In this hoarse, gasping protest Salim Awad perceived rare sweetness. He smiled again—delight, approval. “Ver’ much ’bliged,” he said, politely. Then he rolled off into the water....
One night in winter the wind, driving up from the Battery, whipped a gray, soggy snow past the door of Nageeb Fiani’s pastry-shop in Washington Street. The shop was a cosey shelter from the weather; and in the outer room, now crowded with early idlers, they were preaching revolution and the shedding of blood—boastful voices, raised to the falsetto of shallow passion. Khalil Khayyat, knowing well that the throne of Abdul-Hamid would not tremble to the talk of Washington Street, sat unheeding in the little back room; and the coal on the narghile was glowing red, and the coffee was steaming on the round table, and a cloud of fragrant smoke was in the air. In the big, black book, lying open before the poet, were to be found, as always, the thoughts of Abo Elola Elmoarri.
Tanous, the newsboy—the son of Yusef, the father of Samara, by many called Abosamara—threw Kawkab Elhorriah on the cook’s counter.
“News of death!” cried he, as he hurried importantly on. “Kawkab! News of death!”
The words caught the ear of Khalil Khayyat. “News of death?” mused he. “It is a massacre in Armenia.” He turned again, with a hopeless sigh, to the big, black book.
“News of death!” cried Nageeb Fiani, in the outer room. “What is this?”
The death of Salim Awad: being communicated, as the editor made known, by one who knew, and had so informed an important person at St. John’s, who had despatched the news south from that far place to Washington Street.... And when Nageeb Fiani had learned the manner of the death of Salim Awad, he made haste to Khalil Khayyat, holding Kawkab Elhorriah open in his, hand.
“There is news of death, O Khalil!” said he.
“Ah,” Khayyat answered, with his long finger marking the place in the big, black book, “there has been a massacre in Armenia. God will yet punish the murderer.”