Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 20.djvu/860

838 other with bewildered looks; but, when Mak-el-Frit attempted to state his reasons, they saw that he was in earnest, and Pitheka threw herself sobbing upon a bench, while her mother uttered a piercing shriek, and, after clutching at the empty air, sank to the ground as in a swoon. Seeing her fall, I ran out to get a cup of water, but when I returned the two women had recovered and were sitting like monuments on the floor of the room. "Wakkad-russ, wakkad-russ—gray-squirrel skins," the kabira repeated, with a vacant stare, and in a hollow voice, after which they both shrieked louder and longer than before, while a tame monkey leaped down from the window and joined in the clamor. "Mak-el-Frit, are you bereft of your reason?" asked the kabira, after a pause.

The husband seized the monkey and flung it out of the window, but made no other reply. The kabira then turned to her daughter. "I see how it is," said she; "he wants to drive us forth, to beg our bread in a foreign land, where no one knows that I am the daughter of honorable parents. O my child! O my sugar-eating parrot! we shall taste the bread of affliction; we shall wander homeless till our souls return to the peace of Ghinnistan." Then rising to her feet—"And thou, hard-hearted one, who preferrest a cow to thy wife," said she, "go and tell the neighbors that thou hast driven me forth to seek a grave in a stranger's land; for thou shalt behold my face no more.—Come, my daughter," said she, and strode toward the door, when the old man stopped her, and adjured her for Heaven's sake not to darken his countenance.

"I will do what I can," said he, "and you shall have that gown before long, but may be it will be single-tailed."

"No, double-tailed, by Allah!" said the kabira, "and if you want me to stay I have to impose a strict condition: Never again insult your wife or your daughter by such propositions. Even the beggar-women of Moropolis would despise a gray-squirrel gown, and the daughter of my father shall not become a by-word in the land of her birth. Heed my words, for my father has friends who will not suffer his daughter to be oppressed, nor will they fail to invoke the severity of the law against cruelty insupportable. Will you promise me those gowns, and shall they be duly double-tailed?"

The old man sighed, but made no reply.

"Will you promise?"

Mak-el-Frit hesitated. .

"Come, my daughter," said the kabira, "we must leave this house."

"No, no, I will work, I will work!" cried the old man, and seizing his tub he rushed through the open door. When I left the cottage, I saw him hasten toward the hill at the top of his speed. He was an old man, well stricken with age, and the failure of my plan grieved me.