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Living, thou wilt return to the bold white mem-log, for kind calls to kind. 'Not always. 'With a woman, no; with a man it is otherwise. Thou wilt in this life, later on, go back to thine own folk. That I could almost endure, for I should be dead. But in thy very death thou wilt be taken away to a strange place and a paradise that I do not know. 'Will it be paradise?
'Is it true that the bold white mem-log live for three times the length of my life? Is it true that they make their marriages not before they are old women? 'They marry as do others when they are women. 'That I know, but they wed when they are twenty-five. Is that true? 'That is true. 'Ya illah! At twenty-five! Who would of his own will take a wife even of eighteen?
'Not even though the mem-log the white women of thy own blood love thee? And remember, I have watched them driving in the evening; they are very fair. 'I have seen fire-balloons by the hundred. I have seen the moon, and then I saw no more fire-balloons. Ameera clapped her hands and laughed. 'Very good talk, she said. Then with an assumption of great stateliness, 'It is enough.
They sat down by the low white parapet of the roof, overlooking the city and its lights. 'They are happy down there, said Ameera. 'But I do not think that they are as happy as we. Nor do I think the white mem-log are as happy. And thou? 'I know they are not. 'How dost thou know? 'They give their children over to the nurses.
'Why should I go? said she one evening on the roof. 'There is sickness, and people are dying, and all the white mem-log have gone. 'All of them? 'All unless perhaps there remain some old scald-head who vexes her husband's heart by running risk of death. 'Nay; who stays is my sister, and thou must not abuse her, for I will be a scald-head too. I am glad all the bold mem-log are gone.
She is a woman aging every hour. Twenty-five! I shall be an old woman at that age, and Those mem-log remain young for ever. How I hate them! 'What have they to do with us? 'I cannot tell. I know only that there may now be alive on this earth a woman ten years older than I who may come to thee and take thy love ten years after I am an old woman, gray-headed, and the nurse of Tota's son.
When the days are done I believe... nay, I am sure. And and then I shall lay HIM in thy arms, and thou wilt love me for ever. The train goes to-night, at midnight is it not? Go now, and do not let thy heart be heavy by cause of me. But thou wilt not delay in returning? Thou wilt not stay on the road to talk to the bold white mem-log. Come back to me swiftly, my life.
The love of a man, and particularly a white man, was at the best an inconstant affair, but it might, both women argued, be held fast by a baby's hands. 'And then, Ameera would always say, 'then he will never care for the white mem-log. I hate them all I hate them all. 'He will go back to his own people in time, said the mother; 'but by the blessing of God that time is yet afar off.
HE would have patted the bullocks and played with the housings. For his sake, perhaps, thou hast made me very English I might have gone. Now, I will not. Let the mem-log run. 'Their husbands are sending them, beloved. 'Very good talk. Since when hast thou been my husband to tell me what to do? I have but borne thee a son. Thou art only all the desire of my soul to me.
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