he said. "You must help us!"

Simple enough words. But, somehow, they seemed to Ebrahim the final, unbearable stigma.

"Do you want me to attempt the impossible, O Abuser of the Salt, O Son of a Burnt Father?" he cried. "Do you want me to make noises with my ears and catch the wind of heaven with my bare hands, O Cold of Countenance?"—and he beat Babar with the flat of his saber till the blood came.

After that, the people of the village, his own people, trembled when he passed. And in all Kafiristan there was no man more lonely than he.

Thus he took to roaming the hills up and down the River of Hate, climbing to the higher range where, caught in crevices, the snow lay clean and stainless beneath the crisp air, down abrupt precipices, and into thick forests of spruce and beach where the dry leaves lay in intricate, wind-tossed, fox-red patterns fretted with delicate green shadows; and one day, returning past the natural bridge that marked the line between the two villages and where, years earlier, his father had been beaten by Yar Zaddiq, he saw a young girl standing there, poised lightly upon narrow, sandaled feet, and looking out upon the foaming River of Hate.

She turned as she heard his approach and stared at him fearlessly, and he stood still and stared back.