It is a human voice. Toussoun has
uttered it, and it announces that his mother is in danger. He
springs with horror to his feet, and bounds from rock to rock, down
the steep-he has just heard the cry for the third time.
"Await me, mother! O my mother, I am coming!"
Like an arrow he speeds through the suburb to his mother's hut. Pale
and terrified, Toussoun meets him at the door. He had risen from his
bed of sickness in response to Khadra's call. With weak, trembling
lips he had entreated her to allow him to call her son, and he did
call him, breathing out his last remnant of strength in summoning
Mohammed to his mother. Pale, weak, and ill, he now returns to his
own hut, supported on the arm of a neighbor, and returns to die.
Mohammed has not noticed him. He springs to the door, tears it open,
and sees the women who have come to Sitta Khadra's assistance. Now
that he has come they walk out noiselessly, and wait at the door.
How long will it be before she is dead, before they can assume the
role of mourning-women, and begin their lamentations? True, Sitta
Khadra is poor, but then the community will, out of self-respect,
pay the mourning charges. Consoling themselves with this thought,
the women crouch down at the door.
Mohammed kneels beside the mat on which his mother lies, takes her
hands--now almost cold-in his own, bends over her and looks into the
widely-distended eyes that stare vacantly up at him, and sobs in
loud, heart-rending tones "Mother, Mother, Do you hear me? Here I
am, your son, Mohammed.
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