The Marriage of Lulu.
By the Rev. A. Forder, of Jerusalem.
The author is a missionary who has travelled extensively in the East, and is thoroughly familiar with the wild tribes of the desert. In the subjoined narrative he relates the love-story of a young Arab girl—a real life romance with the conventional happy ending of fiction.
It was that time of the day which Orientals call asr, between four o’clock and sunset—just the time when the Arab chief likes to be on hand so that he may receive and welcome any who may seek the hospitality and shelter afforded by his simple home, and see for himself that sufficient food for man and beast is provided, so that both may sup and be satisfied.
On a certain afternoon Sheikh Khaleel sat at his tent door watching the sun slowly sink toward the west, wondering, as he pulled at the dying embers in his pipe, if it would be his lot to entertain any guest that night.
As his sharp eyes looked out from under his shaggy eyebrows he saw in the distance a rider mounted on a camel, whose head was directed straight for the camp under the chief’s control.
It was not long before both camel and rider stood at the door of the guest-tent, and the chief, having tethered the ship of the desert to one of the tent-pegs, invited his guest to enter, and at once set about preparing the coffee according to Arab custom.
The new arrival, whose name was Abd-el-Thullam (the servant of cruelty) was well known to the Arabs for scores of miles round, and a visit from him always meant something unusual and of importance, hence the wonder of the host and his neighbours at the coming of one with so uninviting a name, which was obtained by deeds that gave subject for conversation around many a camp-fire after supper. Speculations as to the coming of this well-known chief were many, and although not audibly expressed filled the minds of all present, and of none more so than the women, who were separated from the menfolk only by the coarse goats’-hair curtain that divided the tent. Little did the host’s only daughter think that she was the cause of this unexpected visitor coming among them, or how much his presence meant to her and others.
Arab etiquette forbids any direct asking of questions or quizzing into the affairs of a guest, so both before and after supper the conversation was upon subjects far away from the one that had brought Abd-el-Thullam into the camp of Sheikh Khaleel, and the simple folk of the wilderness closed their eyes in sleep without having the faintest idea of the object of Abd-el-Thullam’s visit.