Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/65

Rh bridegroom, as he rode toward his goal of happiness or into dire misfortune.

Clad in a white bournous, with a red shashiya encircled by a white turban with a haik thrown over it, he sat stiff and motionless on a splendid white horse, perched high on his silver-embroidered saddle. His yellow-slippered feet rested in wide stirrups designed for boots that carried large spurs, now long fallen into desuetude, as the Arab of this country has forsalcen his horse for a mule or a donkey and traded his curved sword for the muleteer's stick. In the light of the Bengal fires and of the links carried in front of him, the face of the young Arab seemed full of thought. The eyes gleamed brightly, and the teeth showed between half-opened lips; yet withal the face remained only a mask without a muscle moving, with the eyes fixed in space and with the lips as still as stone. Though the horse neighed and snorted, pranced about and shook its head and mane, the rider sat fixed as a statue, filled with that seeming indifference which sprang from his all-pervading belief in Kismet and advancing toward the one who was to become either his fatma, his great happiness, or a monstrous djinn, an ever-present spirit of misfortune.

"And now this Hadar will soon come to the house of his unseen bride," Mahomet began to explain with a very discreet smile, "and, while still in the saddle, will try to break an egg with a shot from his pistol. If he succeeds, it will be taken as a good omen; and an evil one, if he fails. Naturally, he will shoot at close range. Then he will descend from his horse, go straight to the nuptial