Hassan Ahmad had toddled over to the cripple's helpless knee, and Mohammed Ali, half asleep, buried his head on the girl's thin breast. There was no sound in the room save her sobbing, and a passing rustle as if something in the shadows had tried to move and sank back to the old position again. After a time the response came feebly:
"Ai, my sister, cry not. Marriage is good. It is the Lord's will, and Peru hath the right."
Perhaps for the first time the cripple hesitated in his creed. To say sooth, it seemed odd to put Peru on the Lord's side.
"Yes, he hath the right. Therefore I cry, Lâlu. Is there nothing to be done, Lâlu? Canst thou not help at all?"
Lâlu, in the shadows, looked down at his dexterous hands, then covered his face with them. They were good for nothing else. A girl must marry where she was bidden, and even had the rest of him been as face and hands, there would have been nothing to be done, nothing to be said. What chance had a cripple, a girl, and two babies, against the will of the Lord represented by law backed up by principalities and powers, by custom and chief courts, by wisdom and civilization?
"Cry not, my sister, cry not. Marriage is honourable in all."
So by degrees Fâtma's sobs ceased before the inevitable.
"Come, Hassan Ahmad," she cried; "it grows late. 'Tis time for sleep."
"He sleeps already," replied the voice from the shadows; "'twere pity to wake him, sister."
"I will carry Mohammed Ali first and then come back." Her old decision and motherliness showed even through her utter dejection.