Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/164

 fever. The pĕr-tanda, wearied by so lame an exhibition, withdrew to his house; and a little before the dawn, when the chill breeze, which comes up at that hour out of the China Sea, was making itself felt. even in the fetid atmosphere of the place, his reason, for a space, returned to him, and he spoke to Talib in a thin, faraway voice, his words punctuated by many gasps and sighs and pauses.

"Little brother," he whispered, "do you also watch? For not long now shall your elder brother endure these pains. The order is come. Have you any water? I thirst sore. No matter, it is the fate to which I was born. The hair of the heads of all men alike is black, but the lot of each of us is peculiar to himself. Listen. I stole five dollars from a chief.  I did it because my wife was very fair, and she abused me, saying that I gave her neither ornaments nor raiment.  Brother, I was detected, and the chief consigned me to the pěn-jâra.  I knew not then that it was my wife, and none other, who gave the knowledge of my theft to the chief, he in whose household I had been born and bred.  He desired her, and she loved him; and now he has taken her to wife, I being as one already dead, and the woman being legally divorced from me. They said that they would set me free if I would divorce her, and I let fall the talak in the presence of witnesses, thinking thereby to escape from this place. But ah, brother, I thirst. Have you no water? While the woman was yet bound to me, she sent me