Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/66

 stained cunningly in black and white, and with a luxuriant covering of thatch. Moreover, he had taken the daughter of a poor man to wife, and could dictate his own terms, in most matters, to her and to her parents.

The girl went willingly enough, for she was exchanging poverty for wealth, a miserable hovel for a handsome home, and parents who knew how to get out of her the last ounce of work of which she was capable, for a husband who seemed ever kind, generous, and indulgent. She had also the satisfaction of knowing that she had made an exceedingly good marriage, and was an object of envy to all her contemporaries. None the less, three days later, at the hour when the dawn was breaking, she was found beating upon the door of her father's house, screaming to be taken in, trembling in every limb, with her hair disordered, her garments drenched with dew from the underwood through which she had rushed, and in a state of panic bordering on dementia.

Her story—the first act in the drama of the were-tiger of Slim—ran in this wise:

She had gone home with Haji Ali to the house in which he lived with his two sons, Abdulrahman and Abas, and all had treated her kindly and with courtesy. The first day she had cooked the rice insufficiently, and though the young men had grumbled. Haji Ali had said no word of blame, when she had expected a slapping, such as would have fallen to the lot of most wives in similar circumstances.