“May the spirit of my father, who placed the safekeeping of the blind one in my hands, remain peacefully in Paradise.”
They got up solemnly, turned from left to right three times, and sat down again.
The heathens!
When will they learn to touch wood or to turn the whole chair or couch round three times, with themselves, as do their Christian and more civilized brethren!
“Thou dost worry overmuch, woman, about this white girl. She is but a fly to be blown from the rim of thy cup of happiness and good fortune. A word to thy slave and he pinches the fly between his thumb and finger.”
He illustrated his words, his splendid teeth flashing as he laughed, then ducked his handsome head so as to avoid the back-hander dealt him by the woman he worshipped.
“Thou fool!” she replied shortly. “Where findest thou the sense to drink when thou art thirsty or to eat when thou art empty? Have I not told thee that the white man believes the white woman to be dead, yea, buried in the sands, as she would verily have been buried this night if the thrice accursed blind one had not yet again crossed my path. If the white man who has, through the accursed foolishness of my tongue, been told that the girl is dead, speaks with one who tells him that she is alive, what then? Thou dullard! Canst thou not see a glimmer of light? Behold, art thou blinder than the blind one, thou imbecile offspring of foolish parents!” She got up and crossed to the door, from which nothing could be seen but the stars above great walls of rock, whilst the Nubian rose and followed her noiselessly.
Standing close to her, girt in his loin cloth, he towered above her. He bent his head so that the scented curls touched his lips, and gently stroked the silken wrapper with his slender fingers, whilst his heart almost broke in the love he had for her.
He would have starved for her, endured torture for her, died for her; he was her rightful mate; she was his woman out of all the world; yet she hankered for the grapes which hung well beyond the reach of her crossbred hands, and he forgot his manhood in the fear of losing the little—which was yet so much—she gave him. He worked so hard to gain the barest word of gratitude; he found such joy in lying across the threshold o’ nights to keep her safe; he suffered such hell through jealousy; yet in his loyalty, in his desire to bring her happiness, he had not once thought of removing the white man from his own path. The white woman, yea, why not? What difference would one soulless woman more or less make in this world already overstocked with soulless women? Once she was removed and the woman of his heart’s desire married to the man she loved—and did Allah in His wisdom ever know of such a tangle—then he would ride out into the desert and die, or, better still, become chief of a band with which to harry the white man when he ventured across the quicksands.
Primitive reasoning, but not too bad for one who could neither read nor write, and whose idea of God was a vasty, corporeal deity who offered sweetmeats with one hand and struck one for taking them with the other.