Just now he spoke to me and said that he hoped
that your heart was not sad because of him and that all this time in his
dreams he had seen and thought of nobody but you, O Asika."
"Did he?" asked that lady, becoming intensely interested. "Then tell me,
dog, why is he ever calling upon one Bar-bar-a? Surely that is a woman's
name?"
"Yes, O Asika, that is the name of his mother, also of one of his
sisters, whom, after you, he loves best of anyone in the whole world.
When you are here he talks of them, but when you are not here he talks
of no one but you. Although he is so sick he remembers white man's
custom, which tells him that it is very wrong to say sweet things to
lady's face till he is quite married to her. After that they say them
always."
She looked at him suspiciously and muttering, "Here it is otherwise. For
your own sake, man, I trust that you do not lie," left him, and
drawing a stool up beside Alan's bed, sat herself down and examined him
carefully, touching his face and hands with her long thin fingers.
Then noting how white and wasted he was, of a sudden she began to weep,
saying between her sobs:
"Oh! if you should die, Vernoon, I will die also and be born again not
as Asika, as I have been for so many generations, but as a white woman
that I may be with you.
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