"Hiding up the tallest cinnamon tree, like a monkey," Dr. Stefanik said.
They sat there upon the grass for a long while in companionable silence,
heeding the sounds of the night, which was balmy and infinitely
peaceful.
There came a high-pitched, long-drawn-out scream from somewhere on the
ridge.
"They got him," Abdul said.
"And now they will pluck him, I suppose," said Dr. Stefanik. "There, by
the way, is a thing that even _I_ have never completely understood about
them. Their insatiable curiosity, of course, is a vestigial trait that
will pass, but this other drive, I fear, this rather alarming passion
that they have shown for the up-breeding of the species may be some
universal of life itself that no man may touch or alter."
Down the path from the ridge, a small, white-robed figure came running,
far ahead of the others, bent upon her own schemes of evolution.
Abdul crouched lower in the shadows. "That one makes even the heart of a
man swell within his breast," he whispered, "for she does not ever give
up."
"That no man may touch," Dr. Stefanik repeated, and nodded his shaggy
head wisely. "As an idealist, I may have given them shoes and
enlightenment, but I did not give them this, and so they are not
altogether mine. _His_ kind still professes to believe in the common
denominator and the common level, seeking to drag down the few from
their gilt palaces and haul up the masses from the muck. Tell me, as a
Hadj who is, at the same time, undoubtedly vermin-ridden, do _you_
believe in the equality of men--or can you honestly wish it?"
"All of us to be Effendis?"
"Something like that."
Abdul Hakkim ben Salazar thought about it for a time with furrowed brow.
"No, Sidi," he said at last, "for then there would be no one to chase
us."
The female stopped, knelt in the path.
"What is she doing now?" Dr. Stefanik asked.
"She is taking off her shoes, in order to run faster than me."
"'... And cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon
the earth after his kind'! And yet you told Glinka _I_ made them!"
"Ah, but not out of _what_, Sidi," Abdul said.
The female, with a hopeful little bleat, arose and tucked her shoes
under her arm, for youth is hope and kids will be kids, and off she
went, clip-clop, clip-clop, down the rocky path to the sea.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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