NABUL WITH HIS MOTHER AND SISTERS.
Thus they tumbled into the big family living-room quite out of breath. "Thou makest noise enough for a small army, my children," said their mother, who was setting out the evening meal. "Thou art home early, my son, but all must be well, for thou art merry."
"He has a secret and will not tell it to us, mother," cried Menah, the eldest sister.
"Now you shall hear it, I waited to tell the mother first," said Nabul as he told his story of the strangers who wanted to engage two donkeys and their drivers for, as he hoped, many weeks.
"It would seem, indeed, to be the hand of good fortune which is held out toward thee," said the mother Mizram.
They all sat around on the floor, which was covered with matting, and Mizram gave each one a thin, flat sort of pancake made of corn meal well browned. This was their plate, and on it she heaped up a stew of mutton and big red peppers fried in oil. Children are never too happy nor too excited to eat, but between each mouthful they talked their prospects over and over again, and were only sorry to think that their father was not here, too, to hear the good news. Nabul's father, Mahomet Ben Hassan, was the captain of a dahabeah, an Egyptian sailing boat, which carried merchandise and native passengers up and down the river Nile. He was away now on a trip and would not be home again for a week or more. An Egyptian household is very industrious, and every one of a suitable age and state of health is always very much occupied. Soon even the little girls would be taught to embroider, and their work would be sold to some merchant in the great Bazaar, and he in turn would sell it to strangers at, of course, a much higher price than the little girls would get for their labour.
When the girls had eaten the cakes that Nabul had brought them and some fruit, they sat in the big window that overlooked the river, and Abdal came in and sat with them until bedtime. Abdal's home was on a farm near Cairo, but since he had become a donkey boy he lived with friends just at the top of the street.
The little girls and their mother slept on a broad cot in the back room, up against the wall which was hung with matting to keep off the chill, but Nabul just rolled himself up in a woollen coverlid and slept on the hard matted floor, just as soundly, too, as he would have done in a soft bed.