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With the child's life the modest happiness which Kuni had enjoyed during the last few months had vanished, not only because the tongueless blasphemer had become a different person, and she sorely missed the delicate little creature who had filled and cheered her heart, but she had also lost the peace of mind which she enjoyed during the existence of her charge.
"Done!" cried the vagrant, who already had his money ready; but the tongueless blasphemer chuckled with malicious pleasure: "Now you have it, fool! Whoever doesn't share with me you know that doesn't ride with me." Then he staggered back to Gitta. The girl watched him silently for a while.
Would he had given the latter a voice like the sweet song he has conferred upon the swan, that so fair a bird, so far excelling all the fowls of the air, might not live, as now he lives, voiceless, the darling of the god of eloquence, but himself mute and tongueless. When the crow heard that, though possessed of so many qualities, there yet lacked this one, he was seized with a desire to utter as loud a cry as possible, that the swan might not have the advantage of him in this respect at any rate, and forgetting the morsel which he held in his beak, he opened his mouth to its widest extent, and thus lost by his song what his wings had won him, while the fox recovered by craft what his feet had lost him.
I would rather have been that poor peasant with my loving wife by my side, knitting as the day died out of the sky with my children upon my knees and their arms about me I would rather have been that man and gone down to the tongueless silence of the dreamless dust, than to have been that imperial impersonation of force and murder.
To bring a human being into the world, give him no choice of father or mother, of place, of time and circumstance, endow him with a brain to think, a heart to feel and love and then set him face to face with death, hide from him the hour of his going like a criminal who knows not the hour of his execution; to allow the old to live till they are withered, shrivelled and helpless, a burden to others and a still greater burden to themselves, cursing the fact they must live and yet afraid to die; to take a young man in the splendour of his youth, on the threshold of assured success, snatch him away without warning from the parents devoted to him, the wife who loves him and the children dependent on him; and then leave them both, the decrepit and useless old and the needed young to drop into the tongueless silence of the grave, that silence broken only by the sound of the clods as they fall on the coffin lid or the plash of tears, or the choking sob; to allow the living whose hearts are torn and twisted and smashed by the robbery that death brings upon them to stand there and strangle themselves with the unanswered and unanswerable questions: "Whence," "What," and "Whither," and then say all this is the work of a good, a compassionate, a tender and loving God, and that death is as natural as birth?
Some of the guard went from the Hall to fulfil the King's injunction on Feshnavat, others thrust forth Baba Mustapha in the eyes of the King. Baba Mustapha was quaking as a frog quaketh for water, and he trembled and was a tongueless creature deserted of his lower limbs, and with eyeballs goggling, through exceeding terror.
She saw him come hopping from rock to rock, his wagging finger, shapeless face, tongueless voice. 'Mistress said Cogia. She turned blank eyes upon him. 'I pray, she said; 'I pray. Has God no pity? Cogia shrugged. 'What has God to do with pity? The end of the world is in His hand already. The Melek is a king, and the Norman dung in his sight.
"Done!" cried the vagrant, who already had his money ready; but the tongueless blasphemer chuckled with malicious pleasure: "Now you have it, fool! Whoever doesn't share with me you know that doesn't ride with me." Then he staggered back to Gitta. The girl watched him silently for a while.
They were footsore and they limped; they were of all ages and most miserable-looking. And, one and all, they were as tongueless as so many ghosts. Thus we traveled; and at the end of the first hour came to the tiny town of Leefdael. At Leefdael there must have been fighting, for some of the houses were gutted by shells.
With the child's life the modest happiness which Kuni had enjoyed during the last few months had vanished, not only because the tongueless blasphemer had become a different person, and she sorely missed the delicate little creature who had filled and cheered her heart, but she had also lost the peace of mind which she enjoyed during the existence of her charge.
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