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The Desertion Of Mahommed Selim
by
As she staggered, stumbled, through the village, Yusef, the drunken ghaffir, saw her. He did not dare speak to her, for had he not killed her father, and had he not bought himself free of punishment from the Mudir? So he ran to old Fatima and knocked upon her door with his naboot, crying: “In the name of Allah get thee to the hut of Wassef the camel-driver!”
Thus it was that Soada, in her agony, heard a voice say out of the infinite distance: “All praise to Allah, he hath even now the strength of a year-old child!”
IV
That night at sunset, as Soada lay upon the sheepskin spread for her, with the child nestled between her arm and her breast, a figure darkened the doorway, and old Fatima cried out:
“Mahommed Selim!”
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!”
Mahommed Selim, once the lithe, the straight, the graceful, now bent, awkward, fevered, all the old daring gone from him, stood still in the middle of the room, humbled before the motherhood in his sight.
“Brother of jackals,” cried old Fatima, “what dost thou here? What dost thou here, dog of dogs!” She spat at him.
He took no notice. “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? The blood of the dead cries from the ground.”
He came a step nearer. “The blood of Wassef the camel-driver is upon my head,” he said. “In the desert there came news of it. In the desert, even while we fought the wild tribes, one to ten, a voice kept crying in my ear, even as thou hast cried, ‘What didst thou know of love, Mahommed Selim!’ One by one the men of Beni Souef fell round me; one by one they spoke of their village and of their women, and begged for a drop of water, and died. 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.
“When the day was done, and sleep was upon the barrack-house, my heart waked up and I knew that I loved Soada as I had never loved her. I ran into the desert, and the jackals flew before me–outcasts of the desert, they and I. Coming to the tomb of Amshar the sheikh, by which was a well, there I found a train of camels. One of these I stole, and again I ran into the desert, and left the jackals behind. Hour after hour, day and night, I rode on. But faintness was upon me, and dreams came. For though only the sands were before me, I seemed to watch the Nile running–running, and thou beside it, hastening with it, hastening, hastening towards thy home. And Allah put a thorn into my heart, that a sharp pain went through my body–and at last I fell.”
Soada’s eyes were on him now with a strange, swimming brilliancy.
“Mahommed–Mahommed Selim, Allah touched thine eyes that thou didst see truly,” she said eagerly. “Speak not till I have done,” he answered. “When I waked again I was alone in the desert, no food, no water, and the dead camel beside me. 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?'”