at was half-hidden under
the dropping eaves, and every morning when she opened her door to the
radiance of the sun she had whispered to herself and said, "He will come
back, Naomi; only wait, only wait; maybe it will be tonight, maybe it
will be to-day; you will see, you will see."

But after the awful thought of what prison was had fully dawned upon
her as last, by help of what she saw and heard of other men who had been
there, her old content in her father's command that she should never
leave that place was shaken and broken by a desire to go to him.

"Who's to feed him, poor soul? He will be famishing. If the Kaid finds
him in bread, it will only be so much more added to his ransom. That
will come to the same thing in the end, or he'll die in prison."

Thus she had heard the gossips talk among themselves when they thought
she did not listen. And though it was little she understood of Kaids and
ransoms, she was quick to see the nature of her father's peril, and at
length she concluded that, in spite of his injunction, go to him she
should and must. With that resolve, her mind, which had been the mind
of a child seemed to spring up instantly and become the mind of a woman,
and her heart, that had been timid, suddenly grew brave, for pity and
love were born in it. "He must be starving in prison," she thought, "and
I will take him food."

When her neighbours heard of her intention they lifted their hands in
consternation and horror. "God be gracious to my father!" they cried.
"Shawan? You? Alone? Child, you'll be lost, lost--worse, a thousand
times worse! Shoof! you're only a baby still."

But their protests availed as little to keep Naomi at her home now as
their importunities had done before to induce her to leave it. "He must
be starving in prison," she said, "and I will take him food."

Her neighbours left her to her stubborn purpose.

"Allah!" they said, "who would have believed it, that the little
pink-and-white face had such a will of her own!"

Without more ado Naomi set herself to prepare for her journey. She
saved up thirty eggs, and baked as many of the round flat cakes of the
country; also she churned some butter in the simple way which the women
had taught her, and put the milk that was left in a goat's-skin. In
three days she was ready, and then she packed her provisions in the leaf
panniers of a mule which one of the neighbours had lent to her, and got
up before them on the front of the burda, aft