Unmindful of the terrific heat of the desert sun which beat down upon
him, he stumbled on, in a direction he believed would take him to the
city. Luck was with him. Late that afternoon he reached Sana’s home,
wild-eyed and fever-tortured.
Sana’s mother saw at a glance that some terrible accident had happened.
But Carl’s parched lips craved water, and putting her fears aside for
the moment she wet his lips, bathed his dust-covered face and let him
drink.
Then he spoke. Slowly he told the story. The old mother seemed to age
before his eyes, as she moaned, “Sana, my child. Did I not warn you?”
between her tears, as she sat rocking to and fro on the floor.
The minutes grew into hours and the two still sat there in silence--a
silence broken only by the moans of the mother and a frequent sob or
sigh from the man.
At last Carl roused himself from his lethargy. The desert fever had
spent itself--his mind was once more clear, but his heart was heavy
laden.
“What should he do? Whither was he going?” ran through his mind as he
stood up from his chair.
As if reading this thought, the gypsy spoke, “You have your work to do.
It was willed that this should happen. It is also written that you must
do your duty. Your caravan leaves tomorrow. Join it and peace be with
you.”
“Yes, that is best. I could not stay here now.”
He bade her a sad farewell and going to his hotel finished his
preparations for the journey. This over with, he threw himself, fully
clad, upon the bed to while away those long dreadful hours before the
dawn.
Sana returned to consciousness to find that the cavemen had camped for
the night in a valley formed by the sand dunes. To her great relief,
they did not bother about her or Cintani, but sat apart from them
chattering in guttural tones, later to lie down to sleep.
Early next morning, the girls were again picked up and the savages set
out with them for their home in the hills. The very thought of being
clutched so tightly in the arms of the beast-like man, who held her
close to him robbed her of all consciousness and she knew nothing of
her travels until she came to with a start, lying on the ground with
bound feet, surrounded by a strange group of men, women and children,
in front of a large cave. The women and children, like the men, of whom
Sana saw five, wore little or no clothing.
Physically, the women were better proportioned than the men, but they
too looked more like animals than human beings. The women, however, had
taken some pains to appear attractive to their men. One had a green
feather stuck in her hair, while another had chosen a bunch of twigs
for a headdress. All of them wore a chain of shells around their necks.
She and Cintani were subjected to close inspection on the part of the
women, accompanied by guttural growls from the men, who would shove the
women aside, now and then, with sweeping blows of the arm.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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