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Before another quarter was added to the moon, Yusef, the drunken ghaffir, at the door of Soada's hut in Beni Souef, told old Fatima the most wonderful tale, how Mahommed Selim had died on his sheepskin, having killed ten Dervishes with his own hand; and that a whole regiment had attended his funeral. This is to the credit of Yusef's account, that the last half of his statement was no lie.
Therefore, at Beni Souef that morning women wept, and men looked sullenly upon the ground all but Wassef the camel-driver. It troubled the mind of Wassef that Mahommed Selim made no outcry at his fate.
With a placid smile and lips that murmured, "Praise be to God," the malignant camel-driver watched the shrieking women of the village throwing dust on their heads and lamenting loudly for the thirteen young men of Beni Souef who were going forth never to return or so it seemed to them; for of all the herd of human kine driven into the desert before whips and swords, but a moiety ever returned, and that moiety so battered that their mothers did not know them.
The business began during Ramadan; how it ended and where was in the mouth of every soldier between Beni Souef and Dongola, and there was not a mud hut or a mosque within thirty miles of Mahommed Selim's home, not a khiassa or felucca dropping anchor for gossip and garlic below the mudirieh, but knew the story of Soada, the daughter of Wassef the camel-driver.
W.H.D. Le Souef has this to say in his extremely interesting and valuable book, "Wild Life in Australia," page 146: "We found that foxes were unfortunately plentiful in this district, and in a hollow log that served to shelter some cubs were noticed the remains of ducks, fowls, rabbits, lambs, bandicoots and snakes; so they evidently vary their fare, snakes even not coming amiss.
Before another quarter was added to the moon, Yusef, the drunken ghaffir, at the door of Soada's hut in Beni Souef, told old Fatima the most wonderful tale, how Mahommed Selim had died on his sheepskin, having killed ten Dervishes with his own hand; and that a whole regiment had attended his funeral. This is to the credit of Yusef's account, that the last half of his statement was no lie.
Dudley Le Souef, who has quite an uneasy familiarity with Australian snakes, dating from the days of ardent youth, when he was wont to carry some species about with him in his pockets, that authority wrote: "I did not know that death adders ever killed birds; I did not think they were active enough, their usual prey being frogs, lizards, etc. The honey-eater must have been taken unawares."
Therefore, at Beni Souef that morning women wept, and men looked sullenly upon the ground all but Wassef the camel-driver. It troubled the mind of Wassef that Mahommed Selim made no outcry at his fate.
With a placid smile and lips that murmured, "Praise be to God," the malignant camel-driver watched the shrieking women of the village throwing dust on their heads and lamenting loudly for the thirteen young men of Beni Souef who were going forth never to return or so it seemed to them; for of all the herd of human kine driven into the desert before whips and swords, but a moiety ever returned, and that moiety so battered that their mothers did not know them.
Drinking the water of the Nile, eating the crumbs of dourha bread she had brought from the hospital, getting an onion from a field, chewing shreds of sugarcane, hiding by day and trudging on by night, hourly growing weaker, she struggled towards Beni Souef. Fifty forty thirty ten five miles!
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