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You know not of the long, sleepless nights I have passed in my solitary chamber, my hands folded in prayer to Allah for strength and firmness. You know not how often, in the still night, I have stretched out my arms toward you, and pronounced your name with passionate longing, entreating the welis to bear you to me in their gentle arms.
The light of the moon enveloped her as with a silver veil, and the stars gazed at her wonderingly, as if to follow with their eyes the lovely being who walks on in solitude through the darkness of night. She did not fear the solitude, for the welis guarded the innocent maiden, and kept from her the evil spirits and ghins.
"Fear me not, Masa," said a kindly voice; "listen to me. I am no enemy." "I do not fear you," said she, in low, faint tones. "I fear neither man nor the evil ghins, for the welis guard me, and my mother's eyes watch over me. Allah, too, is always with me wherever I go, by night or day. Yet I know that you are my enemy, because you are my father's enemy." "Oh, do not say this!
I am forsworn, and therefore, Mohammed, when you leave me, the ghins come and flutter about me, pursuing me everywhere and whispering in my ear: 'You are lost and damned, for you have forsworn yourself by the spirit of your mother. And then I fall on my knees and pray to the welis to guard and protect me in my terror and anxiety.
I shall speak to them, and conjure them to pay this double tax in spite of my father's opposition. When they shall have done this, Mohammed, your honor will be saved, my father's life preserved, and his daughter's heart freed from anguish. The rest, Mohammed, we must leave to the good spirits, to the welis and the intercession of our mothers."
My mother, Sitta Khadra, once told me that when a man was about to die, Allah's holy spirit is shed upon him, and the best and purest of all the welis is sent down to the dying, that a heavenly atmosphere may surround him even here on earth. It seems to me that you are the weli sent by Allah to him who is about to die.
She seemed to him like one of the welis, or spirits blessed of God, as she swept past the cliff behind which Mohammed stood, and passed with inaudible footsteps toward the rocky stairway. Noiselessly, her feet scarcely touching the ground, the veiled figure swept onward.
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