Almas thought it was quite a funny sight to see his long red beard wagging back and forth while he made such strange sounds, and so she broke into a laugh, at which her father turned and struck her. She went out crying softly. She did not like the mullah. Why had he come to frighten baby? He had not named her little cousin. Old Bajee had shouted in her ear, "Your name is Fatima!" and that was all. After this Karim was laid in a very narrow cradle without any sides, and long strips of cloth were wrapped around and around him and under the bottom of the cradle. His arms were tied down, and a calico curtain kept the light out. He lay in this dark little place nearly all the time for the first six months, generally asleep. Although Abdullah was very proud of him, he hardly noticed him for over a month, because the evil spirits would wonder what he was looking at and come to see. Once a day baby's mother would build the fire for cooking, and the room would fill with smoke, because there was no chimney, but only a hole in the middle of the ceiling. At first he cried every time, for the smoke made his eyes smart with pain. His mother put some medicine upon them when she saw how red they had become, and asked Bajee what the matter was. "How can I tell?" said Bajee. "Babies always have sore eyes." When the curtain was loose and it was not too dark the flies came to visit him. There seemed to be hundreds of them, and they walked all over his face and even into his mouth, but were especially fond of his red eyes and gathered in black rows around them. He winked and winked, but they did not care. Then he would begin to cry. After a while mother would come to fix the curtain and rock the cradle, or perhaps--and this was the best of all--she would undo the wrappings and take him in her arms for a few minutes, singing, "My dear baby! my sweet baby! You are my father! and the father of my father!" She meant that she thought as much of him as of her grandfather, and every one always talked as if people cared more for a grandfather than for any one else. CHAPTER II KARIM'S RELATIVES AND HOME ONE day Karim's mother, whom he was now learning to call "Nana," said to father Abdullah, "Master, your boy--may his eyes have light!--is now five months old, and ought to come out of his cradle. Buy some calico, and I will make another shirt for him. Do not buy red or any bright colour, so that the Evil Eye may not think him too pretty and so become jealous and strike him." She made the shirt so short that his fat brown legs were bare to the knee.