“Do a kindness, O my friend. Go down, I pray thee, and inquire in the house if my daughter wakes and would see me.”
“On my head,” answered Zeyd, at once rising. It seemed but a second to Shems-ud-dìn ere the same voice said, “Thy daughter sleeps. The Frank has given her a soothing potion.”
“Blest are thy tidings. Then I wait here till Mâs shall call me.”
CHAPTER XIX
Shems-ud-dìn fell back on reverie. Above the black gauze veil of earth, the stars beat slumberously. Across the terraced roofs came the voice of one singing, with the twang of a lute. The song was all of love. Now it rose to a frenzied howl, now sank to a passionate moan. From time to time, among the hidden ways beneath, a strife of dogs broke out, raged noisily for a space, and then subsided.
A great weariness beset the sheykh—the accumulated claims of all the nights and days when he had shunned repose. Though he wrestled with it, aware that now, more than ever, there was call to watch, little by little that lassitude overpowered him. He beheld the star-flecked sky for a while fitfully, as if a curtain flapped between it and his eyes. Then he saw no more of sky, or stars, or darkness veiling the face of earth.
He dreamed.
He sat again in his shop in the small bazaar, with hands outspread over the brazier. He heard the chime of camel bells. Some one spoke behind him, when, turning, he beheld an afrìt of baleful aspect, having eyes of flame. And what that devil bade him do, that perforce he did, though well knowing that it was against his own soul.