Craftsmen crowded one upon the other in dark bazaars; merchants
chattered and haggled on their benches; hawkers clattered and cried their
wares. It was a people that lived upon the streets, for all the houses
seemed empty and forsaken. The sais ran before the Pasha's carriage, the
donkey-boys shrieked for their right of way, a train of camels calmly
forced its passage through the swirling crowds, supercilious and
heavy-laden.
It seemed but yesterday since she had watched with amused eyes the
sherbet-sellers clanking their brass saucers, the carriers streaming the
water from the bulging goatskins into the earthen bottles, crying, "Allah
be praised, here is coolness for thy throat for ever!" the idle singer
chanting to the soft kanoon, the chess-players in the shade of a high
wall, lost to the world, the dancing-girls with unveiled, shameless
faces, posturing for evil eyes. Nothing had changed these past six years.
Yet everything had changed.
She saw it all as in a dream, for her mind had no time for reverie or
retrospect; it was set on one thing only.
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