, and that moiety so
battered that their mothers did not know them. Therefore, at Beni Souef
that morning women wept, and men looked sullenly upon the ground--all
but Wassef the camel-driver.

It troubled the mind of Wassef that Mahommed Selim made no outcry at his
fate. He was still more puzzled when the Mamour whispered to him that
Mahommed Selim had told the kavass and his own father that since it was
the will of God, then the will of God was his will, and he would go.
Wassef replied that the Mamour did well not to accept the backsheesh
of Mahommed Selim's father, for the Mouffetish at the palace of Ismail
would have heard of it, and there would have been an end to the Mamour.
It was quite a different matter when it was backsheesh for sending
Mahommed Selim to the Soudan.

With a shameless delight Wassef went to the door of his own home, and,
calling to Soada, told her that Mahommed Selim was among the conscripts.
He also told her that the young man was willing to go, and that the
Mamour would take no backsheesh from his father. He looked to see her
burst into tears and wailing, but she only stood and looked at him like
one stricken blind. Wassef laughed, and turned on his heel; and went
out: for what should he know of the look in a woman's face--he to whom
most women were alike, he who had taken dancing-girls with his camels
into the desert many a time? What should he know of that love which
springs once in every woman's heart, be she fellah or Pharaoh's
daughter?

When he had gone, Soada groped her way blindly to the door and out into
the roadway. Her lips moved, but she only said: "Mahommed--Mahommed
Selim!" Her father's words knelled in her ear that her lover was willing
to go, and she kept saying brokenly: "Mahommed--Mahommed Selim!" As the
mist left her eyes she saw the conscripts go by, and Mahommed Selim was
in the rear rank. He saw her also, but he kept his head turned away,
taking a cigarette from young Yusef, the drunken ghaffir, as they passed
on.

Unlike the manner of her people, Soada turned and went back into her
house, and threw herself upon the mud floor, and put the folds of her
garment in her mouth lest she should cry out in her agony. A whole day
she lay there and did not stir, save to drink from the water-bottle
which old Fatima, the maker of mats, had placed by her side. For Fatima
thought of the far-off time when she loved Hassan the potter, who had
been dragged from his wheel by a kavass