They dance their dervish dance, these people, even like Khalid’s little Najib, and fall into their sand-graves, and fold their arms and smile: “We are in love—or we are out of it.” Which is the same. No: he’ll have none of this. A heart as simple as this desert sand, as deep in affection as this heaven, untainted by the uncertainties and doubts and caprices of modern life—only in such a heart is the love that endures, the love divine and eternal.
He goes into Najma’s tent. The mother and her child are sound asleep. He stands between the bed and the cot contemplating the simplicity and innocence and truth, which are more eloquent in Najib’s brow than aught of human speech. His little hand raised above his head seems to point to a star which could be seen through an opening in the canvas. Was it his star—the star that he saw in the sand-grave—the star that is calling to him?—
But let us resume our narration.
A fortnight after Mrs. Gotfry’s departure Shakib leaves the camp to live in Cairo. He is now become poet-laureate to one of the big pashas.
Khalid is left alone with Najma and Najib.
And one day, when they are playing a game of “donkey,”—Khalid carried Najib on his back, ran on all four around the tent, and Najma was the donkey-driver—the child of a sudden utters a shriek and falls on the sand. He is in convulsions; and after the relaxation, lo, his right hand is palsied, his mouth awry, and his eyes asquint. Khalid finds a young doctor at al-Hayat, and his diagnosis of the case does not disturb the mind. It is infantile paralysis, a disease common with delicate children. And the doctor, who is of a kind and demonstrative humour, discourses at length on the disease, speaks of many worse cases of its kind he cured, and assures the mother that within a month the child will recover. For the present he can but prescribe a purgative and a massage of the arm and