All at once the man became transformed into a child
that shone like an angel, and this angel stretched out its arms and
flew toward me. In my dream I extended my arms toward this vision,
and cried, 'My son-my son!' This cry awakened me. On the following
day you were born. When I saw and greeted you with Allah's blessing,
I was startled to find the child I held in my arms the same as the
angel that had flown to me in my dream! Oftentimes since I have
thought of this dream, and endeavored to interpret it, for the
agathodaemon that watches over men, and protects them from the ghins
and their evil pinions, sometimes sends dreams to the unhappy to
announce to them the future. I thought my agathodaemon had sent me
this dream, "One day some gypsies came to Cavalla on a ship that
landed here to procure provisions. They remained here several days,
and made a business of fortune-telling. I went to an old woman, said
to be the greatest prophetess, held out my hand, and demanded that
she should announce the future of myself and my son. The old woman
gazed at me with a strange look, and said: --You wish your dream
interpreted?'
"This startled me, for I had rarely spoken of my dream, and the old
woman could not have heard of it. She had been in Cavalla but two
days, and who should have told her of the poor, obscure woman, Sitta
Khadra? But this question startled me to the very soul, and it
seemed to me that this woman must tell me the truth.
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