--Sa'adi.
"I would have sent for thee," said Âtma softly, "but there was none to send. The whole town was away at the festival--so I stayed." She sighed almost fiercely in her regret at having been let and hindered, though her eyes were tender, as she gazed down on little Zarîfa who lay in the Wayfarer's arms. It was bare dawn, and, in the shadow of the wall one could but just see the perfect outline of the sleeping face that nestled close to his pallid mask.
"She fails fast, methinks," added the woman in a lower tone.
"Aye! she fails--at last," echoed the man's voice. As if to give them both the lie, the whispered words brought a sudden smile to Zarîfa's face. Her eyes opened full of swift desire, her whole deformed body pressed closer to the breast on which it lay, and there was unmistakable appeal in the soft curved cheeks, the curved waiting lips. The Wayfarer answered it instantly and laid his to hers.
The kiss was long; his mask came up from it with a certain repulsion of expression, at once tender and cruel.
"Yea, it is true! She nears womanhood, and what hath she to do with its blessing, or with its curse," he muttered, looking at the face, which, satisfied, had sunk to sleep once more, a smile still hovering over it; then he laid the misshapen bundle of humanity he held--so small, so helpless, so apart from everything save limited life--on the string bed, whence he had taken it, and covered it gently with the quilt; for the air of dawn was chill.
Âtma stood looking down on the beautiful face, feeling a hot anger rise in her heart against all mankind.
"Thou didst never love her mother, or thou wouldst not speak so," she said scornfully.
The Wayfarer, who at the parapet was watching the slow growth of dawn, turned on her swiftly. "Not love her, woman?" he echoed passionately, fiercely. "That God knows! It is her father that I hate--it is for him I wait!"
"Her father? Art thou not then----?" began the Châran in surprise, but the rebeck player had recovered his calm monotony of manner.