kept her on her feet. Five miles, four
miles, three miles, two, and then--she never quite remembered how she
came to the hut where she was born. Two miles--two hours of incredible
agony, now running, now leaning against a palm tree, now dropping to her
knees, now fighting on and on, she came at last to the one spot in the
world where she could die in peace.

As she staggered, stumbled, through the village, Yusef, the drunken
ghaffir, saw her. He did not dare speak to her, for had he not killed
her father, and had he not bought himself free of punishment from
the Mudir? So he ran to old Fatima and knocked upon her door with his
naboot, crying: "In the name of Allah get thee to the hut of Wassef the
camel-driver!"

Thus it was that Soada, in her agony, heard a voice say out of the
infinite distance: "All praise to Allah, he hath even now the strength
of a year-old child!"

IV

That night at sunset, as Soada lay upon the sheepskin spread for her,
with the child nestled between her arm and her breast, a figure darkened
the doorway, and old Fatima cried out:

"Mahommed Selim!"

With a gasping sound Soada gathered the child quickly to her breast,
and shrank back to the wall. This surely was the ghost of Mahommed
Selim--this gaunt, stooping figure covered with dust.

"Soada, in the name of Allah the Compassionate, the Merciful, Soada,
beautiful one!"

Mahommed Selim, once the lithe, the straight, the graceful, now bent,
awkward, fevered, all the old daring gone from him, stood still in the
middle of the room, humbled before the motherhood in his sight.

"Brother of jackals," cried old Fatima, "what dost thou here? What dost
thou here, dog of dogs!" She spat at him.

He took no notice. "Soada," he said eagerly, prayerfully, and his voice,
though hoarse, was softer than she had ever heard it. "Soada, I have
come through death to thee--Listen, Soada! At night, when sleep was upon
the barrack-house, I stole out to come to thee. My heart had been hard.
I had not known how much I loved thee--"

Soada interrupted him. "What dost thou know of love, Mahommed Selim? The
blood of the dead cries from the ground."

He came a step nearer. "The blood of Wassef the camel-driver is upon
my head," he said. "In the desert there came news of it. In the desert,
even while we fought the wild tribes, one to ten, a voice kept crying in
my ear, even as thou hast cried, 'What didst thou know of love, Mahommed
Selim!' One by one the me