Echoing "Praise to Allah!" he withdrew.
She had not recognised him, had heard his question as the voice of Nature. It seemed to him that she had not answered it, but merely sighed aloud her own thanksgiving.
"She loves him!" thought Iskender, with a flush of sympathy.
He found strange rapture in the knowledge of her passion for the fair Emîr, in the prospect of a union of those two whom he had loved most of all people in his former life. They seemed in a sense his creatures, and their love his handiwork. If only he could help them to obtain their heart's desire, could serve their happiness by any means, and get forgiveness, he felt that he could enter on his new life without one regret.
CHAPTER XXVI
Each morning and evening Iskender walked upon the sandhills until he met with some one coming from the Mission who could give him the latest tidings of the Emîr. His mother spied him once from her house-door, and indulged in furious gesticulations to the effect that he must fly for his life. When he gave no heed she shook her fist at him, and opened her mouth wide to utter something, the sense of which was lost in the distance. She even came to his lodging, stealthily as of wont, and implored him never to walk again so near the Mission. It stopped her breath, and caused her deathlike palpitations to behold him there. The hatred of those children of abomination was so rank against him, that they might hurt his body. At the least they would wound his soul with indignities which she could not bear to think of for her boy.
"Hilda is the only one of them with any kindness; and she, I know, is always in the sickroom; she never now goes out beyond the garden. The mother of George is absent; the preacher Ward has gone again. The others! They are known for devils, and they hate thee! What madness in thee to approach their house!"
When Iskender only laughed, she wrung her hands despairingly, and asked her Maker for deliverance from such a madman. Her apprehensions proved, however, quite unfounded.
The ladies Carûlîn and Jane were touched by Iskender's solicitude, and noticed him when passing on the road. Costantîn the gardener answered his demands, though grudgingly; and Asad told him all he wished to know. The last named even condescended to remonstrate with Iskender on his change of faith, displaying the interest of a cultivated observer in the motions of some curious wild creature.