The White Prophet, Volume I (of 2). Sir Hall Caine

where you are."

      But the widow's taunting went wide, for as soon as Adila had heard her out she went across to the Mohammedan court-house and said —

      "Why didn't you tell me it was Ishmael Ameer you meant?"

      The Sheikhs answered with a show of shame that they had intended to do so eventually, and if they had not done so at first it was only out of fear of frightening her.

      "He's sick and in chains, isn't he?" said Adila.

      They admitted that it was true.

      "He may never come out of prison alive – isn't that so?"

      They could not deny it.

      "Then I want to marry him," said Adila.

      "What a strange girl you are!" said the Sheikhs, but without more ado the contract was made while Ishmael was so sick that he knew little about it, the marriage document was drawn up in his name, Adila signed it, half her dowry was paid to her, and she promptly gave the money to the poor.

      Next day Ishmael was tossing on his angerib in the mud hut which served for his cell when he saw his Soudanese guard come in, followed by four women, and the first of them was Adila, carrying a basket full of cakes such as are made in that country for a marriage festival. One moment she stood over him as he lay on his bed with what seemed to be the dews of death on his forehead, and then putting her basket on the ground she slipped to her knees by his side and said —

      "I am Adila. I belong to you now, and have come to take care of you."

      "Why do you come to me?" he answered. "Go away. I don't want you."

      "But we are married, and I am your wife, and I am here to nurse you until you are well," she said.

      "I shall never be well," he replied. "I am dying and will soon be dead. Why should you waste your life on me, my girl? Go away, and God bless you. Praise to His name!"

      With that she kissed his hand and her tears fell over it, but after a moment she wiped her eyes, rose to her feet, and turning briskly to the other women she said —

      "Take your cakes and be off with you – I'm going to stay."

      CHAPTER XIV

      Three weeks longer Ishmael lay in the grip of his fever, and day and night Adila tended him, moistening his parched lips and cooling his hot forehead, while he raged against his enemies in his strong delirium, crying, "Down with the Christians! Drive them away! Kill them!" Then the thunging and roaring in his poor brain ceased, and his body was like a boat that had slid in an instant out of a stormy sea into a quiet harbour. Opening his eyes, with his face to the red wall, in the cool light of a breathless morning, he heard behind him the soft and mellow voice of a woman who seemed to be whispering to herself or to Heaven, and she was saying —

      "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil; for Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory. Amen."

      "What is that?" he asked, closing his eyes again, and at the next moment the mellow voice came from somewhere above his face —

      "So you are better? Oh, how good that is! I am Adila. Don't you remember me?"

      "What was that you were saying, my girl?"

      "That? Oh, that was the prayer of the Lord Isa (Jesus)."

      "The Lord Isa?"

      "Don't you know? Long ago my father told me about Him, and I've not forgotten it even yet. He was only a poor man, a poor Jewish man, a carpenter, but He was so good that He loved all the world, especially sinful women when they were sorry, and little helpless children. He never did harm to His enemies either, but people were cruel and they crucified Him. And now He is in heaven, sitting at God's right hand, with Mary His mother beside Him."

      There was silence for a moment, and then —

      "Say His prayer again, Adila."

      So Adila, with more constraint than before, but still softly and sweetly, began afresh —

      "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name; Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven; give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil; for Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory. Amen."

      Thus the little Coptic woman, in her soft and mellow voice, said her Lord's prayer in that mud hut on the edge of the desert, with only the sick man to hear her, and he was a prisoner and in chains; but long before she had finished, Ishmael's face was hidden in his bed-clothes and he was crying like a child.

      There were three weeks more of a painless and dreamy convalescence, in which Adila repeated other stories her father had told her, and Ishmael saw Christianity for the first time as it used to be, and wondered to find it a faith so sweet and so true, and above all, save for the character of Jesus, so like his own.