When Fatima cursed Wassef he turned and spat at her; and she went back
and sat on the ground beside Soada, and mumbled tags from the Koran above
her for comfort. Then she ate greedily the food which Soada should have
eaten; snatching scraps of consolation in return for the sympathy she
gave.

The long night went, the next day came, and Soada got up and began to
work again. And the months went by.




II

One evening, on a day which had been almost too hot for even the seller
of liquorice-water to go by calling and clanging, Wassef the camel-driver
sat at the door of a malodorous cafe and listened to a wandering welee
chanting the Koran. 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.

In spite of all, Soada had been the apple of his eye, although he had
sworn again and again that next to a firman of the Sultan, a ten-months'
camel was the most beautiful thing on earth. He was in a bitter humour.
This had been an intermittent disease with him almost since the day
Mahommed Selim had been swallowed up by the Soudan; for, like her mother
before her, Soada had no mind to be a mat for his feet. Was it not even