Project Gutenberg's The Valley of the Kings, by Marmaduke Pickthall

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Title: The Valley of the Kings

Author: Marmaduke Pickthall

Release Date: March 3, 2008 [EBook #24744]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS ***

Produced by Al Haines

[Frontispiece: Someone leaned above him to inspect his work. Chap X.]

THE WAYFARERS LIBRARY

The

VALLEY of the KINGS

Marmaduke Pickthall

J.M.DENT & SONS. Ltd.

LONDON

1914

THE

VALLEY OF THE KINGS

CHAPTER I

"Woe on you, mothers of nothing! May the scourge of Allah flay you as
you go!"

The mother of Iskender held the doorway of her little house in a
posture of spitting defiance. Rancour, deep-rooted and boundless,
ranged in her guttural snarl. Her black eyes burned to kill, their
thick brows quite united by the energy of her frown as she gazed across
a sand-dell, chary of vegetation but profuse in potsherds, towards the
white walls and high red roof of the Mission-house seen above a wave of
tamarisks on the opposite dune. The hedge of prickly pear defining her
small domain did not obstruct the view, for it consisted largely of
gaps, by one of which a group of three Frankish ladies had just gone
from her. She could see their white-clad forms, under sunshades, down
there in the hollow, battling ungracefully with the sand for foothold.
With one hand raised as a screen from the declining sun, the mother of
Iskender clenched the other, and shook it down the pathway of those
ladies so that the bracelets of coloured glass tinkled upon her strong
brown arm.

"Ha, Carulin, most ancient virgin, thy stalk is a crane's! There is
neither flesh nor blood in thee, but only gristle and dry skin. Thy
heart is gall and poison. . . . O Jane, thou art a fruit all husk;
half man, yet lacking man's core, half maid, yet lacking woman's pulp!
In thee is no fount of joy, no sweetness. Did love of our Blessed
Saviour and the Sacred Book bring the pair of you to this land? By
Allah, not so; well I know it! It was the love of change, of
adventure; and what is that in a virgin save