Achmed Abdullah

“ I am Hasaballah's friend and in his confidence, and he had shown me the little song which he had composed and which he was going to sing to her. It was really too extravagant—he insisted on addressing Ayesha as 'blood of my liver.' No, no, Effendi. The time to woo a woman is when you first see her, and the way to woo her is the old-fashioned. Flatteries never grow old, and I always use the time-honored similes. ”

“ I tell her that she is as beautiful as the pale moon on the fourteenth day, that her walk is the walk of the king goose, that the corners of her mouth touch her pink ears, that she has the waist of a lion and that her voice is sweeter than the song of the kokila bird. ”

“ But the heart of woman acknowledges no law and respects no master except the one she appoints herself, and so it was that Ayesha had no love for the Sheik in spite of his white sanctity and though he knew the Koran and all the commentaries by heart. And then one day she saw Hasaballah Abdelkader—and her veil dropping by chance, he saw her. ”