dealt his partner a blow on the head so severe that he dropped unconscious and blood spattered the walk.
Zibal shrieked with horror at the sight, but the porter was hastening to get away, and lifting a threatening hand to Zibal, who fainted from terror. As a result he was ill for several months, and when he came back he found his old place had been filled.
Then began a fight for existence, which was made harder by his marriage to Sura. But patience and endurance can overcome the most treacherous fortune.
Sura's brother—proprietor of the rest-house by Podeni—died, and the little business was inherited by Zibal who carried it on on his own account. Here he had lived for five years. He had managed to scrape together a small competence in raw and well aged wine, which at any time has an equivalent in gold. Zibal had freed himself from poverty, but now they are all ill, he and his wife and the child—ill with the marsh fever.
The people in Podeni are bad tempered and quarrelsome. Harsh words, scorn, curses, constant complaints that they are being poisoned with
