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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.

“Brother of vultures didst thou go forth; brother of eagles dost thou return,” she said. “Eat, drink, in the house of thy child and its mother.”

“Shall the unforgiven eat or drink?” he asked, and he rocked his body to and fro, like one who chants the Koran in a corner of El Azhar, forgetting and forgotten.

Soada’s eyes were on him now as though they might never leave him again; and she dragged herself little by little towards him, herself and the child–little by little, until at last she touched his feet, and the child’s face was turned towards him from its mother’s breast.

“Thou art my love, Mahommed Selim,” she said. He raised his head from his hands, a hunger of desire in his face.

“Thou art my lord,” she added: “art thou not forgiven? The little one is thine and mine,” she whispered. “Wilt thou not speak to him?”

“Lest Allah should strike me with blindness and dry up the juice of my veins, I will not touch thee or the child until all be righted. Food will I not eat, nor water drink until thou art mine–by the law of the Prophet, mine.”

Laying down the water-jar, and the plate of dourha bread, old Fatima gathered her robe about her, and cried as she ran from the house: “Marriage and fantasia thou shalt have this hour.”

The stiffness seemed to pass from her bones as she ran through the village to the house of the Omdah. Her voice, lifting shrilly, sang the Song of Haleel, the song of the newly married, till it met the chant of the Muezzin on the tower of the mosque El Hassan, and mingled with it, dying away over the fields of bersim and the swift-flowing Nile.

That night Mahommed Selim and Soada the daughter of Wassef the camel-driver were married, but the only fantasia they held was their own low laughter over the child. In the village, however, people were little moved to smile, for they knew that Mahommed Selim was a deserter from the army of the Khedive at Dongola, and that meant death. But no one told Soada this, and she did not think; she was content to rest in the fleeting dream.

“Give them twenty-four hours,” said the black-visaged fat sergeant of cavalry come to arrest Mahommed Selim for desertion.

The father of Mahommed Selim again offered the Mamour a feddan of land if the young man might go free, and to the sergeant he offered a she-camel and a buffalo. To no purpose. It was Mahommed Selim himself who saved his father’s goods to him. He sent this word to the sergeant by Yusef the drunken ghaffir: “Give me to another sunset and sunrise, and what I have is thine–three black donkeys of Assiout rented to old Abdullah the sarraf.”

Because with this offer he should not only have backsheesh but the man also, the fat sergeant gave him leave. When the time was up, and Mahommed Selim drew Soada’s face to his breast, he knew that it was the last look and last embrace.

“I am going back,” he said; “my place is empty at Dongola.”

“No, no, thou shalt not go,” she cried. “See how the little one loves thee,” she urged, and, sobbing, she held the child up to him.

But he spoke softly to her, and at last she said: “Kiss me, Mahommed Selim. Behold now thy discharge shall be bought from the palace of the Khedive, and soon thou wilt return,” she cried.

“If it be the will of God,” he answered; “but the look of thine eyes I will take with me, and the face of the child here.” He thrust a finger into the palm of the child, and the little dark hand closed round it. But when he would have taken it away, the little hand still clung, though the eyes were scarce opened upon life.