She has many friends; every
woman and girl that Masa knows loves her on account of her happy
disposition, her innocence, and her loveliness. She will have
returned home long since. Djumeila cannot know that her master has
gone out, or she would have called him.
"Masa is surely at home!"
The old man returns to his dwelling with the quick step of a youth.
Djumeila is standing in the door-way, weeping and lamenting loudly
"Master, my child, my Masa, is gone! Allah be merciful, and take me
from this earth, now that my Masa is no longer here!"
The sheik says not a word. He neither speaks nor weeps, but only
beckons to the men who have been drawn to the spot by Djumeila's
loud lamentations. When they have come near, he bends down close to
them, as if to prevent even the wind from hearing him, and whispers
in their ears: "My child is gone. Masa is not in the mosque. Masa is
not on the beach, and is not with the neighbors!"
The men regarded him with dismay; and, supposing they must have
misunderstood his words, ask each other, "What did the sheik say?"
He then shrieks, as if to make himself heard by the heavens and the
earth, by the mountains and the sea: "My child is gone! Masa is not
in her father's house, Masa is not at the mosque, and not on the
beach! Where is my child?"
He then swoons away. Djumeila now rushes down the street, and her
cries of anguish resound through all Praousta.
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