



Produced by Al Haines










[Frontispiece: Someone leaned above him to inspect his work.  Chap X.]






THE WAYFARERS LIBRARY



The

VALLEY of the KINGS



Marmaduke Pickthall





J.M.DENT & SONS. Ltd.

LONDON

1914




THE

VALLEY OF THE KINGS


CHAPTER I

"Woe on you, mothers of nothing!  May the scourge of Allah flay you as
you go!"

The mother of Iskender held the doorway of her little house in a
posture of spitting defiance.  Rancour, deep-rooted and boundless,
ranged in her guttural snarl.  Her black eyes burned to kill, their
thick brows quite united by the energy of her frown as she gazed across
a sand-dell, chary of vegetation but profuse in potsherds, towards the
white walls and high red roof of the Mission-house seen above a wave of
tamarisks on the opposite dune.  The hedge of prickly pear defining her
small domain did not obstruct the view, for it consisted largely of
gaps, by one of which a group of three Frankish ladies had just gone
from her.  She could see their white-clad forms, under sunshades, down
there in the hollow, battling ungracefully with the sand for foothold.
With one hand raised as a screen from the declining sun, the mother of
Iskender clenched the other, and shook it down the pathway of those
ladies so that the bracelets of  glass tinkled upon her