Yusef heard that cry of "Allah!" and he knew that the hour had come for
settling old scores. The hashish clouds lifted from his brain, and he
gripped his naboot of the hard wood of the dom-palm, and, with a cry like
a wolf, came on.

It would have been well for Wassef the camel-driver if he had not taken
the turban from his head, for before he could reach Yusef with his
dagger, he went down, his skull cracking like the top of an egg under a
spoon.




III

Thus it was that Soada was left to fight her battle alone. She did not
weep or wail when Wassef's body was brought home and the moghassil and
hanouti came to do their offices. She did not smear her hair with mud,
nor was she moved by the wailing of the mourning women nor the chanters
of the Koran. She only said to Fatima when all was over: "It is well;
he is gone from my woe to the mercy of God! Praise be to God!" And she
held her head high in the village still, though her heart was in the
dust.

She would have borne her trouble alone to the end, but that she was
bitten on the arm by one of her father's camels the day they were sold in
the marketplace. Then, helpless and suffering and fevered, she yielded
to the thrice-repeated request of Dicky Donovan, and was taken to the
hospital at Assiout, which Fielding Bey, Dicky's friend, had helped to