Page:A child of the Orient (IA childoforient00vakarich).pdf/116

 When I awoke, dripping with perspiration, the halaïc was changing my nightgown. Then she put me into the other little bed, which was warm and dry.

Some hours later, I again awoke, and saw the halaïc moving about the room on tiptoe. She threw a cloak over her shoulders, and, with the caution of a cat about to lap forbidden milk, stole out of the room.

I sat up in my bed and wondered what she was doing. Then I arose and went to the window. The last quarter of the moon lighted the garden, and distinctly I saw the halaïc disappearing into a group of cypresses.

In an instant I wrapped a shawl around me, and went down after her. When I next caught sight of her she did not move like a cat any more. She held in each hand a lighted candle, home-*made and aromatic, and she was going in and out among the trees, as if she were playing a game, and all the time mumbling something that seemed to be a rhyme.

Then she crouched low on the ground and exhorted Allah to be merciful and forgive her her —. It was a word I did not understand, and the next day I had forgotten it.

After a time she rose, put the ends of the lighted candles between her lips, went to the well, and drew water from it with a small tin cup tied to a string.