Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/395

 importunes his mistress. Often, irked by his clam- our, I sinote him on the lips-those lips which had done her dishonour. Then for a space he became mad, flinging his body this way and that, and raving night and day; and this made me sad, for while the insanity was upon him he could no longer feel, as I had a mind that this man should feel even to the brink of the hour in which death snatched him from us. And at last, when he was dead, my rage was still unsated, and I besought Allah, the Merciful and Compassionate, that his agony might endure for- ever.

"In the hour when he died, Hôdoh came back to us out of the enchantment which had held her cap- tive, for the spell laid upon her was broken. But her memory held the recollection of all that had befallen her, so that she was well-nigh distraught with shame. Also her body was weakened by her life in the jungle, and she was racked by fever and many aches and pains. Morcover, the burning of her skin, she said. was that which Pa' Ah-Gap had inflicted upon her by his magic on the evening of the day when she miscalled him.

"She had no desire to live, and very soon she returned to the mercy of Allah, and I was left alive. to mourn during all my days for the fairest maiden ever born of woman, who had lighted in my breast fires of desire than the years have never quenched. And how bitter is the thought that such a thing of beauty was wasted upon a dog of a Sakai-the vilest