belie the evidence of the newborn sense--this was the least of Ali's
trouble. By a swift rebound his heart went back to the fear that had
haunted him in the days before he left her with her father on his errand
to Shawan. He was black, and she would see him.

With the gliding of the key into the lock all this, and more than this,
flashed upon his mind. His shame was abject. It cut him to the quick.
On the other side of that door was she who had been as a sister to him
since times that were lost in the blue clouds of childhood. She had
played with him and slept by his side, yet she had never seen his face.
And she was fair as the morning, and he was black as the night! He had
come to deliver her. Would she recoil from him?

Ali had to struggle with himself not to fly away and leave everything.
But his stout heart remembered itself and held to its purpose. "What
matter?" he thought. "What matter about me?" he asked himself aloud in
a shrill voice and with a brave roll of his round head. Then he found
himself inside the cell.

The place was dark, and Ali drew a long breath of relief. Naomi must
have been lying at the farther end of it. She spoke when the door was
opened. As though by habit, she framed the name of her jailer Habeebah,
and then stopped with a little nervous cry and seemed to rise to her
feet. In his confusion Ali said simply, "It is I," as though that meant
everything. Recovering himself in a moment he spoke again, and then she
knew his voice: "Naomi!"

"It's Ali," she whispered to herself. After that she cried in a
trembling undertone "Ali! Ali! Ali!" and came straight in the accustomed
darkness to the spot where he stood.