Achmed Abdullah

“ Evening waned. Midnight came, with clustering shadows and green stars. He mounted his dromedary and rode into the village of the Benni Saadin. Black it lay beneath the black vaulting of the skies Nobody was abroad. No sound, except a slow wind rattling the palm fronds
He stopped at Misshel Fariz' tent. Umteyra had told him that she would be waiting for him there. He bent from the saddle, staring into the darkness. ”

“ They pitch their tents in the Khey-Beyt valley, two days' ride to the East.”
“They will travel slowly, driving the stolen cattle,” said Mehmet el-Wahab. “Overtake them and give battle.”
“No, no!” came a shocked chorus; and as the stranger raised astonished eyebrows, Sabihhudin Azif explained: “We are few in numbers and do not hold with feud. And the Benni Fathi—ah, bless them not the Lord God!—if by chance we should kill one of them, will take blood toll even to the third and fourth generation.”
“Wah!” exclaimed Mehmet el-Wahab. “You have no beards, no manhood! ”

“ Shortly afterwards was the great Moslem festival of the ayd eth-thahia when sheep were slaughtered and fresh girdle-bread baked; when every girl prepared her best finery, her gaudiest burnoose and kerchief. Umteyra had never dared whisper her lover's name in the black tents. ”

“ But—” crossly—“why ask me? To speak of honey will not make the mouth sweet. None of your own people wants you as wife, and there will be no desert rider ever to risk his bones for the sake of your kisses. You will always be an old spinster.”
“You are wrong, mother. There is one, a fighting, brawling stranger, who has spoken to me of marriage—”
“Eh—who is he?”
“Mehmet el-Wahab.”
“Hayah!” exclaimed the mother, “Praise be to Allah!”
“Praise be to Allah!” echoed Misshel Fariz when he heard the news, and so did the elders of the Benni Saadin. ”

“ You will have to dance without flowers in your hair unless—” ironically—“your father will make you a garland of thorn bush and alfa grass, fodder for cow and camel!”
Mehmet el-Wahab—for he spent half his time in the vicinity of the girl's tent—happened to overhear; and early on the morning of the festival he went into the farther hills where none of the tribesmen risked going because of the danger of timber wolf and wild cat, and brought back a great armful of tawny orchids spotted with heliotrope. Umteyra accepted them negligently. ”

“ Should they make a concerted rush and pull him down?
Hands fingered thorn sticks. Then hands quickly withdrew again. For, while one of his daggers was gone, there were still eight protruding truculently from his waist shawl, not counting the great Turkish sword. Eight daggers, and a sword. ”

“ Nor had Umteyra lied when she told him that it was against the traditions of her clan to mate with strangers. Only... “Indeed,” said her mother when not long afterwards, skillfully, the girl broached the subject, “we always marry cousins except when women are captured in raid. ”