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Updated: May 1, 2025
With a shameless delight Wassef went to the door of his own home, and, calling to Soada, told her that Mahommed Selim was among the conscripts. He also told her that the young man was willing to go, and that the Mamour would take no backsheesh from his father. He looked to see her burst into tears and wailing, but she only stood and looked at him like one stricken blind.
Fielding Bey and Dicky came to see her in hospital once before they returned to Cairo; but Soada would not even speak to them, though she smiled when they spoke to her; and no one else ever saw her smile during the days she spent in that hospital with the red floor and white walls and the lazy watchman walking up and down before the door.
But when he would have taken it away, the little hand still clung, though the eyes were scarce opened upon life. "See, Mahommed Selim," Soada cried, "he would go with thee." "He shall come to me one day, by the mercy of God," answered Mahommed Selim. Then he went out into the market-place and gave himself up to the fat sergeant.
"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?
When he had gone, Soada groped her way blindly to the door and out into the roadway. Her lips moved, but she only said: "Mahommed Mahommed Selim!" Her father's words knelled in her ear that her lover was willing to go, and she kept saying brokenly: "Mahommed Mahommed Selim!" As the mist left her eyes she saw the conscripts go by, and Mahommed Selim was in the rear rank.
Wassef was in an ill-humour: first, because the day had been so hot; secondly, because he had sold his ten-months' camel at a price almost within the bounds of honesty; and thirdly, because a score of railway contractors and subs. were camped outside the town. Also, Soada had scarcely spoken to him for three days past.
Soada's trinkets and bracelets were perhaps no better than those of her companions, but her one garment was of the linen of Beni Mazar, as good as that worn by the Sheikh-Elbeled himself. Wassef the camel-driver, being proud of Soada, gave her the advantage of his frequent good fortune in desert loot and Nile backsheesh.
But I had no fear. 'If it be God's will, said I, 'then I shall come unto Soada. If it be not God's will, so be it: for are we not on the cushion of His mercy, to sleep or to wake, to live or to die?" He paused, tottering, and presently sank upon the ground, his hands drooped before him, his head bent down. Old Fatima touched him on the shoulder.
And my heart grew hot within me, and a spirit kept whispering in my ear: 'Mahommed Selim, think of the village thou hast shamed, of Soada thou hast wronged! No drop of water shall cheer thy soul in dying!" Fatima and Soada listened now with bated breath, for this was the voice of one who had drunk the vinegar and gall of life.
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!"
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