up.

"Lizzhie," she said thickly, "Tish looks about the way I feel." And with
that she fell to laughing awful laughter that mingled with the bride's
cries and the wail of the pipes.

The bride, after a struggle, was taken by force from the machine and
placed on a chair against the wall. Her veil was torn and her wreath
crooked, and she observed a sulky silence. To our amazement, Tufik was
still smiling, urbane and cheerful.

"It is the custom of my country, my mothers," he said. "The bride leave
with tears the home of her good parents or of her friends; and she speak
no word--only weep--until she is marriaged. Ah--the priest!"

The rest of the story is short and somewhat blurred. Tish having broken
her glasses, Aggie being, as one may say, _hors de combat_, and I having
developed a frightful headache in the dust and bad air, the real meaning
of what was occurring did not penetrate to any of us. The priest
officiated from a table in the center of the room, on which he placed
two candles, an Arabic Bible, and a sacred picture, all of which he took
out of a brown valise. He himself wore a long black robe and a beard,
and looked, as Tish observed, for all the world as if he had stepped
from an Egyptian painting. Before him stood Tufik's sister, the maid of
honor with her baby, the black-mustached friend who had brought Tufik to
us after his tragic attempt at suicide, and Tufik himself.

[Illustration: The real meaning of what was occurring did not penetrate
to any of us]

Everybody held lighted candles, and the heat was frightful. The music
ceased, there was much exhorting in Arabic, much reading from the book,
many soft replies indiscriminately from the four principals--and then
suddenly Tish turned and gripped my arm.

"Lizzie," she said hoarsely, "that little thief and liar has done us
again! That isn't his sister at all. He's marrying her--for us to keep!"

Luckily Aggie grew faint again at that moment, and we led her out into
the open air. Behind us the ceremony seemed to be over; the drum was
beating, the pipes screaming, the lute thrumming.

Tish let in the clutch with a vicious jerk, and the whir of the engine
drowned out the beating of the drum and the clapping of the hands.
Twilight hid the tin cans and ash-barrels, and the dogs slept on the
cool pavements. In the doorways soft-eyed Syrian women rocked their
babies to drowsy chants. The air revived Aggie. She leaned forward and
touched Tish on the should