“Father,” said Hassan, fixing his dark eyes earnestly on the Sheik’s countenance, “there is some secret here; I read it in your face. If I am a child of shame let me know the worst, that I may go far away from the tents of the Oulâd-Ali.”
Sheik Sâleh was more a man of deeds than of words, and this direct appeal from Hassan sorely perplexed him; thinking it better at all events to gain time for reflection, he replied—
“To-morrow you shall be told why you were called Ebn el-Heram, and why there was no shame connected with the name. Now go into the tent; tell Khadijah to dress your wound, and then to prepare my evening meal.”
Accustomed from his childhood to pay implicit obedience to parental orders, Hassan retired into the inner tent, while the Sheik resumed his pipe and his meditations. The result of them may be seen from a conversation which he held with Khadijah when the other members of the family had retired to rest.
“What is to be done in this matter?” said the Sheik to his spouse; “you heard the questions which Hassan asked?”
“I did,” she replied. “By your blessed head it is better now to tell him all the truth; the down is on his lip—he is no longer a child; his curiosity is excited; several of our tribe know the secret, and, although far away now, they may return, and he would learn it from them.”
“That is true,” replied the Sheik; “yet if he knows that he is not our child, he will not remain here—he will desire to find his real parents; and I would rather part with my two best mares than with him. I love him as if he were my son.”
Now Khadijah, who had three children still living—two girls, of whom the eldest was fourteen, and a little boy aged eight years—did not love Hassan quite as she loved her own children; although she had nurtured and brought him up, a mother’s instincts prevailed, and she was somewhat jealous of the hold which he had taken on the affections of the Sheik. Under these impressions she replied—
“The truth cannot be long kept concealed from him; is it not better to tell him at once? Every man must follow his destiny; that which is written must come to pass.”
“I like not his going away,” said Sheik Sâleh moodily; “for that boy, if he remain with us, will be an honour to our tent and to our tribe. There is not one of his age who can run, or ride, or use a lance like him. In the last expedition that I made against the tribe of Sammalous did he not prevail on me to take him, by assuring me that he only wished to follow at a distance with a spare horse in case of need; and did he not bring me that spare horse in the thickest of the fight, and strike down a Sammalous who was going to pierce me with his lance after I had received this wound?” Here the Sheik cast his eyes down upon his wounded arm, muttering, “A brave boy! a brave boy!”