Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1918-04-10
CHAPTER II.

Have you heard the dry earth shrug
herself
For a storm that tore the trees?
! Have you watched loot-hungry
Faithful
| Praising Allah on their knees?
Have you felt the short hairs rising
Whe nthe mon slipped out of sight,
And the clink of steel on rock eX-
planned
| That football in the night?
Have you seen a gray boar sniff
up-wind
In the mauve of waking day?
Have you heard mad crowd pause
and think?
HaveEou seen all He'll to pay?
Yasmini bears reputation that
includes her gift for dancing and
her skill in song, but is not bound
ed thereby Her stairs illustrated
1.-THE two fights of steep winding
stairs that lead to her bewildering
reception floor; they seem to have
been designed to take mems breath
away, and to deliver them at the
top defenseless.
But Risaldar-Major Ran1oor
Singh mounted them with scarcely
an fort, as man who could mas
ter Bagh we'll might, and at the
top his middle-aged back was
straight And his eye clear. The
cunning, curtained lights did not
distract him; so he did not make
the usual mistake of thinking that
the loneliness who met him was
Tasmini.
Yasmini likes to make her first
impression of the evening on man
lust as he comes from making an
idiot of himself; so the maid who
curtsies in the stair-head maze of
mirrored lights has been trained to
initiate her. But Ranjoor Singh
tipped the girl coin, and it jing-
led at her feet.
The maid ceased bowling, too in
suited to retort The piece OF sill
ver-she would have stopped for
gold, Just as surely as she would
have recognized its ring-lay where
it fell. Ranjoor Singh stepped for
ward toward a glass-bead curtain
through which a soft light shone,
and an unexpected low laugh greet
ed him. 1t was merry, mocking.
musical and something more.
There was wisdom hidden in it
masquerading as frivolity; some
where. too, there was villainy-
villainy that she who laughed
knew all about and found more in
teresting than a play.
Then suddenly the curtain part
ed. and Yasmini blocked the way.
standing with arms spread wide to
either door-post, smiling" at him
and Ranjoor Singh had to stop and
stare whether it suited him or not.
Yasmini is not old. nor nearly
old. for all that India is full of
tales about her. from the Hima-
layas to Cape Comorin. In a land
where IL is a manageable age, a
woman need not live to so to be
talked about; and if she can dance
as Yasmini does-though only the
Russian ballet can do that-she
has the secret of perpetual youth
to help her defy the years. No !
doubt the soft light favored her. |
but she might have been Ranjoor |
granddaughter as she bar
red his war and looked him up and |
down impudently through languor
Gus brown eyes.
"Salaam o plowman! she |
Knocked She was not actually still |
an instant, for the light played in
cessantIy on her gauzy silken |
trousers and jeweled slippers. but |
she made no move to admit him. |
MY honor grows' Twice - nav.
three times in a little while"
She spoke in the Jat tongue flu
emily; but that was not remarka-
BILE, because Yasmini ia mistress of
SO many languages that men say
one cannot speak in her hearing
and-not he understood.
Il am soldier answed Ranjoor
Singh more than a little stiffly.
- Il am n Atafaanaan said the vice.