“I had not time nor opportunity to examine closely either his features or his dress,” replied Khadijah; “and were he to come into the tent now I should not know him again. But he seemed a tall, large man, and I guessed him to be a Mameluke.”
Khadijah’s narrative had deeply interested and agitated Hassan’s feelings. As he left the tent and emerged into the open air, he mentally exclaimed, “Sheik Sâleh is not my father; but Allah be praised that I am not the son of a fellah.[[8]] Unknown father, if thou art still on earth, I will find and embrace thee.”
During the whole of that day he continued silent and thoughtful. He cared not to touch food, and towards evening he strolled beyond the borders of the encampment, lost in conjecture on his mysterious birth and parentage. Ambition began to stir in his breast, and visions of horsetails[[9]] and diamond-hilted swords floated before his eyes. While engaged in these day-dreams of fancy, he had unconsciously seated himself on a small mound near where Temimah, the eldest daughter of the Sheik, was tending some goats, which she was about to drive back to the tents. With the noiseless step and playful movement of a kitten, she stole gently behind him, and covering his eyes with her hands, said, “Whose prisoner are you now?”
“Temimah’s,” replied the youth; “what does she desire of her captive?”
“Tell me,” said the girl, seating herself beside him, “why is my brother sad and silent to-day; has anything happened?”
“Much has happened,” replied Hassan, with a grave and abstracted air.
“Come now, my brother,” said Temimah, “this is unkind; what is this secret that you keep from your sister?”
“One which will cause me to leave you,” answered Hassan, still in the same musing tone.
“Leave us!” she exclaimed. “Where to go, and when to return? Do not speak these unkind words. You know how our father loves you—how we all love you. Brother, why do you talk of leaving us?” While thus speaking, Temimah threw her arms round his neck and kissed his eyes, while tears stood in her own.
Touched by her affection and her sorrow, Hassan replied in a gentler tone—