Achmed Abdullah

“ Ali Khan had said, ridiculing Fate after the manner of the hill-bred. "Thou art blood of my blood. From this day on, thou wilt be a trader, and thou wilt prosper. Gold will come to thy hands—unasked, like a courtezan." ”

“ But again the impulsive magnanimity of youth came to his rescue, and he said to himself that these men were his cousins, hill-bred, their whole life a rough fact reduced to rougher order. And he? He was home, and nothing else mattered. Henceforth he, too, would be a hill-man, free and unshackled. The weaver of his own life he would be, running the woof and warp of it as he willed, away from wheedling barter, away from the crowded, fetid bazaars and the shrill trade cries of the market-place. ”

“ For his heart seemed suddenly filled to overflowing with the fine, impulsive generosity of youth. "Here, cousin mine," he laughed, "see what I have brought thee from—"
"Peace, peace!" interrupted the other, impatiently; "the night is for the sleep of the sleepers, not for the babble of the babblers," and, motioning Yar Khan to follow, he led him to a low stone hut and bade him enter. ”

“ Better far to turn away ridicule with a clear, true word.
"I am not an Egyptian, Jehan Hydar," he replied, "but an Afghan and cousin to thee—cousin to all this!"—making a great gesture which cut through the still air like a dramatic shadow and which took in the frowning gray hills, the huddled squat houses, and the deep-cleft valley at his feet; and as the other grudgingly admitted the relationship, he swung his goatskin bag from his shoulders, opened it, and groped among the presents he had bought In the bazaars of Bokhara. ”

“ His lips quivered. He was about to turn, to leave The Hoof of the Wild Goat, to rush down the steep path and to take the trail—the long trail, to Bokhara, to Cairo—when the voice of Rahmet Ullah cut sharply into his reverie. The chief welcomed him into the tribe with a few simple words, and, indicating the whole assembly, he added: "These be thy cousins, Yar Khan, son of Ali Khan! Their laws be thy laws, their customs thy customs, their weal thy weal, their woes thy woes, their feuds thy feuds! Thou art blood of our blood and bone of our bone! ”

“ And when Yar Khan replied truthfully that he had not, she was out of the hut with a silvery laugh and the parting advice to make haste and rise—"For thy clan is waiting for thee in full durbar!"
A few minutes later he left the hut and stepped out into the village street, his goatskin bag over his shoulder. A snow-bitten wind was drifting down from the higher peaks, and the harried sun shivered and hid among the clouds. But Yar Khan, South-bred though he was, did not feel the sleety, grained mountain chill ”

“ Whatever is ours is thine!"—and, one after the other, the villagers rose and walked up to him. They greeted him, pressing palm against palm, coldly, impassively, with short, rasping "Salaam Alekhum's" and now and then a graybeard's querulous reflection as to manners learned among foreigners and infidels—reflections spiced and sharpened with Afghan proverbs.
"If a man be ugly what can the mirror do?" ”

“ He looked up. Jehan Hydar was still standing in front of him, a mocking smile playing about his thin lips and in his oblique eyes a light like a high-eddying flame. "Cousin," he drawled, and the simple word held the soft thud of a hidden, deadly insult, "cousin to me, to all of us! Yet do I declare by the teeth of Allah," here his eyes sought those of Kumar Jan, who stood close by, her whole attitude one of tense expectancy, "yes! ”

“ When he had reached his fifteenth year, manhood had come—sudden and a little cruel as it comes to Asians. On that day, his father had taken him into the shop, and, with a great gesture of his lean arms, had pointed at the dusty confusion of his stock-in-trade ”