“May Allah requite thee, O my dear lord!” At the house of the Frank, Shems-ud-dìn entered with the negroes for the purpose of complimenting the physician upon the improvement wrought in Alia. After a very little while he rejoined Zeyd, who at once felt a change in his demeanor. “What is there new, O my master?” “The hakìm, that excellent man, assures me that my daughter cannot live.” Zeyd laughed, a short and angry laugh. “Is he then Allah?” he asked scornfully. But Shems-ud-dìn no longer heard him. CHAPTER XIII “Thy son—since the first day he has not visited thee. Allah guard me from begetting one like him.” The reproach of Zeyd, scarce heeded at the moment, linked Shems-ud-dìn’s reveries on the morrow of its utterance, recurring often like a sad refrain. It prevented his submersion in that stupor of prayerful musing which was his comfort. Yet not until noon was past, and the shadow of the gracious dome drew out to eastward, did it hold the foreground of his thought. The aged Mahmûd Ali had come to sit with him awhile, and was reciting words of comfort in the high mosque voice, when Shems-ud-dìn asked himself, Was Abd-ur-Rahman all to blame? Had not the father likewise a duty toward the son? To be sure that his mind did not err, he said presently to the aged sheykh, his comforter: “O my brother, hear a case and pronounce on it. A certain man had offspring a son and daughter, those two only, both dear to him. Yet did the balance of his love incline toward the daughter. One day he appeared to slight the boy, making much of the girl. And the boy was angry and drew away from him. Was the right with the son or the father? Upon which of them two rests the obligation?” Zeyd, the son of Abbâs, on his heels out in the sunlight, emitted an “Ah!” of breathless interest. The aged Mahmûd Ali stroked his beard, reflecting. At length he replied: “There is right with both of them, and against both. But the higher right is with the son. For did not his father reverse the ordinance of God by setting the woman above the man? Less is expected from a woman, it is for that she should receive less. I perceive that the case is thine. Is the son with thee in this city?” “Let the case be a case like another,” said Shems-ud-dìn, unwilling to betray his son’s name. Zeyd moaned. “It is too much for me. My blessedness is become a pain in my side. Surely never till now was man, poor and ignorant like me, privileged to hear such wisdom.”