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Soutouma was next to Buldoula in age and rank a fair beauty of the harem, with soft, long, sunlit tresses, and a skin of snow. "Yes, why not? why not?" asked Dilama wildly to herself as her feet dragged along down the passage side by side with the grinning black's. "I am a Druze girl: I belong to Murad and to the mountains."
In April, 1842, Omar Pasha imprisoned the leading Druze sheiks, and Albanian soldiers were arriving daily, as if to disarm the Druzes. And so it proved. The Turks decided to take the matter into their own hands.
In the morning we rode back to Mukhtara, where we went to the house of the principal Druze Shaykh, and were most graciously received. I love the Druzes and their charming, courteous ways. Whilst staying here we made several excursions, and among others we ascended Mount Hermon. The Druze chiefs came from all parts to visit us. After some days we left.
A Druze woman was in the habit of coming daily to listen to the reading of the Scriptures and to religious conversation, and would often say, "That's the truth," with her face bathed in tears. Her visits were continued until she fell a victim to the plague. An old man, also, who was one of the "initiated," came, and, after much disputation, professed to receive the Gospel.
And this evening, as usual, she slipped unobserved amongst the roses into the corner of the buttressed wall. A moment after the boughs overhead parted, and the lithe Druze dropped down noiselessly beside her. She put her gold braceleted arms round his strong brown neck, and pressed her silken-covered bosom hard against his rough cotton tunic.
My health has suffered from this huge indignity. I shall not long survive this cruel shame. The second letter was from Her Britannic Majesty's Consul-General, enclosing my cheque written to the order of the Armenian gentleman for the amount of the mortgage which he held upon my Druze friend's property, and adjuring me to pay a visit to the Consulate without delay. I went that afternoon.
It was a most interesting ride; and whilst we were still in the barren plain a band of horsemen came out to meet us in rich Druze dress, and escorted us through a deep defile, and then up a rocky ascent to a Syrian palace, the house of the Sitt Jumblatt, which is situated in olive groves on the heights.
It now entered into a correspondence with nearly all the principal Druze sheiks, who felt that they had, by their swords, won the right to schools. The prospects were at that time very hopeful. The country never seemed more open to evangelical labors. For a year there had been no opposition to the schools, except two or three among the Druzes.
'Aye, a Muslim, I suppose though, Allah knows, he may perhaps have been an Ismaîli or a Druze. Any more questions? Then I will proceed. 'He came into this village of the Maronites, and, being thirsty, looked in at a doorway. He saw the village priest and all his family engaged in stuffing a fat sheep with mulberry leaves. The sheep was tethered half-way up the steps which led on to the housetop.
And the light-hearted, sunny-natured Druze girl had taken life just as she found it, regarding herself as Ahmed's daughter, and rejoicing in her home of love and beauty she ceased to remember that one day he would inevitably claim her as his wife, and that that day must be the beginning or the end of happiness just as she prepared for it.
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