"Wait for a corpse," said she, "an' ye'll wait while yer luck goes
by."
"They're singing a song in praise of the dead man's good deeds, and of
triumph for the joys he'll know in Paradise," explained Nevill. "It's
only the women who weep and scratch their faces when those they love
have died. The men rejoice, or try to. Soon, they are saying, this one
who has gone will be in gardens fair as the gardens of Allah Himself,
where sit beautiful houris, in robes woven of diamonds, sapphires, and
rubies, each gem of which has an eye of its own that glitters through a
vapour of smouldering ambergris, while fountains send up pearly spray in
the shade of fragrant cedars."
"No wonder the Mohammedan poor don't fear death, if they expect to
exchange their hovels for such quarters," said Stephen. "I wish I
understood Arabic."
"It's a difficult language to keep in your mind, and I don't know it
well," Nevill answered. "But Jeanne and Josette Soubise speak it like
natives; and the other day when Miss Ray lunched with us, I thought her
knowledge of Arabic wonderful for a person who'd picked it up from
books."
Stephen did not answer. He wished that Nevill had not brought the
thought of Victoria into his mind at the moment when he was recalling
his old nurse's silly superstition. Victoria laughed at superstitions,
but he was not sure that he could laugh, in this barbaric land where it
seemed that anything might happen.
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