“He lives,” replied the wizened old man, gently removing the Nubian’s slender fingers from about his scraggy throat. “But would have died long ere my advent if it had not been for the tender ministrations of yon woman Namlah and her son, smitten with dumbness.”
Al-Asad nodded as he looked to where Namlah, the busy, who had tended the sick man day and night, stretched out pieces of soft white muslin to dry, with the help of her son.
“Aye, verily has she a heart made for mothering. Two apples has she, one for each eye. Two sons, though which one she loves the most we do not know. The one who is gifted with speech and is slow of wit, or the dumb one with a mind like yonder sparkling water? Hey! Namlah! thou busy ant, wilt give thy boy to the herbalist so that he acquires much learning in medicine?”
Namlah clutched her dumb boy to her heart.
“I will kill him, or her, who takes one of mine from me!” she shrilled, taking off the amulet of good luck from about her own neck to hang it round her son’s. “The jewels, the fair name, yea! even the eyes canst thou take from a woman, but her manchild, never!”
She spat in the direction of the dwelling where slept the girl upon whom she waited sometimes as body-woman, whereupon the Nubian laughed good-naturedly, bidding her keep a hold upon her tongue.
“Yea! but verily,” said the unsuspecting herbalist, “does the Sheikh’s daughter need a whip across her shoulders.”
“And thou thy tongue pulled forth by the roots!”
Al-Asad, who loved the Sheikh’s daughter with all the strength of his fierce nature, made an ineffectual grab at the terrified old man as he shot like a rabbit down the rocky path; then laughed and looked up to where the girl slept, and fell a-dreaming of the day when, now that Yussuf was out of the running, he might perchance, by right of force, step into the Sheikh’s shoes upon his death, to rule the leaderless men and to wed the fatherless daughter.
The wounds healed, the fever abated, yet for many days, feigning weakness, tended by the dumb youth whom he christened “His Eyes,” Yussuf lay planning revenge for his loss of sight.