If I had
to choose a new family escutcheon, I think I should insist upon
having Beautiful Dog rampant upon it!
When I went outside, the garden was a gray-green gloom of flying
leaves and twisting tree-branches bending before the stiff northeast
gale. It was wild weather--weather that sent the blood tingling
through the veins and whipped red into one's cheeks.
I got into Mr. Jelnik's grounds through the hedge behind the
spring-house, and ran like a hare through his garden. I had to
hammer upon his door before I could make Achmet hear me, so loud and
surf-like was the noise of the wind in the trees.
The Jinnee stepped back and salaamed, his hands upon his breast.
Then he laid a finger upon his lips, for from up-stairs came the
wailing outcry of a violin.
The Jinnee looked thin and old. His garments hung loose upon his
shrunken frame. There was trouble in that house, he told me. The
master had wished to send Daoud away. Daoud had refused to go. To
leave one's lord when calamity came upon him was to shame one's
beard. It was the act of the infidel, not the behavior of the
faithful, and Daoud had threatened to shave his beard, put on the
dress of a pilgrim, and beg his way from Hyndsville to Mecca.
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