Page:Alien Souls by Achmed Abdullah (1922).djvu/99

she bowed to her father who was resting his huge old gnarled body on the earthen platform, and stepped through the curtain into the back part of the house where the women crouched over the crimson charcoal balls of the cooking fire.

Thus, hours later, when night had dropped as it does in the hills, quickly, like a black-winged bird, and when Ehrahim Asif had gone up the river, crossed the natural bridge, and passed through the silent Red Village to the house of Yar Zaddiq, he found the latter unprepared for his coming.

But his first words explained the purpose of his visit. "I am Ebrahim Asif, the son of Sabihhudin Achmat, Chief of the White Village," he said with nonchalant dignity. "I have decided that your daughter shall be the mother of my sons. Hasten the wedding, old Chief. For I am an impatient man who does not brook denial or contradiction, and my young blood is sultry with passion."

And, calmly, he squatted down and helped himself to the other's supply of finely shaved bhang, conscious, by the rustle of the curtain that shut off the back part of the house, that Kurjan was looking at him.

She was standing very still, her heart thumping violently. Quickly, imperceptibly, the knowledge floated down upon her that she loved him. Anxiously, she waited for her father's reply.

When Yar Zaddiq looked up his words dropped smooth and even, as stones drop down a glacier.

"So you are Ebrahim Asif—" his lips curled in a crooked smile, exposing the toothless gums stained with opium and tobacco—"the son of him whom once I beat grievously with sticks—as a dog is beaten with thorn sticks—?"