CHAPTER X

CHAPTER X“O wretched day! O death of honour! O calamity! Didst thou not swear to guard my love from danger, O my father? Yet death has reached her—poison! This house is now gehennum. Woe to all of us! O Allah, ease the sorrow of my heart! O Lord, behold me rent in twain—My wife! My mother!”Yûsuf had burst into the room of the selamlik where his father was transacting business with the steward of his property. Regardless of the stranger’s presence, he gave way to grief and rage, falling prostrate on the pavement, tearing at it with his hands, and biting at it with his teeth convulsively. The steward, a person of discretion, rose at once and asked permission to retire. The Pasha nodded, and, when he was gone, bent over his demented child, inquiring of his cause of grief with heart near broken, for he feared the worst had happened. By dint of patience he elicited the simple facts, which, when he knew them, eased his mind so greatly that he smiled and rendered fervent thanks to the Most High. The Englishwoman was not dead; the poisonousattempt had failed; the vision of an angry Consul, void of decency, transgressing with investigations every man’s intrinsic right to sole and secret jurisdiction in his own harîm, raising a scandal far more dreadful than the sad event, receded suddenly.“Be not distressed, my son!” he urged benignly. “Praise God, as I do, that the matter is no worse. Think! a mere plant of jasmine dead in place of her thou lovest. The call is for rejoicing, not for grief. Have patience, O my soul! Control thy spirits!”“Have patience, sayest thou?” sobbed Yûsuf. “My anguish is more terrible than flesh can bear. My mother, she who bore me, whom I love by nature, has turned my enemy, to poison her by whom alone I live. I hate the murderess of my delight, and would destroy her; but lo! she is my mother, and I can but weep. My soul is torn asunder. All the world is blackened. O Allah, take my life! O Lord, protect me!”Muhammad Pasha was profoundly moved by this lament. He thanked God for vouchsafing him a son who, in the moment of extreme affliction, could still preserve such justice in his sentiments.“Take comfort, O my son! Be thankful that no harm has happened,” he insisted tenderly.But Yûsuf would not be consoled. The soothing tone enraged him, seeming to make a trifle of his agony. He leapt upon his feet and cried:“No harm! O Allah! Is it nought then,what I tell thee? Then thou hast no love for me. Thou art my father; thou didst promise to preserve her from my mother’s malice. Thou seest my despair, and yet thou smilest. O Allah, kill me now, for I am orphaned cruelly. Both my parents hate me, and deride my sufferings. I go to my mother Murjânah, who is kind and gracious. She will weep with me.”And before the older man could grasp his purpose, much less intervene, that victim of a duteous heart had fled the room. After a space of thought the Pasha followed to Murjânah Khânum’s quarters, where he found the young man writhing on a bed of cushions, while his second mother wept with him and prayed.“Listen, O Yûsuf, O my son!” began the father earnestly. “I have been thinking. Thou and thy bride shall have a house apart——”But at his voice the young man, foaming at the mouth, sprang up from his couch with teeth and hands clenched in a final spasm, and, flinging up his hands, fell back insensible.“Go, fetch the leech, the fit will pass, in sh´Allah. Be secret, lest tongues wag to our dishonour,” said Murjânah, and the Pasha went at once to the selamlik, returning with a black slave skilled in surgery. Yûsuf was bled. While assisting in the operation the Pasha asked Murjânah:“What punishment is meet for her we wot of?”“Forgiveness, for the love of Allah!” was theanswer. “Upbraid her on religious grounds and then forgive her. We know her generous, impulsive nature. Thy sudden kindness will affect her more than blows. Poor soul, she must have suffered very deeply. My slaves inform me that she saw this Englishwoman as a kind of ghoul. Tomorrow, with her nature, she may wish to hug her. Remove the young folks for the present.”“I had thought of that,” rejoined the Pasha. “By Allah, they shall have the garden-house towards Rôdah. To-morrow I will have the place prepared for them.”When Yûsuf Bey came back to life he wept anew, but weakly, helplessly. In that condition he was carried to his own apartments by the surgeon, with the Pasha’s help, Murjânah going on before to warn the bride.This sad procession happened to encounter a slave of Leylah Khânum’s who, hearing Yûsuf’s groans, ran off with screams and told her mistress he was dead. At once the whole harîm was filled with wailing. Fitnah Khânum, thunderstruck by the appalling news, defiled her face with dirt and tore her raiment. She rushed shrieking to the bridal chamber, as did every woman and child who by relationship could claim the right to enter. She knelt before the bride, who stood apart, bewildered, and besought her:“Remove the spell, restore him, for the love of Allah. I sinned. I here confess it. Thou artmuch too strong for me. Thou, by thy magic, hast turned round the sword to pierce my bosom. I was impatient, I am justly punished. The wisest of mankind advised me I should wait three months. Thou seest how I love thee, how I kneel to thee and kiss thy feet. Accept my life’s devotion: only save him!”Without seeking for an answer to her prayer, she rose distractedly and went and flung herself upon the bed where Yûsuf lay. He moaned:“My mother! Oh, alas, thy bitterness! How couldst thou seek to rob me of delight? Behold me dead! Now art thou satisfied? O Lord have mercy on me! O Calamity!”Blubbering loudly, she implored forgiveness. Soon his arms went round her; they lay, hugging one another, sobbing, cooing, while the spectators wept aloud in tender sympathy. The Pasha’s face was hidden in his pocket-handkerchief. Murjânah Khânum murmured prayers beneath her breath.“O my despair! my wickedness!” the mother shrieked.“My grief, my desolation; now my joy!” sobbed Yûsuf.“O Lord, relieve me, for my heart is bursting,” moaned the Pasha.“Oh, what do I behold. How rapture pains me!” came from bystanders. All, in the selfish orgy of emotion, forgot the terrified and wondering bride, who, understanding not a word of what was said,surveyed a riddle. She asked the Pasha what the matter was. He answered with a hiccup of emotion:“It is nothing, mademoiselle. It will soon pass. Have no fear!” which only added to her stupefaction.She had seen such exhibitions in ill-governed nurseries, but never among grown-up folks before. To account for all the outcry she imagined some tremendous tragedy, and waited anxiously to learn its nature.It was close on midnight ere the chamber emptied and, left alone with Yûsuf, she could put her question. Then he told her the whole story with frequent interjection of “Oh, how I suffered!” She learnt that she had narrowly escaped a cruel death. But how her danger bore upon the scenes she had just witnessed, or in what manner they were meant to reassure her, she could not divine. Yûsuf himself bestowed no thought on her predicament, immersed in contemplation of his own emotions. Feeling alone and outcast, she wept a little ere she went to sleep.In the morning Yûsuf had recovered his accustomed spirits. When she alluded with a shudder to his mother’s wickedness, he bade her have no fear; all that was past. From that day forth his mother would be sure to cherish her. Her mind derived no comfort from that light assurance; it remained perturbed until the Pasha came with tidings of a new arrangement he had made for her and Yûsuf to sojourn in a pleasure-house of his among the suburbs.

“O wretched day! O death of honour! O calamity! Didst thou not swear to guard my love from danger, O my father? Yet death has reached her—poison! This house is now gehennum. Woe to all of us! O Allah, ease the sorrow of my heart! O Lord, behold me rent in twain—My wife! My mother!”

Yûsuf had burst into the room of the selamlik where his father was transacting business with the steward of his property. Regardless of the stranger’s presence, he gave way to grief and rage, falling prostrate on the pavement, tearing at it with his hands, and biting at it with his teeth convulsively. The steward, a person of discretion, rose at once and asked permission to retire. The Pasha nodded, and, when he was gone, bent over his demented child, inquiring of his cause of grief with heart near broken, for he feared the worst had happened. By dint of patience he elicited the simple facts, which, when he knew them, eased his mind so greatly that he smiled and rendered fervent thanks to the Most High. The Englishwoman was not dead; the poisonousattempt had failed; the vision of an angry Consul, void of decency, transgressing with investigations every man’s intrinsic right to sole and secret jurisdiction in his own harîm, raising a scandal far more dreadful than the sad event, receded suddenly.

“Be not distressed, my son!” he urged benignly. “Praise God, as I do, that the matter is no worse. Think! a mere plant of jasmine dead in place of her thou lovest. The call is for rejoicing, not for grief. Have patience, O my soul! Control thy spirits!”

“Have patience, sayest thou?” sobbed Yûsuf. “My anguish is more terrible than flesh can bear. My mother, she who bore me, whom I love by nature, has turned my enemy, to poison her by whom alone I live. I hate the murderess of my delight, and would destroy her; but lo! she is my mother, and I can but weep. My soul is torn asunder. All the world is blackened. O Allah, take my life! O Lord, protect me!”

Muhammad Pasha was profoundly moved by this lament. He thanked God for vouchsafing him a son who, in the moment of extreme affliction, could still preserve such justice in his sentiments.

“Take comfort, O my son! Be thankful that no harm has happened,” he insisted tenderly.

But Yûsuf would not be consoled. The soothing tone enraged him, seeming to make a trifle of his agony. He leapt upon his feet and cried:

“No harm! O Allah! Is it nought then,what I tell thee? Then thou hast no love for me. Thou art my father; thou didst promise to preserve her from my mother’s malice. Thou seest my despair, and yet thou smilest. O Allah, kill me now, for I am orphaned cruelly. Both my parents hate me, and deride my sufferings. I go to my mother Murjânah, who is kind and gracious. She will weep with me.”

And before the older man could grasp his purpose, much less intervene, that victim of a duteous heart had fled the room. After a space of thought the Pasha followed to Murjânah Khânum’s quarters, where he found the young man writhing on a bed of cushions, while his second mother wept with him and prayed.

“Listen, O Yûsuf, O my son!” began the father earnestly. “I have been thinking. Thou and thy bride shall have a house apart——”

But at his voice the young man, foaming at the mouth, sprang up from his couch with teeth and hands clenched in a final spasm, and, flinging up his hands, fell back insensible.

“Go, fetch the leech, the fit will pass, in sh´Allah. Be secret, lest tongues wag to our dishonour,” said Murjânah, and the Pasha went at once to the selamlik, returning with a black slave skilled in surgery. Yûsuf was bled. While assisting in the operation the Pasha asked Murjânah:

“What punishment is meet for her we wot of?”

“Forgiveness, for the love of Allah!” was theanswer. “Upbraid her on religious grounds and then forgive her. We know her generous, impulsive nature. Thy sudden kindness will affect her more than blows. Poor soul, she must have suffered very deeply. My slaves inform me that she saw this Englishwoman as a kind of ghoul. Tomorrow, with her nature, she may wish to hug her. Remove the young folks for the present.”

“I had thought of that,” rejoined the Pasha. “By Allah, they shall have the garden-house towards Rôdah. To-morrow I will have the place prepared for them.”

When Yûsuf Bey came back to life he wept anew, but weakly, helplessly. In that condition he was carried to his own apartments by the surgeon, with the Pasha’s help, Murjânah going on before to warn the bride.

This sad procession happened to encounter a slave of Leylah Khânum’s who, hearing Yûsuf’s groans, ran off with screams and told her mistress he was dead. At once the whole harîm was filled with wailing. Fitnah Khânum, thunderstruck by the appalling news, defiled her face with dirt and tore her raiment. She rushed shrieking to the bridal chamber, as did every woman and child who by relationship could claim the right to enter. She knelt before the bride, who stood apart, bewildered, and besought her:

“Remove the spell, restore him, for the love of Allah. I sinned. I here confess it. Thou artmuch too strong for me. Thou, by thy magic, hast turned round the sword to pierce my bosom. I was impatient, I am justly punished. The wisest of mankind advised me I should wait three months. Thou seest how I love thee, how I kneel to thee and kiss thy feet. Accept my life’s devotion: only save him!”

Without seeking for an answer to her prayer, she rose distractedly and went and flung herself upon the bed where Yûsuf lay. He moaned:

“My mother! Oh, alas, thy bitterness! How couldst thou seek to rob me of delight? Behold me dead! Now art thou satisfied? O Lord have mercy on me! O Calamity!”

Blubbering loudly, she implored forgiveness. Soon his arms went round her; they lay, hugging one another, sobbing, cooing, while the spectators wept aloud in tender sympathy. The Pasha’s face was hidden in his pocket-handkerchief. Murjânah Khânum murmured prayers beneath her breath.

“O my despair! my wickedness!” the mother shrieked.

“My grief, my desolation; now my joy!” sobbed Yûsuf.

“O Lord, relieve me, for my heart is bursting,” moaned the Pasha.

“Oh, what do I behold. How rapture pains me!” came from bystanders. All, in the selfish orgy of emotion, forgot the terrified and wondering bride, who, understanding not a word of what was said,surveyed a riddle. She asked the Pasha what the matter was. He answered with a hiccup of emotion:

“It is nothing, mademoiselle. It will soon pass. Have no fear!” which only added to her stupefaction.

She had seen such exhibitions in ill-governed nurseries, but never among grown-up folks before. To account for all the outcry she imagined some tremendous tragedy, and waited anxiously to learn its nature.

It was close on midnight ere the chamber emptied and, left alone with Yûsuf, she could put her question. Then he told her the whole story with frequent interjection of “Oh, how I suffered!” She learnt that she had narrowly escaped a cruel death. But how her danger bore upon the scenes she had just witnessed, or in what manner they were meant to reassure her, she could not divine. Yûsuf himself bestowed no thought on her predicament, immersed in contemplation of his own emotions. Feeling alone and outcast, she wept a little ere she went to sleep.

In the morning Yûsuf had recovered his accustomed spirits. When she alluded with a shudder to his mother’s wickedness, he bade her have no fear; all that was past. From that day forth his mother would be sure to cherish her. Her mind derived no comfort from that light assurance; it remained perturbed until the Pasha came with tidings of a new arrangement he had made for her and Yûsuf to sojourn in a pleasure-house of his among the suburbs.

CHAPTER XIThe pleasure-house was a two-storeyed building, much dilapidated, having been unoccupied by the proprietor for many years. The garden, originally made for pleasure by the Pasha’s father, had since been used exclusively for growing vegetables. It was now like several fields with palm trees set at intervals, the whole surrounded by a high mud wall. The Pasha in one day had had the rooms cleaned out, the snakes extracted from their walls by a professional charmer; the next he sent down servants with the furniture, and the same evening Barakah arrived.The house resembled a gigantic lantern in the blue of night with light exuding from its many lattices. Descending from the harîm carriage which had brought her, together with two women and the girl Fatûmah, her own slaves, she was met by Yûsuf, whom she had not seen all day. He introduced to her two men—a new experience, which seemed an earnest of less strict seclusion. One, who bore a torch, bowed low with eyes downcast. He was the gardener. The other—a most honest-looking youth—gazed awestruckat her shrouded form, his large brown eyes dilated to the very utmost, while a vast ecstatic smile bared all his teeth—a smile which told of infinite fidelity.“His name,” said Yûsuf, “is Ghandûr—my faithful friend. He is your water-carrier, and will be always within call in case you have some errand out of doors.”Yûsuf then walked apart with the two men, while Sawwâb, the eunuch, showed the lady her apartments. Sawwâb had come as escort to the carriage and returned with it as soon as he had seen her settled comfortably. A leering crone was left to guard propriety, a task which she performed extremely ill on that first evening; for instead of checking the high spirits of the slave-girls, who romped for joy at their release from stricter discipline, she smiled upon their antics, and herself performed a most improper dance before the bride.For several days Yûsuf remained contented in the house and garden; while Barakah, half-dazed but happy too, beheld him as incarnate passion, not as man. She was the first to tire of loves and doves, and try to talk of something sensible. Yûsuf appeared to think the speech of every day a waste of time between them.Then came the period of tiffs, the fretful wakening. Yûsuf began to deal in sentiment about his mother, proclaiming it a hardship that his wife should still distrust her.“She is kind and tender—O, how dear to me! Go to her, Barakah! Kneel at her feet, embrace her hands, and she will surely pardon.”“Pardon? What, pray?” exclaimed the bride indignantly. “It is for her to ask pardon of me whom, kindly recollect, she tried to poison.”“She is older than you; she is my mother. It behoves you to be modest and submissive towards her. I have forgiven all, and so should you. She is my mother.”It was a relief one morning when the Pasha came and bore the young man off, declaring jokingly that he would die of too much sweet if he remained immured there longer. Of Barakah he said the same, informing her that Leylah Khânum and Gulbeyzah would call that afternoon to take her out upon a round of visits.Then Yûsuf took to being absent all day long, but came home gladly in the evenings, full of love. He volunteered no tidings of his day’s amusements, and when she questioned him about them seemed to think it odd.“All that is not your business,” he informed her kindly.She hinted at the pleasures of companionship, the bond of common interests. He laughed, inquiring:“Are we not companions? Have we not interests in common? You teach me English, and I teach you Arabic; we compare the customs ofthe races. And we love! Are not these interests much greater than to hear what Fulân said to Zeyd, what Zeyd replied, and whether Hâfiz or Mahmûd obtained the Government appointment? That is the life of men, a passing of the hours till night, when they return to the beloved. If anything of weight befell I should inform you. What pleasure could it give to you to hear repeated the gabble of a lot of people you will never know?”Perceiving much in Yûsuf’s tastes and conversation which pious English people would have thought ungodly, she gasped a little on discovering he was religious. Attracted by a faith which showed some tolerance of human failings, she was studying the rudiments of El Islâm by Yûsuf’s guidance; acquiring prayers and all the rules for saying them, including washings and the proper time and place. Nothing seemed left to the believer’s judgment, it was all laid down. When, at a lesson in prostration, she was moved to laughter, he became quite terrible, and warned her threateningly that in this country any man or woman was likely to be torn in pieces for a hint of blasphemy. The awe she felt was oddly mixed with fascination.There were details she would not have chosen in her cloistered life, but on the whole it was the happiest that she had ever known. She was waited on hand and foot who had known drudgery; her husband used her as a reigning beauty who, but a few weeks since, had been esteemed uninteresting.Then there were pleasures of society. The Pasha’s carriage often came, with one or other of the ladies and Gulbeyzah, to take her round to call on grand harîms. She was received with favour by great ladies. One, a princess, by name Amînah Khânum, insisted on her spending a whole day alone with her.This dame, though elderly, still dressed to charm. Her rooms were full of European furniture, but she herself sat always on a sofa, smoking a long, old-fashioned pipe with coral mouthpiece.“You are not of the first rank in your own country,” she told Barakah to start with, bluntly; “or you would not be where you are. You do not know the people I have met in France and England, so don’t pretend you do. I value frankness.” It seemed she knew the English pretty thoroughly.She spoke good French and talked of Western Europe with intelligence, seeming in general to approve its customs. One little speech of hers amazed the visitor, intruding as it did abruptly upon lighter talk:“The Europeans have degraded love and made life banal. They spread life’s agitation over a vast surface and account it progress; we value depth and stillness. Enlarging each life’s pool, they make it shallow. A woman’s life is of the feelings which are dulled, not quickened, by extensive interests. Their men too suffer, growing superficial, flippant, without depth of character.”When Barakah retailed this saying to Gulbeyzah,the Circassian sighed: “She knows!” and told a curious story.It was that years ago a European officer in the Egyptian service had wooed Amînah Khânum secretly; and she had been entirely captivated by his charms. But endeavouring to sound his character, she found him shallow. She made him islam, but his carelessness informed her that conversion meant no more for him than access to her. In the same way she perceived that what he felt for her was nothing more profound than the desire to add a Muslim lady to his list of conquests. The blow was dire, for she was then extremely lovely, and a great examiner of men, having divorced or killed ten husbands. She would not have him tell a tale among his kind, yet could not conquer her intense desire of him. What could she do? She satisfied her heart, and the next morning gave him death in easy form, being well versed in poisons.Barakah cried out in horror; but Gulbeyzah shrugged.“What else could woman, not a harlot, do? He was an infidel, and would have bragged of her. Ever since then Amînah Khânum has a kindness for the Franks, though she deplores their levity.”“And would you do the same?”“One cannot tell beforehand. I am not a princess. Either that or kill myself. May God preserve us from unsanctioned love of all kinds!”Barakah felt overwhelmed by the intenseness,the tragic vigour of these women, who seemed mild and playful.Mrs. Cameron called at the garden-house one afternoon, and Barakah was proud to give her a real English tea. Except for the costume, which was much richer, and an added glow of happiness, the visitor, she felt convinced, could not detect the slightest change in her. One thing at least was certain, she had not deteriorated, as Mrs. Cameron before the marriage had foretold she would. The visitor was amiable, and made no allusion to the past. Before departing she made Barakah an offer of some knitting wool and needles she had just received from England. The wife of Yûsuf Bey accepted gladly, for she began to feel the weight of idle hands.The wools arriving an hour later, she debated what to make with them; and, being at the time in English mood, decided on a pair of slippers for her husband. But when she told him of her purpose, he frowned wonderingly, and asked:“Are you a shoemaker?”Utterly disconcerted by so apt a question, she tried to paint the beauty of the project, but he could not see it.“If you want slippers, buy them in the market. It is not your trade. When one like you employs the needle, it is not for use. Ask my mother; she will show you the right work to do.”He had his own ideas. The coloured wools weregiven to Fatûmah, who made anklets of them, and other personal adornments, which amused her for a week.Deducing from her wish to make him slippers that she found the hours long in his absence, Yûsuf procured her books in French and English. He also brought her a fine musical box, which played dance-music in stentorian tones to the rapture of the slaves, who kept it going all day long. The Pasha came and begged her not to imagine that she was debarred from every pleasure. It would be cruel to confine a damsel of her breeding as strictly as a native of the country. Let her but name her wishes; they should be deferred to. He even threw out hints that she and Yûsuf might possibly see Paris in the coming summer.Thus exhorted, and encouraged by the sight of women like Amînah Khânum, who seemed to order every one their way, she forsook the timid attitude which had been hers since marriage, and viewed existence with commanding eyes. The old woman who had been engaged to play propriety, was horrified one day to see her talking barefaced at a window to Ghandûr, the water-carrier. The crone expostulated, coaxed, entreated, and at length, when all proved vain, informed the husband, who, to her utter consternation, laughed.“Ghandûr?” he cried; “Ghandûr is my right foot,” and immediately applied that member to the beldame’s person.The old woman did not dare to speak again to Barakah, though the latter plagued her mercilessly, crying “Ghandûr!” here and “Ghandûr!” there, for the treat of seeing her curvet and wring her hands.One morning, after Yûsuf had departed, she grew conscious of a great oppression due to lack of outlet. The feeling had been with her vaguely for some days. Now she knew it for a craving; she must see an English person to revive her fading interest in the strange things around her.“Ghandûr!” she cried.—He answered “Hâdir!”—“Fetch me a carriage for the fifth hour after noon.”“Hâdir!” he said again; and from her lattice she saw him speed off on his errand like the wind. There were few carriages for hire in Cairo in those days, and it was necessary to bespeak one early.“The lady wishes to go out? Shall I accompany her?” cooed the old woman, who was hovering near.“No. I go alone!”“I had better accompany the lady.”“No, I tell thee!”The lady stamped her foot, when the duenna shuffled off, wagging her head forebodingly and mumbling.“How absurd!” thought Barakah. “Haven’t Yûsuf and the Pasha told me twenty times that women, in the kind of shroud they make us wear, can go anywhere alone without attracting notice?”When the carriage came—a hooded one—she sallied forth, correctly veiled, escorted by Ghandûr, who, seeing no one with her, asked leave to mount the box beside the driver. She gave it, feeling sure that the old woman was watching the departure through some upper lattice. Ghandûr sprang up with a delighted grin, quite rigid with the pride of high preferment.

The pleasure-house was a two-storeyed building, much dilapidated, having been unoccupied by the proprietor for many years. The garden, originally made for pleasure by the Pasha’s father, had since been used exclusively for growing vegetables. It was now like several fields with palm trees set at intervals, the whole surrounded by a high mud wall. The Pasha in one day had had the rooms cleaned out, the snakes extracted from their walls by a professional charmer; the next he sent down servants with the furniture, and the same evening Barakah arrived.

The house resembled a gigantic lantern in the blue of night with light exuding from its many lattices. Descending from the harîm carriage which had brought her, together with two women and the girl Fatûmah, her own slaves, she was met by Yûsuf, whom she had not seen all day. He introduced to her two men—a new experience, which seemed an earnest of less strict seclusion. One, who bore a torch, bowed low with eyes downcast. He was the gardener. The other—a most honest-looking youth—gazed awestruckat her shrouded form, his large brown eyes dilated to the very utmost, while a vast ecstatic smile bared all his teeth—a smile which told of infinite fidelity.

“His name,” said Yûsuf, “is Ghandûr—my faithful friend. He is your water-carrier, and will be always within call in case you have some errand out of doors.”

Yûsuf then walked apart with the two men, while Sawwâb, the eunuch, showed the lady her apartments. Sawwâb had come as escort to the carriage and returned with it as soon as he had seen her settled comfortably. A leering crone was left to guard propriety, a task which she performed extremely ill on that first evening; for instead of checking the high spirits of the slave-girls, who romped for joy at their release from stricter discipline, she smiled upon their antics, and herself performed a most improper dance before the bride.

For several days Yûsuf remained contented in the house and garden; while Barakah, half-dazed but happy too, beheld him as incarnate passion, not as man. She was the first to tire of loves and doves, and try to talk of something sensible. Yûsuf appeared to think the speech of every day a waste of time between them.

Then came the period of tiffs, the fretful wakening. Yûsuf began to deal in sentiment about his mother, proclaiming it a hardship that his wife should still distrust her.

“She is kind and tender—O, how dear to me! Go to her, Barakah! Kneel at her feet, embrace her hands, and she will surely pardon.”

“Pardon? What, pray?” exclaimed the bride indignantly. “It is for her to ask pardon of me whom, kindly recollect, she tried to poison.”

“She is older than you; she is my mother. It behoves you to be modest and submissive towards her. I have forgiven all, and so should you. She is my mother.”

It was a relief one morning when the Pasha came and bore the young man off, declaring jokingly that he would die of too much sweet if he remained immured there longer. Of Barakah he said the same, informing her that Leylah Khânum and Gulbeyzah would call that afternoon to take her out upon a round of visits.

Then Yûsuf took to being absent all day long, but came home gladly in the evenings, full of love. He volunteered no tidings of his day’s amusements, and when she questioned him about them seemed to think it odd.

“All that is not your business,” he informed her kindly.

She hinted at the pleasures of companionship, the bond of common interests. He laughed, inquiring:

“Are we not companions? Have we not interests in common? You teach me English, and I teach you Arabic; we compare the customs ofthe races. And we love! Are not these interests much greater than to hear what Fulân said to Zeyd, what Zeyd replied, and whether Hâfiz or Mahmûd obtained the Government appointment? That is the life of men, a passing of the hours till night, when they return to the beloved. If anything of weight befell I should inform you. What pleasure could it give to you to hear repeated the gabble of a lot of people you will never know?”

Perceiving much in Yûsuf’s tastes and conversation which pious English people would have thought ungodly, she gasped a little on discovering he was religious. Attracted by a faith which showed some tolerance of human failings, she was studying the rudiments of El Islâm by Yûsuf’s guidance; acquiring prayers and all the rules for saying them, including washings and the proper time and place. Nothing seemed left to the believer’s judgment, it was all laid down. When, at a lesson in prostration, she was moved to laughter, he became quite terrible, and warned her threateningly that in this country any man or woman was likely to be torn in pieces for a hint of blasphemy. The awe she felt was oddly mixed with fascination.

There were details she would not have chosen in her cloistered life, but on the whole it was the happiest that she had ever known. She was waited on hand and foot who had known drudgery; her husband used her as a reigning beauty who, but a few weeks since, had been esteemed uninteresting.Then there were pleasures of society. The Pasha’s carriage often came, with one or other of the ladies and Gulbeyzah, to take her round to call on grand harîms. She was received with favour by great ladies. One, a princess, by name Amînah Khânum, insisted on her spending a whole day alone with her.

This dame, though elderly, still dressed to charm. Her rooms were full of European furniture, but she herself sat always on a sofa, smoking a long, old-fashioned pipe with coral mouthpiece.

“You are not of the first rank in your own country,” she told Barakah to start with, bluntly; “or you would not be where you are. You do not know the people I have met in France and England, so don’t pretend you do. I value frankness.” It seemed she knew the English pretty thoroughly.

She spoke good French and talked of Western Europe with intelligence, seeming in general to approve its customs. One little speech of hers amazed the visitor, intruding as it did abruptly upon lighter talk:

“The Europeans have degraded love and made life banal. They spread life’s agitation over a vast surface and account it progress; we value depth and stillness. Enlarging each life’s pool, they make it shallow. A woman’s life is of the feelings which are dulled, not quickened, by extensive interests. Their men too suffer, growing superficial, flippant, without depth of character.”

When Barakah retailed this saying to Gulbeyzah,the Circassian sighed: “She knows!” and told a curious story.

It was that years ago a European officer in the Egyptian service had wooed Amînah Khânum secretly; and she had been entirely captivated by his charms. But endeavouring to sound his character, she found him shallow. She made him islam, but his carelessness informed her that conversion meant no more for him than access to her. In the same way she perceived that what he felt for her was nothing more profound than the desire to add a Muslim lady to his list of conquests. The blow was dire, for she was then extremely lovely, and a great examiner of men, having divorced or killed ten husbands. She would not have him tell a tale among his kind, yet could not conquer her intense desire of him. What could she do? She satisfied her heart, and the next morning gave him death in easy form, being well versed in poisons.

Barakah cried out in horror; but Gulbeyzah shrugged.

“What else could woman, not a harlot, do? He was an infidel, and would have bragged of her. Ever since then Amînah Khânum has a kindness for the Franks, though she deplores their levity.”

“And would you do the same?”

“One cannot tell beforehand. I am not a princess. Either that or kill myself. May God preserve us from unsanctioned love of all kinds!”

Barakah felt overwhelmed by the intenseness,the tragic vigour of these women, who seemed mild and playful.

Mrs. Cameron called at the garden-house one afternoon, and Barakah was proud to give her a real English tea. Except for the costume, which was much richer, and an added glow of happiness, the visitor, she felt convinced, could not detect the slightest change in her. One thing at least was certain, she had not deteriorated, as Mrs. Cameron before the marriage had foretold she would. The visitor was amiable, and made no allusion to the past. Before departing she made Barakah an offer of some knitting wool and needles she had just received from England. The wife of Yûsuf Bey accepted gladly, for she began to feel the weight of idle hands.

The wools arriving an hour later, she debated what to make with them; and, being at the time in English mood, decided on a pair of slippers for her husband. But when she told him of her purpose, he frowned wonderingly, and asked:

“Are you a shoemaker?”

Utterly disconcerted by so apt a question, she tried to paint the beauty of the project, but he could not see it.

“If you want slippers, buy them in the market. It is not your trade. When one like you employs the needle, it is not for use. Ask my mother; she will show you the right work to do.”

He had his own ideas. The coloured wools weregiven to Fatûmah, who made anklets of them, and other personal adornments, which amused her for a week.

Deducing from her wish to make him slippers that she found the hours long in his absence, Yûsuf procured her books in French and English. He also brought her a fine musical box, which played dance-music in stentorian tones to the rapture of the slaves, who kept it going all day long. The Pasha came and begged her not to imagine that she was debarred from every pleasure. It would be cruel to confine a damsel of her breeding as strictly as a native of the country. Let her but name her wishes; they should be deferred to. He even threw out hints that she and Yûsuf might possibly see Paris in the coming summer.

Thus exhorted, and encouraged by the sight of women like Amînah Khânum, who seemed to order every one their way, she forsook the timid attitude which had been hers since marriage, and viewed existence with commanding eyes. The old woman who had been engaged to play propriety, was horrified one day to see her talking barefaced at a window to Ghandûr, the water-carrier. The crone expostulated, coaxed, entreated, and at length, when all proved vain, informed the husband, who, to her utter consternation, laughed.

“Ghandûr?” he cried; “Ghandûr is my right foot,” and immediately applied that member to the beldame’s person.

The old woman did not dare to speak again to Barakah, though the latter plagued her mercilessly, crying “Ghandûr!” here and “Ghandûr!” there, for the treat of seeing her curvet and wring her hands.

One morning, after Yûsuf had departed, she grew conscious of a great oppression due to lack of outlet. The feeling had been with her vaguely for some days. Now she knew it for a craving; she must see an English person to revive her fading interest in the strange things around her.

“Ghandûr!” she cried.—He answered “Hâdir!”—“Fetch me a carriage for the fifth hour after noon.”

“Hâdir!” he said again; and from her lattice she saw him speed off on his errand like the wind. There were few carriages for hire in Cairo in those days, and it was necessary to bespeak one early.

“The lady wishes to go out? Shall I accompany her?” cooed the old woman, who was hovering near.

“No. I go alone!”

“I had better accompany the lady.”

“No, I tell thee!”

The lady stamped her foot, when the duenna shuffled off, wagging her head forebodingly and mumbling.

“How absurd!” thought Barakah. “Haven’t Yûsuf and the Pasha told me twenty times that women, in the kind of shroud they make us wear, can go anywhere alone without attracting notice?”

When the carriage came—a hooded one—she sallied forth, correctly veiled, escorted by Ghandûr, who, seeing no one with her, asked leave to mount the box beside the driver. She gave it, feeling sure that the old woman was watching the departure through some upper lattice. Ghandûr sprang up with a delighted grin, quite rigid with the pride of high preferment.

CHAPTER XIIIn the sandy lane outside the Camerons’ garden-gate some carriages already waited; a saddle-horse or two and many donkeys, all in charge of servants, twitched their ears and swished their tails in the deep shadow by the wall. Barakah felt disappointed and annoyed. It seemed that she had lighted on a great reception, when her desire had been a quiet chat with Mrs. Cameron. Prevision of Ghandûr’s amazement if she gave the order to turn back, and the satisfaction which her quick return would give the mother of propriety, made her go on; but she determined to stay only a few minutes and then walk home, the evening being cool, to spend the time. With this in view, upon alighting she gave money to Ghandûr, bidding him dismiss the carriage and himself go home. He made a good deal of remonstrance, but at last submitted, understanding that the people of the house would furnish means of transit. He considered it his place, however, to remain in waiting.Barakah then went in, much hampered by the stare of squatting servants which seemed to clinglike fetters to her ankles. A Berberi butler ushered her into the drawing-room and announced her with the single word:“Harîm.”The room was even fuller than she had expected. Her entrance seemed to cause a great sensation. Her heart sank, there was singing in her ears; she encountered all those faces with a sense of drowning. Moving mechanically in a trance of apprehension, it was with surprise a minute later that she found herself ensconced in a deck-chair beside an open window, alive and quite uninjured, though her pulse beat high. She removed her mouth-veil then and looked about her. It seemed to be a gathering of the whole English colony, with the addition of some French and German ladies. The Consul, her aversion, was talking with some other men, who formed a standing group. He took no notice of her, rather pointedly. The women, thirty at the least, kept up a din of chatter.The hostess came and introduced her to the ladies near her. Though the manner in which this was done was very kind, Barakah felt that Mrs. Cameron disliked her coming. That lady looked upon her as a fallen creature, to be visited and seen occasionally out of charity, no longer to be classed with English women. The prejudice stung Barakah to downright impudence. Abashment left her. She began to chatter and laugh loudly just to let her hostess know that she was somebody. Sippingher tea, she talked of harîm life, deriding the false notions which prevailed concerning it. It was perfectly delightful, not a bit what Europeans thought. She proceeded to retail her own experiences. In a trice she gathered half a score of eager listeners.But is not this or that the case invariably? they inquired. She was able to confute them always, with amusing instances. She sank her voice, the listening heads drew nearer; there were stifled giggles. Certain stories she had picked up from Gulbeyzah were quite killing. She told of the old woman who was set to guard her—“an Oriental Mrs. Grundy,” she assured them—and her horror at her going out alone that afternoon.“But my husband doesn’t mind a bit, of course. The dear man lets me do just what I like. It is only middle-class people nowadays who are strict about seclusion.... Oh, by the way, do you know Princess Amînah?...”She had never in her life talked so effectively. The stored frivolity of weeks was spent in one short hour; while with the tail of an eye she noted Mrs. Cameron’s disgust at her small social triumph, the shrugs and glances she exchanged with her own kind.While her success was at its height, she readjusted her white muslin mouth-veil and got up to go.“Thank you for a most delightful hour,” shegushed at taking leave, receiving in reply a look which plainly said: “You have deteriorated.”Going out upon the wave of her excitement, she suddenly remembered that she had dismissed her carriage. It was no matter. The distance to be traversed was no more than half a mile, the road a straight one, shady at that hour. The little walk would serve to cool her wits.But Ghandûr, who was squatting by the outer door, sprang up at sight of her. He bade her “Wait!” with a profusion of engaging grins and frantic gestures. Taking her assent for granted, when she stopped to argue, he set off down the lane at a great pace, trailing a plume of dust from either heel.Seeing she still moved on, despite her servant’s warning, the doorkeeper of the house stepped forward and, saluting, begged her to return indoors. When she refused, he shrugged despairingly and with some word which sounded like an oath went back to his own seat. The waiting grooms and donkey-boys called out, and standing together in a little crowd stared after her. She thought them merely rude.She moved against the stream of country people returning homeward from their business in the city. They stared at her in passing, and occasionally made remarks which sounded friendly. The dust raised by the trail of robes, and by the donkeys’ hoofs, was some annoyance; but the dust itselfbecame a splendour where the sunset caught it; the shadows were deep blue, enhancing colours of the crowd; and the balm of evening was in every breath she drew. To Barakah, who had not walked for months, the very motion was a comfort. She stepped forward briskly, musing on the scene she had just quitted.What were those women saying of her now? Mrs. Cameron was no doubt declaiming, and they all agreed with her. Every word that she had said was turned against her. On that perception she was filled with shame. The unkindness, the indecency of holding up her husband’s people to provide amusement for a hostile race appeared unthinkable, the basest treachery. A wave of tenderness for Yûsuf, for Ghandûr, the slave-girls, even the old woman,—all the home surroundings,—overcame her; while her mind abhorred the frigid, callous English, who had lured her on to make a mock of her. Why should she ever see them more? She hated them. Phrases which had passed her lips ten minutes since were now abominable—a source of shame that could not cease, it seemed, but must flow on for ever till the end of time. How had she uttered them? It was their fault for scorning her, for placing her on an unnatural footing, making speech a pitfall. The harîm was her natural refuge, her true home. She never wished to quit its shade again.Thus fiercely musing, she pursued the sandylane until she reached a point where a road branched off from it at right angles.Upon the corner stood a whitewashed shrine, pink in the glow of sunset, the crescent flashing on its egg-like dome; beside it a great tree under whose foliage a crowd of men were sitting out on stools, smoking and drinking coffee in the shade. Some of these took notice of her, pointing rudely, attracting the attention of the others and the passers-by. Supposing something wrong with her attire, she quickened step. Her road ran through a village. She heard shouts and laughter. A well-dressed man strode past her from behind, and turning searched her eyes. Spurred now by fear, she tried to hurry on; but found herself the centre of a crowd, whose members, moving with her, jabbered, pointed, jeered. One tweaked her habbarah; another seized her arm as if to feel the muscle. Her heart beat loud, her throat was choked with sobs repressed by terror.The mob grew every moment bolder in its menace. A stalwart peasant-woman barred the way before her, grinning—prepared, it seemed, to pluck away her mouth-veil.Barakah had paused, cowering, not knowing where to turn for succour, when the shout of a familiar voice relieved the strain and let her tears have vent. Ghandûr came on the scene, leading a saddled ass. His explanations soon dispersed the mob. He lifted her upon the donkey; andin a moment, as things happen in a dream, she was at home again, confronting Yûsuf, who approached the gate as they arrived.He seemed thunderstruck at her appearance. Hearing Ghandûr’s story, he asked God for help, and raised his arm to strike her. She fell fainting at his feet.

In the sandy lane outside the Camerons’ garden-gate some carriages already waited; a saddle-horse or two and many donkeys, all in charge of servants, twitched their ears and swished their tails in the deep shadow by the wall. Barakah felt disappointed and annoyed. It seemed that she had lighted on a great reception, when her desire had been a quiet chat with Mrs. Cameron. Prevision of Ghandûr’s amazement if she gave the order to turn back, and the satisfaction which her quick return would give the mother of propriety, made her go on; but she determined to stay only a few minutes and then walk home, the evening being cool, to spend the time. With this in view, upon alighting she gave money to Ghandûr, bidding him dismiss the carriage and himself go home. He made a good deal of remonstrance, but at last submitted, understanding that the people of the house would furnish means of transit. He considered it his place, however, to remain in waiting.

Barakah then went in, much hampered by the stare of squatting servants which seemed to clinglike fetters to her ankles. A Berberi butler ushered her into the drawing-room and announced her with the single word:

“Harîm.”

The room was even fuller than she had expected. Her entrance seemed to cause a great sensation. Her heart sank, there was singing in her ears; she encountered all those faces with a sense of drowning. Moving mechanically in a trance of apprehension, it was with surprise a minute later that she found herself ensconced in a deck-chair beside an open window, alive and quite uninjured, though her pulse beat high. She removed her mouth-veil then and looked about her. It seemed to be a gathering of the whole English colony, with the addition of some French and German ladies. The Consul, her aversion, was talking with some other men, who formed a standing group. He took no notice of her, rather pointedly. The women, thirty at the least, kept up a din of chatter.

The hostess came and introduced her to the ladies near her. Though the manner in which this was done was very kind, Barakah felt that Mrs. Cameron disliked her coming. That lady looked upon her as a fallen creature, to be visited and seen occasionally out of charity, no longer to be classed with English women. The prejudice stung Barakah to downright impudence. Abashment left her. She began to chatter and laugh loudly just to let her hostess know that she was somebody. Sippingher tea, she talked of harîm life, deriding the false notions which prevailed concerning it. It was perfectly delightful, not a bit what Europeans thought. She proceeded to retail her own experiences. In a trice she gathered half a score of eager listeners.

But is not this or that the case invariably? they inquired. She was able to confute them always, with amusing instances. She sank her voice, the listening heads drew nearer; there were stifled giggles. Certain stories she had picked up from Gulbeyzah were quite killing. She told of the old woman who was set to guard her—“an Oriental Mrs. Grundy,” she assured them—and her horror at her going out alone that afternoon.

“But my husband doesn’t mind a bit, of course. The dear man lets me do just what I like. It is only middle-class people nowadays who are strict about seclusion.... Oh, by the way, do you know Princess Amînah?...”

She had never in her life talked so effectively. The stored frivolity of weeks was spent in one short hour; while with the tail of an eye she noted Mrs. Cameron’s disgust at her small social triumph, the shrugs and glances she exchanged with her own kind.

While her success was at its height, she readjusted her white muslin mouth-veil and got up to go.

“Thank you for a most delightful hour,” shegushed at taking leave, receiving in reply a look which plainly said: “You have deteriorated.”

Going out upon the wave of her excitement, she suddenly remembered that she had dismissed her carriage. It was no matter. The distance to be traversed was no more than half a mile, the road a straight one, shady at that hour. The little walk would serve to cool her wits.

But Ghandûr, who was squatting by the outer door, sprang up at sight of her. He bade her “Wait!” with a profusion of engaging grins and frantic gestures. Taking her assent for granted, when she stopped to argue, he set off down the lane at a great pace, trailing a plume of dust from either heel.

Seeing she still moved on, despite her servant’s warning, the doorkeeper of the house stepped forward and, saluting, begged her to return indoors. When she refused, he shrugged despairingly and with some word which sounded like an oath went back to his own seat. The waiting grooms and donkey-boys called out, and standing together in a little crowd stared after her. She thought them merely rude.

She moved against the stream of country people returning homeward from their business in the city. They stared at her in passing, and occasionally made remarks which sounded friendly. The dust raised by the trail of robes, and by the donkeys’ hoofs, was some annoyance; but the dust itselfbecame a splendour where the sunset caught it; the shadows were deep blue, enhancing colours of the crowd; and the balm of evening was in every breath she drew. To Barakah, who had not walked for months, the very motion was a comfort. She stepped forward briskly, musing on the scene she had just quitted.

What were those women saying of her now? Mrs. Cameron was no doubt declaiming, and they all agreed with her. Every word that she had said was turned against her. On that perception she was filled with shame. The unkindness, the indecency of holding up her husband’s people to provide amusement for a hostile race appeared unthinkable, the basest treachery. A wave of tenderness for Yûsuf, for Ghandûr, the slave-girls, even the old woman,—all the home surroundings,—overcame her; while her mind abhorred the frigid, callous English, who had lured her on to make a mock of her. Why should she ever see them more? She hated them. Phrases which had passed her lips ten minutes since were now abominable—a source of shame that could not cease, it seemed, but must flow on for ever till the end of time. How had she uttered them? It was their fault for scorning her, for placing her on an unnatural footing, making speech a pitfall. The harîm was her natural refuge, her true home. She never wished to quit its shade again.

Thus fiercely musing, she pursued the sandylane until she reached a point where a road branched off from it at right angles.

Upon the corner stood a whitewashed shrine, pink in the glow of sunset, the crescent flashing on its egg-like dome; beside it a great tree under whose foliage a crowd of men were sitting out on stools, smoking and drinking coffee in the shade. Some of these took notice of her, pointing rudely, attracting the attention of the others and the passers-by. Supposing something wrong with her attire, she quickened step. Her road ran through a village. She heard shouts and laughter. A well-dressed man strode past her from behind, and turning searched her eyes. Spurred now by fear, she tried to hurry on; but found herself the centre of a crowd, whose members, moving with her, jabbered, pointed, jeered. One tweaked her habbarah; another seized her arm as if to feel the muscle. Her heart beat loud, her throat was choked with sobs repressed by terror.

The mob grew every moment bolder in its menace. A stalwart peasant-woman barred the way before her, grinning—prepared, it seemed, to pluck away her mouth-veil.

Barakah had paused, cowering, not knowing where to turn for succour, when the shout of a familiar voice relieved the strain and let her tears have vent. Ghandûr came on the scene, leading a saddled ass. His explanations soon dispersed the mob. He lifted her upon the donkey; andin a moment, as things happen in a dream, she was at home again, confronting Yûsuf, who approached the gate as they arrived.

He seemed thunderstruck at her appearance. Hearing Ghandûr’s story, he asked God for help, and raised his arm to strike her. She fell fainting at his feet.

CHAPTER XIIIWhen Barakah came to herself, she was lying in her bedroom, which was dim and seemed unusually lofty, for her bed was on the floor, and a feeble lamp confined in perforated brass, which gave what light there was, stood down beside it. The pattern of the brass-work, much enlarged, was faintly reproduced on wall and ceiling. She was alone, but from a distance sounds of wailing reached her, and she heard her husband cursing the old woman for neglect of duty.When she recalled her glee at setting forth that afternoon, the course of subsequent events seemed very cruel. After such misfortunes, consolation was her due; instead of which the house was in commotion, Yûsuf mad. Self-pity overwhelmed her. She was all alone among strange savage beings without sympathy; while those who might have understood and shared her feelings were her enemies. She lay with face down on her pillow, weeping silently.By and by Yûsuf came into the room. She could tell by his hard breathing he was still enraged. Afraid that he was going to beat her, she lay quiet,as though still unconscious; but in a little while a sob betrayed her. Then his wrath descended. French deserting him, he raved at her in Arabic and Turkish; and her inability to catch his meaning made him angrier. She lay in terror, crying bitterly, replying to such questions as she understood, until his fury sank to lamentation and his French returned.“My honour!” was his cry. “You have betrayed my honour in thus going forth alone. The servants of the English house who know you will send a whisper and a laugh through all the markets. And those who saw you walking in the dust!... Have you no shame, no delicacy? What will my father say? The news will kill him! You have killed my father!”“You do not think of me at all,” sobbed Barakah. “Here have I been insulted, scared to death by your vile people, and you scold me! I wish that I had never seen you. I am so unhappy! In England people would be punished for the things you do. Those horrible men and women who attacked me——”“May Allah burn them, every one!” cried Yûsuf in fierce Arabic. “Gladly would I pluck out all their tongues! They witnessed the dishonour of my name, and will relate it.”The wrangle lasted far into the night. At last, however, Yûsuf’s tone relented; they embraced, and he demanded the whole history of her ill-starredvisit. But when he heard that men had been in the same room with her, his wrath redoubled. He beat his breast, he gnashed his teeth, he slapped her face, he paced the room denouncing her depravity.“You are a brute!” she cried hysterically. “What harm if men were present? They did not come near me. I am not like your women—bred up to think of one thing only. Nor are Englishmen like you; they have respect for women. You are mad.”Yûsuf was really mad, or seemed so, at that moment. He called her evil names in every tongue of which he had a smattering; and then in French, made childish by his rage, accused all Europeans of disgusting conduct.“You deny it—hein? You are a liar, for the fact is known. We are not ignorant; we travel, and we have their books. What say you of their balls, their public dances, where women—nay, young virgins—choose what man they please, deserting husband or fiancé—empty names!—and dance and afterwards retire with him? The fact is known! The race is shameless—may God punish them! It is forbidden for us to cast up former things in marriage; but for the future I command you to forsake their filthiness. Go once again, and we shall know you worthless! Swear to renounce their company, or I will kill you!”She sat up and confronted him with eyes of fire.“Oh, brute!” she panted; “monster! rabid dog! I have had enough of you and your behaviour. I shall leave you. To-morrow I shall go to the Consul and tell him how you struck me!”“You shall not leave this room. I am your master.”“Lock the door, block up the window, bind me, guard me, I still will find some way to let the Consul know. You shall be punished—I have sworn it. I have had enough, I say. I shall return to England.”“Your talk is madness! Have a care! The punishment is death for one renouncing El Islâm. Say, is that your meaning? Your own slaves will kill you!”He put the question in blood-curdling tones. But Barakah, dissolved in tears, made no rejoinder. A minute later he was once more at her side, imploring mercy, declaring her his light of life, his pearl of pearls. She still whimpered, “I shall tell the Consul.”At last she fell into a troubled sleep.When she woke again it was broad daylight; her coffee and a kind of pancake, which composed her breakfast every morning, steamed upon a tray beside her. Yûsuf had left the room. He came back presently, and, kneeling down, implored her to forget his madness. Enjoying her advantage in a listless way, she put on an exaggerated air of feebleness, and moaned:“You were too cruel. I shall tell the Consul.”At that he sprang up as a man demented and rushed out. No sooner was he gone than she relapsed to weeping, stricken by the curse of utter helplessness which underlay her pitiful pretence at pride. To have been beaten black and blue by Yûsuf would have been less ignominious than to let the Consul know she was unhappy. She had walked into this guarded life with open eyes, aware of the conditions which must thenceforth fetter her existence, boasting love for them. The least complaint, much more retreat, was thus impossible. Even in the heat of anger she had had no real intention to go back. Yûsuf had enraged her, the mob upon the previous day had frightened her exceedingly; but after all they were her chosen people, though so strange. She could never come to hate them as she did the English.She rose at last with mind to go into another room. The door was locked. Upon her trying it a slave-girl shouted:“It is forbidden to go out. Does my lady require anything that I can bring her?”Barakah bit her lip and flushed as she turned back. Remembrance of her boasting yesterday before those Englishwomen rose to taunt her.A little sunlight entered through the lattice like gold-dust. The gardener was at his work of watering—a lengthy process—assisted by his little son and by Ghandûr, Fatûmah playing roundand teasing them. She heard their shouts and the familiar noises marking stages of the work; and by degrees, as she sat idle, listening, a measure of contentment came to her. Her troubles were of her own making; she had tempted Providence by flouting rules she had herself accepted. Henceforth, she vowed, she would be passive, of a boldness purely speculative, like Gulbeyzah.It was not very long before the room door opened, admitting Yûsuf and his father, both with faces of concern. Saluting, in his courtly way, the Pasha offered an unqualified apology for everything that might displease her in the customs of the country. His son had told him of the trouble which had come between them. It arose from a simple and entirely pardonable misunderstanding, as he hoped at once to demonstrate to her well-known intelligence, if she would pay him the distinguished compliment of attending for a little moment to his explanation.With that, he crossed one leg beneath him on the sofa, a compromise between the Eastern and the Western attitude, and began:“I told you, if you will have the goodness to remember, when first the question of a marriage with my son arose between us, that we had stricter rules for the protection of our women than prevail in Europe. I also told you that, those rules once honoured, a woman had all freedom and consideration. I did wrong, I now perceive withinfinite regret, not to explain to you precisely the reason and the nature of those rules; for, see, entirely owing to that fault of mine, you have transgressed them innocently. I should like, if you permit it, to expound their general tendency and benevolent intention.”Barakah was sore abashed. The Pasha’s entrance, the intervention of so dignified a person in a childish quarrel due to her misconduct, overwhelmed her. At this point in his speech she interjected:“Pardon! I did wrong, I know! But I had no idea ... I wore the habbarah and mouth-veil. You had told me that a woman dressed like that was safe from insult.”“I spoke in too general a sense. It is my fault entirely. You sinned through ignorance, and Yûsuf should not have been angry—though, indeed, to our ideas your conduct was abominable.”“But what wrong did I do, beyond going out without permission? Why did the people on the road beset me? Oh, I am so miserable!”The Pasha shrugged his shoulders with a smile to Yûsuf, as who should say:“Observe her innocence!”“No, no, don’t cry, I beg of you!” he pleaded. “God be praised you have derived no hurt from the adventure. It is entirely owing to respect for you that I and my son are so concerned about it. Beloved daughter, women are for us so sacred—thespirit of the house, the secret fount of life—that we never even speak of them with friends for fear some light word or unseemly thought should go towards them. Nothing must be known of them, no talk made about them, outside the world of women and our own harîm.“Yesterday, by going out alone in an open carriage, you attracted notice all unconsciously. Your habbarah is of a rich material, your mouth-veil of the kind only worn by ladies of good houses. No such lady would have gone abroad thus unattended. The servants of your English friend would comment on the strange proceeding, and, knowing who you were, think shame of us.“But that is the least part of what you did. That, by itself, would have been nothing. But you walked. Great God! What made you walk? That is for me inexplicable!”“I felt the wish to walk. It was a lovely evening.”“Great God!” the Pasha gasped, with eyes upturned. “Does anybody walk for pleasure here in Egypt? The natives have a proverb: ‘Better ride on beetles than walk upon rich carpets.’ Well, well, there!” He shrugged as giving up a hopeless puzzle. “You walked. A lady dressed as you were had never been seen walking in this world before. More than that, you did not walk like other people. Ghandûr informs me that the rascals who beset you were all persuaded that youwere a man dressed up. You say you walked for pleasure in the dust?—and in a habbarah? Astonishing!“So, you see now, Yûsuf was not angry altogether without cause. I trust you will not now esteem it necessary to see the Consul, and produce a scandal which I think would kill me.”Thoroughly disgusted with her whole behaviour, Barakah began to sob again.“I never truly meant to go,” she blurted.“I thank you infinitely,” said the Pasha grandly, again saluting as he rose to go. “You relieve me of a terrible anxiety. Our house has never known the breath of scandal.... But pleasure!—you assure me that you walked for pleasure?” he gasped, reverting to the former wonder. “I could understand it in a garden, round and round. But when it is a case of going anywhere—Grand Dieu!”That was a marvel which for weeks convulsed the harîm world. The Pasha mentioned it at home. Within an hour the wondrous news was known to every woman. The English bride of Yûsuf Bey Muhammad had walked from such a house to such a crossways, all in thick dust, amid the crowd of wayfarers—for pleasure, so she said! Insanity, a love appointment with an Englishman, a touch of sunstroke, the insensibility to comfort of a woman of coarse origin, were solutions of the riddle freely offered and discussed. But the theory which found most favour for its probability was thatthe Englishwoman was the sport of some malignant wizard or afrît, who made her walk to show his power upon her.Leylah Khânum and Gulbeyzah were the first to call and question her upon the strange performance. They asked point-blank why she had walked; and when she answered, “Just for exercise,” they eyed her in a way that showed they thought her mad. Then came the throng of mere acquaintances, not less curious, but infinitely too polite to ask a question; who watched for symptoms of derangement through the flow of compliments. The elderly princess, Amînah Khânum, alone showed understanding and some sympathy.“My dear,” she said, “you’ve set the parrots talking. Do you know that ‘durrah,’ which means fellow-wife, means parrot too? Bear that in mind. Their tongues!—They fail to comprehend. They think you are bewitched or mad. For me, your conduct was entirely natural. But I fancy you will give up walking here in Egypt. Were not your clothes a mass of dust beneath your habbarah? Whenever you are in a difficulty, come to me. I have some jurisdiction, and I wish you happy.”Barakah was far from happy in those days. For one thing, she had felt the bars confining her. And then a vision of the English sneering lurked ever in the background of her mind, a fount of gall. With Yûsuf she was once more upon loving terms, and any differences that arose betweenthem came from her ill-temper. She was growing irritable. The food, too highly spiced, did not agree with her; the sanitary arrangements were disgusting; she noticed failings not observed before, particularly in the behaviour of the servants to her.At first, on coming to that nest of love, released from the restrictions of a great harîm, her slave-girls had been lazy, but obsequious. At that time the old woman had commanded them, relieving Barakah, whose little knowledge of the language would have placed her at their mercy. But now the crone had been dismissed; the servants, with respect diminished by the quarrel they had witnessed, were grown insolent and off-hand in their service. The child Fatûmah, who had been a pet with Barakah, made rude grimaces and ran off when called.One hot midday, feeling extremely ill, she called for water. There came no answer, though she heard them chattering. She called again and clapped her hands. Still no one came. The cruelty of such neglect incensed her. With fevered strength she rose and went to scold them. She met a slave arriving at her leisure. At the words, “Ready, O my lady!” proffered with an undisguised yawn, she sprang upon the girl and clutched her throat, exclaiming: “Bring water, dost thou hear, O daughter of a dog! Bring water quickly!”The slave, beholding murder in the lady’s eyes,made haste and ran. Another girl looked in to learn the reason of the noise. Barakah picked up an earthen jar and flung it at her head. The change was magical. In a trice five several vessels full of water were being offered to her by as many servile creatures; while Fatûmah snuggled up to her and kissed her hand, receiving in return a box on the ear, which made her howl the praises of her dear, kind mistress.When Barakah returned to her own room she fainted, her borrowed strength departing with her wrath. The servants, in a flutter of solicitude, put her to bed, and sent Ghandûr to fetch the master. She, knowing nothing of the flight of time, heard presently, as in a dream, the Pasha saying:“Call a European doctor! That dog must know that she has had the best attendance!” and Yûsuf weeping uncontrollably. Then the next minute, as it seemed to her, an English voice above her muttered: “Typhoid! Bound to come, with native food.” That was the last she knew.

When Barakah came to herself, she was lying in her bedroom, which was dim and seemed unusually lofty, for her bed was on the floor, and a feeble lamp confined in perforated brass, which gave what light there was, stood down beside it. The pattern of the brass-work, much enlarged, was faintly reproduced on wall and ceiling. She was alone, but from a distance sounds of wailing reached her, and she heard her husband cursing the old woman for neglect of duty.

When she recalled her glee at setting forth that afternoon, the course of subsequent events seemed very cruel. After such misfortunes, consolation was her due; instead of which the house was in commotion, Yûsuf mad. Self-pity overwhelmed her. She was all alone among strange savage beings without sympathy; while those who might have understood and shared her feelings were her enemies. She lay with face down on her pillow, weeping silently.

By and by Yûsuf came into the room. She could tell by his hard breathing he was still enraged. Afraid that he was going to beat her, she lay quiet,as though still unconscious; but in a little while a sob betrayed her. Then his wrath descended. French deserting him, he raved at her in Arabic and Turkish; and her inability to catch his meaning made him angrier. She lay in terror, crying bitterly, replying to such questions as she understood, until his fury sank to lamentation and his French returned.

“My honour!” was his cry. “You have betrayed my honour in thus going forth alone. The servants of the English house who know you will send a whisper and a laugh through all the markets. And those who saw you walking in the dust!... Have you no shame, no delicacy? What will my father say? The news will kill him! You have killed my father!”

“You do not think of me at all,” sobbed Barakah. “Here have I been insulted, scared to death by your vile people, and you scold me! I wish that I had never seen you. I am so unhappy! In England people would be punished for the things you do. Those horrible men and women who attacked me——”

“May Allah burn them, every one!” cried Yûsuf in fierce Arabic. “Gladly would I pluck out all their tongues! They witnessed the dishonour of my name, and will relate it.”

The wrangle lasted far into the night. At last, however, Yûsuf’s tone relented; they embraced, and he demanded the whole history of her ill-starredvisit. But when he heard that men had been in the same room with her, his wrath redoubled. He beat his breast, he gnashed his teeth, he slapped her face, he paced the room denouncing her depravity.

“You are a brute!” she cried hysterically. “What harm if men were present? They did not come near me. I am not like your women—bred up to think of one thing only. Nor are Englishmen like you; they have respect for women. You are mad.”

Yûsuf was really mad, or seemed so, at that moment. He called her evil names in every tongue of which he had a smattering; and then in French, made childish by his rage, accused all Europeans of disgusting conduct.

“You deny it—hein? You are a liar, for the fact is known. We are not ignorant; we travel, and we have their books. What say you of their balls, their public dances, where women—nay, young virgins—choose what man they please, deserting husband or fiancé—empty names!—and dance and afterwards retire with him? The fact is known! The race is shameless—may God punish them! It is forbidden for us to cast up former things in marriage; but for the future I command you to forsake their filthiness. Go once again, and we shall know you worthless! Swear to renounce their company, or I will kill you!”

She sat up and confronted him with eyes of fire.

“Oh, brute!” she panted; “monster! rabid dog! I have had enough of you and your behaviour. I shall leave you. To-morrow I shall go to the Consul and tell him how you struck me!”

“You shall not leave this room. I am your master.”

“Lock the door, block up the window, bind me, guard me, I still will find some way to let the Consul know. You shall be punished—I have sworn it. I have had enough, I say. I shall return to England.”

“Your talk is madness! Have a care! The punishment is death for one renouncing El Islâm. Say, is that your meaning? Your own slaves will kill you!”

He put the question in blood-curdling tones. But Barakah, dissolved in tears, made no rejoinder. A minute later he was once more at her side, imploring mercy, declaring her his light of life, his pearl of pearls. She still whimpered, “I shall tell the Consul.”

At last she fell into a troubled sleep.

When she woke again it was broad daylight; her coffee and a kind of pancake, which composed her breakfast every morning, steamed upon a tray beside her. Yûsuf had left the room. He came back presently, and, kneeling down, implored her to forget his madness. Enjoying her advantage in a listless way, she put on an exaggerated air of feebleness, and moaned:

“You were too cruel. I shall tell the Consul.”

At that he sprang up as a man demented and rushed out. No sooner was he gone than she relapsed to weeping, stricken by the curse of utter helplessness which underlay her pitiful pretence at pride. To have been beaten black and blue by Yûsuf would have been less ignominious than to let the Consul know she was unhappy. She had walked into this guarded life with open eyes, aware of the conditions which must thenceforth fetter her existence, boasting love for them. The least complaint, much more retreat, was thus impossible. Even in the heat of anger she had had no real intention to go back. Yûsuf had enraged her, the mob upon the previous day had frightened her exceedingly; but after all they were her chosen people, though so strange. She could never come to hate them as she did the English.

She rose at last with mind to go into another room. The door was locked. Upon her trying it a slave-girl shouted:

“It is forbidden to go out. Does my lady require anything that I can bring her?”

Barakah bit her lip and flushed as she turned back. Remembrance of her boasting yesterday before those Englishwomen rose to taunt her.

A little sunlight entered through the lattice like gold-dust. The gardener was at his work of watering—a lengthy process—assisted by his little son and by Ghandûr, Fatûmah playing roundand teasing them. She heard their shouts and the familiar noises marking stages of the work; and by degrees, as she sat idle, listening, a measure of contentment came to her. Her troubles were of her own making; she had tempted Providence by flouting rules she had herself accepted. Henceforth, she vowed, she would be passive, of a boldness purely speculative, like Gulbeyzah.

It was not very long before the room door opened, admitting Yûsuf and his father, both with faces of concern. Saluting, in his courtly way, the Pasha offered an unqualified apology for everything that might displease her in the customs of the country. His son had told him of the trouble which had come between them. It arose from a simple and entirely pardonable misunderstanding, as he hoped at once to demonstrate to her well-known intelligence, if she would pay him the distinguished compliment of attending for a little moment to his explanation.

With that, he crossed one leg beneath him on the sofa, a compromise between the Eastern and the Western attitude, and began:

“I told you, if you will have the goodness to remember, when first the question of a marriage with my son arose between us, that we had stricter rules for the protection of our women than prevail in Europe. I also told you that, those rules once honoured, a woman had all freedom and consideration. I did wrong, I now perceive withinfinite regret, not to explain to you precisely the reason and the nature of those rules; for, see, entirely owing to that fault of mine, you have transgressed them innocently. I should like, if you permit it, to expound their general tendency and benevolent intention.”

Barakah was sore abashed. The Pasha’s entrance, the intervention of so dignified a person in a childish quarrel due to her misconduct, overwhelmed her. At this point in his speech she interjected:

“Pardon! I did wrong, I know! But I had no idea ... I wore the habbarah and mouth-veil. You had told me that a woman dressed like that was safe from insult.”

“I spoke in too general a sense. It is my fault entirely. You sinned through ignorance, and Yûsuf should not have been angry—though, indeed, to our ideas your conduct was abominable.”

“But what wrong did I do, beyond going out without permission? Why did the people on the road beset me? Oh, I am so miserable!”

The Pasha shrugged his shoulders with a smile to Yûsuf, as who should say:

“Observe her innocence!”

“No, no, don’t cry, I beg of you!” he pleaded. “God be praised you have derived no hurt from the adventure. It is entirely owing to respect for you that I and my son are so concerned about it. Beloved daughter, women are for us so sacred—thespirit of the house, the secret fount of life—that we never even speak of them with friends for fear some light word or unseemly thought should go towards them. Nothing must be known of them, no talk made about them, outside the world of women and our own harîm.

“Yesterday, by going out alone in an open carriage, you attracted notice all unconsciously. Your habbarah is of a rich material, your mouth-veil of the kind only worn by ladies of good houses. No such lady would have gone abroad thus unattended. The servants of your English friend would comment on the strange proceeding, and, knowing who you were, think shame of us.

“But that is the least part of what you did. That, by itself, would have been nothing. But you walked. Great God! What made you walk? That is for me inexplicable!”

“I felt the wish to walk. It was a lovely evening.”

“Great God!” the Pasha gasped, with eyes upturned. “Does anybody walk for pleasure here in Egypt? The natives have a proverb: ‘Better ride on beetles than walk upon rich carpets.’ Well, well, there!” He shrugged as giving up a hopeless puzzle. “You walked. A lady dressed as you were had never been seen walking in this world before. More than that, you did not walk like other people. Ghandûr informs me that the rascals who beset you were all persuaded that youwere a man dressed up. You say you walked for pleasure in the dust?—and in a habbarah? Astonishing!

“So, you see now, Yûsuf was not angry altogether without cause. I trust you will not now esteem it necessary to see the Consul, and produce a scandal which I think would kill me.”

Thoroughly disgusted with her whole behaviour, Barakah began to sob again.

“I never truly meant to go,” she blurted.

“I thank you infinitely,” said the Pasha grandly, again saluting as he rose to go. “You relieve me of a terrible anxiety. Our house has never known the breath of scandal.... But pleasure!—you assure me that you walked for pleasure?” he gasped, reverting to the former wonder. “I could understand it in a garden, round and round. But when it is a case of going anywhere—Grand Dieu!”

That was a marvel which for weeks convulsed the harîm world. The Pasha mentioned it at home. Within an hour the wondrous news was known to every woman. The English bride of Yûsuf Bey Muhammad had walked from such a house to such a crossways, all in thick dust, amid the crowd of wayfarers—for pleasure, so she said! Insanity, a love appointment with an Englishman, a touch of sunstroke, the insensibility to comfort of a woman of coarse origin, were solutions of the riddle freely offered and discussed. But the theory which found most favour for its probability was thatthe Englishwoman was the sport of some malignant wizard or afrît, who made her walk to show his power upon her.

Leylah Khânum and Gulbeyzah were the first to call and question her upon the strange performance. They asked point-blank why she had walked; and when she answered, “Just for exercise,” they eyed her in a way that showed they thought her mad. Then came the throng of mere acquaintances, not less curious, but infinitely too polite to ask a question; who watched for symptoms of derangement through the flow of compliments. The elderly princess, Amînah Khânum, alone showed understanding and some sympathy.

“My dear,” she said, “you’ve set the parrots talking. Do you know that ‘durrah,’ which means fellow-wife, means parrot too? Bear that in mind. Their tongues!—They fail to comprehend. They think you are bewitched or mad. For me, your conduct was entirely natural. But I fancy you will give up walking here in Egypt. Were not your clothes a mass of dust beneath your habbarah? Whenever you are in a difficulty, come to me. I have some jurisdiction, and I wish you happy.”

Barakah was far from happy in those days. For one thing, she had felt the bars confining her. And then a vision of the English sneering lurked ever in the background of her mind, a fount of gall. With Yûsuf she was once more upon loving terms, and any differences that arose betweenthem came from her ill-temper. She was growing irritable. The food, too highly spiced, did not agree with her; the sanitary arrangements were disgusting; she noticed failings not observed before, particularly in the behaviour of the servants to her.

At first, on coming to that nest of love, released from the restrictions of a great harîm, her slave-girls had been lazy, but obsequious. At that time the old woman had commanded them, relieving Barakah, whose little knowledge of the language would have placed her at their mercy. But now the crone had been dismissed; the servants, with respect diminished by the quarrel they had witnessed, were grown insolent and off-hand in their service. The child Fatûmah, who had been a pet with Barakah, made rude grimaces and ran off when called.

One hot midday, feeling extremely ill, she called for water. There came no answer, though she heard them chattering. She called again and clapped her hands. Still no one came. The cruelty of such neglect incensed her. With fevered strength she rose and went to scold them. She met a slave arriving at her leisure. At the words, “Ready, O my lady!” proffered with an undisguised yawn, she sprang upon the girl and clutched her throat, exclaiming: “Bring water, dost thou hear, O daughter of a dog! Bring water quickly!”

The slave, beholding murder in the lady’s eyes,made haste and ran. Another girl looked in to learn the reason of the noise. Barakah picked up an earthen jar and flung it at her head. The change was magical. In a trice five several vessels full of water were being offered to her by as many servile creatures; while Fatûmah snuggled up to her and kissed her hand, receiving in return a box on the ear, which made her howl the praises of her dear, kind mistress.

When Barakah returned to her own room she fainted, her borrowed strength departing with her wrath. The servants, in a flutter of solicitude, put her to bed, and sent Ghandûr to fetch the master. She, knowing nothing of the flight of time, heard presently, as in a dream, the Pasha saying:

“Call a European doctor! That dog must know that she has had the best attendance!” and Yûsuf weeping uncontrollably. Then the next minute, as it seemed to her, an English voice above her muttered: “Typhoid! Bound to come, with native food.” That was the last she knew.

CHAPTER XIVGhandûr, had borne the summons to the Frankish doctor. Having delivered it, he wandered to the Pasha’s house. A creature witless save for love, existing by it, the kindness shown him by the lady Barakah had raised her to the throne of Yûsuf in his mind. Her freak of walking had imparted to his sentiments that touch of pity for one too innocent to face the world which makes of service an angelic trust. He blamed himself for the adventure. When he heard that she was in disgrace and looking wan, he beat his breast. Now that she was like to die through his demerits, his grief was such as caused him actual pains.Upon arriving at Muhammad Pasha’s house, before he could divulge his woe, he was informed:“The lady Fitnah has been asking for thee. Go indoors, and wait while they announce thee!”He was standing in the hall, cocooned in sorrow, when a mob of children burst through the mabeyn, as the great screen which bounds the women’s realm is called, and fell upon him.“Oh, Ghandûr, where hast thou been?”—“I have a new tarbûsh.”—“The bitch beneathour windows has five puppies—blind, by Allah’s mercy! Come and see!”—“My doll! Like a daughter of Adam—a bride arrayed—a virgin—almost a sin for thee to look on! Come and see!”Half weeping as he was, Ghandûr responded; and, unaware of his preoccupation, the children led him towards the women’s doorway.“Go in as far as to the second screen—no farther!” said the eunuch there on guard.Ghandûr was careful to obey; but his attendant imps, regarding all authority as ground for sport, banded together suddenly and dragged him on. He shook them off and drew back quickly; the eunuch came and scattered them with swishing cane; and then the children, tumbling over one another, began to fight among themselves with fearful insults.“By my maidenhood, I swear to kill thee and devour thy liver!” screamed out a girl of eight to a small boy who pushed against her.“I will ravish thee, abandoned one, and then eject thee on a dunghill!”The lady Fitnah from behind the screen cried out for order, naming Hamdi, her own son, as probably the cause of tumult. The eunuch fell upon that wayward, dreamy adolescent, whom Ghandûr did his utmost to protect, for he was Yûsuf’s brother; while Fitnah Khânum asked what sin she had committed to be punished with a boy so lazy and so mischievous. She cared for Hamdi, but without indulgence. Her love was made awhip-lash for his good. At last came silence, and Ghandûr poured forth his grief.“O Lord, have mercy! Woe upon us all! O most gracious lady, rare pearl of beauty and refinement, companion of my dearest lord and brother! Behold the glory of our house is in the dust.”“By Allah, in the dust! Thou sayest truly!” scoffed the lady Fitnah. “It is of that very business that I wish to speak with thee. What is the truth about her walking in the dust, thou who wast with her? Is it true that she had been alone with Frankish men? Was no man following—didst thou look well?—when she walked off alone, rejecting thee? Was not her chin upon her shoulder, and her gaze behind her, ogling? Did I not well to rail against that marriage? Now it is clearly proven that she has no modesty.”“O my despair! O evil day! The fault is mine!” cried out Ghandûr, beside himself. “Blame not her Grace; she is the noblest lady—as innocent as is a babe; she thinks no evil. O bitter grief! O Allah! O calamity!”“Now Allah heal thee! It is plain she has bewitched thee too. She is for all men, like the rest of her foul race—for strangers, servants, donkey-drivers, even scavengers! Pray, pray to God till I bestow on thee a charm of power!”“Hush! Let him speak! Let Ghandûr tell his story!” cried a second voice. Ghandûr becameaware of other ladies pressing to the screen. He lifted up his voice and wept.“O lady, speak no bitterness against her. She lies this moment at the point of death. Our house is as a tomb, a haunt of ominous owls. My lord the Pasha frowns and looks distressful; my lord Yûsuf weeps as if his heart would break. I myself have been to call a Frankish doctor, who, on reading my lord’s message, rode off like the wind. Allah knows the dear one may be dead this minute!”He buried his face in his hands, while a hubbub of concern arose behind the screen.“O poor darling floweret! O despair!” wailed Yûsuf’s mother, all her feelings turned right round. “What is her illness? Quick, describe! May Allah heal her!”“Fever—the worst sort!”“I go at once to her.”A sick-nurse of experience in charms and nostrums, the lady Fitnah always quickened to the scent of illness and adored the sufferer. From a creature hardly to be named by modest lips, the wife of Yûsuf was become the apple of her eye Having sent an order for the carriage, she went through her store of medicines, discoursing wisely to the other ladies; while Ghandûr, retiring, heard from the attendant eunuch:“Thou hast done it! We had word of this; Sawwâb was summoned. But the command was, not to tell the ladies.”He could only shrug.Illness, like death and birth, was woman’s great occasion, when, guarding the traditions, she stood forth as priestess. The whole harîm was in a flutter of excitement.“Gulbeyzah must come with us,” pronounced Fitnah Khânum, “because our poor sick darling always loved her.”The ladies Fitnah and Murjânah, the Pasha’s widowed sister and two nieces, goodly persons, together with the well-grown, plump Gulbeyzah, and a bundle of medicaments, including a whole plant of garlic and a donkey’s thigh-bone, were all packed somehow into one close carriage. The sun was setting when they reached the pleasure-house. The eunuch went to herald their arrival; and all the ladies, nothing doubting of their glad reception, freed themselves from the crushed mass they formed together. They were shaking out and smoothing crumpled raiment when the messenger returned to say they were refused admittance by the doctor’s orders. The ladies stood stone-still and looked at one another. Fitnah Khânum broke the silence.“This is our son’s house! May Allah slay the doctor! Come, my sisters!”Just then Sawwâb, chief eunuch of the guard, appeared, and barred the entrance with the word “Forbidden!”“Whose order, say?”“The order of our lord.”“Praise to Allah! That is better than the doctor. To hear is to obey, though Allah knows that the command is wicked and against religion. Tell thy master we shall lay a case before the Câdi.”With this menace, which afforded her some satisfaction, Fitnah Khânum turned back towards the carriage; and the work of packing those redundant bodies was performed anew.“Heard one ever the like? To hide our dearest from us at the point of death! To keep a mother from a daughter’s sick-bed—a woman from a woman! O Protector!”The incident, when known, incensed the harîm world. The sick-room had been woman’s temple from of old. To be forbidden access to the bedside of a near relation appeared an outrage, even to the calm Murjânah. The indignation of the slaves was riotous. The injured ladies received many visits of condolence, when Fitnah Khânum’s lamentations were applauded as the voice of right.“O cruelty,” she sobbed. “To keep us from our darling, when she has most need of us! The Frankish doctors are all monsters, hearts of stone. It is known that they snatch dying people from their friends, to practise on them, omitting even to return the bodies afterwards. They may have skill, but many things they know not, being infidels. The pain I suffer when I think of that sweetgirl—the very liver of my darling Yûsuf—lying senseless, an empty house for any demon to inhabit, and not a charm put up for her protection, is excruciating!”It is characteristic of the harîm life that, though the ladies were thus irritated, near rebellion, no clear word of their grievance reached the Pasha’s ear. There is a wall between the women and the man more real than the mabeyn screen which man erected. The women raise it to secure their privileges; the man, if he perceives it, cannot throw it down. His anger meets with a subservience which foils its aim as surely as loose sheets will stop a bullet. Even Murjânah, who adored the Pasha, kept the harîm secret.Fitnah Khânum had foretold that Barakah would die, thanks to the ministrations of the Frankish doctor. When she heard that she was fast recovering, she gave praise to Allah, who had saved her life in spite of them. From wishing well to the sick woman, she had grown to love her with all the strength of her impulsive, loyal nature.The love she bore to Yûsuf was eclipsed. His neglect of her for weeks was scarcely noticed. When at last he did appear, haggard but joyful, her “Praise to Allah” was upon his wife’s account. She made him tell her every detail of the doctor’s treatment, and vowed it was a miracle the girl survived it. From him she learnt the reason of the Pasha’s deference to every edict of that ignoramus.The English Consul had his eye upon the house, watching to note that all was done correctly.“Consume the Consul!” she exclaimed peremptorily.“Our Lord consume him utterly!” said Yûsuf. “Yet for one boon I have to thank him. My father, to propitiate him, gives command that I shall visit Paris in the summer with my bride.”“Allah forbid!” his mother screamed in horror. “Our pearl of pearls to be exposed to vulgar handling, to be cast back into the mire from which she was with pains extracted! Thou wilt not suffer her to go unveiled? For shame, O Yûsuf! To let foul infidels survey thy secret joy.”“Nay, she will veil her face as the Frenchwomen use.”“Those veils are nothing, for the mouth is visible.”“Our ladies wear them in that country to avoid publicity. Be reassured, my mother; we shall guard the decencies. My father grumbles greatly at the cost, but vows that he will show the Consul we are not fanatical. We go to see the dog tomorrow, to tell him all that we have done for her.”But on the morrow Yûsuf and his father met with cruel disconcertion. The Consul welcomed them and listened to their story with politeness, but at its end he murmured blandly:“I altogether fail to see how this concerns me, though highly honoured by your visit and yourconfidence. The lady is, no doubt, extremely fortunate.”Muhammad Pasha, flushing hotly, licked his lips as might a panther, and glanced sidelong at his son. He offered a profusion of excuses as he rose to go. The Consul answered, “Always charmed!” and smiled them out.“May the All-Powerful corrupt his bones and blind him! May the All-Merciful frustrate his heart’s desire!” exclaimed the Pasha as the two regained their carriage. “It seems he has deceived us, has renounced all claim. Here have I spent more than I can afford—coined money, hard to come by—what with her establishment, this doctor and the nursing, and that trip to Paris, which cannot now be dropped, for I have boasted of it; and lo! the dog cares nothing for my trouble. May his limbs rot off!”“May Allah cut his life!” said Yûsuf savagely.The women never heard that tale of shame.

Ghandûr, had borne the summons to the Frankish doctor. Having delivered it, he wandered to the Pasha’s house. A creature witless save for love, existing by it, the kindness shown him by the lady Barakah had raised her to the throne of Yûsuf in his mind. Her freak of walking had imparted to his sentiments that touch of pity for one too innocent to face the world which makes of service an angelic trust. He blamed himself for the adventure. When he heard that she was in disgrace and looking wan, he beat his breast. Now that she was like to die through his demerits, his grief was such as caused him actual pains.

Upon arriving at Muhammad Pasha’s house, before he could divulge his woe, he was informed:

“The lady Fitnah has been asking for thee. Go indoors, and wait while they announce thee!”

He was standing in the hall, cocooned in sorrow, when a mob of children burst through the mabeyn, as the great screen which bounds the women’s realm is called, and fell upon him.

“Oh, Ghandûr, where hast thou been?”—“I have a new tarbûsh.”—“The bitch beneathour windows has five puppies—blind, by Allah’s mercy! Come and see!”—“My doll! Like a daughter of Adam—a bride arrayed—a virgin—almost a sin for thee to look on! Come and see!”

Half weeping as he was, Ghandûr responded; and, unaware of his preoccupation, the children led him towards the women’s doorway.

“Go in as far as to the second screen—no farther!” said the eunuch there on guard.

Ghandûr was careful to obey; but his attendant imps, regarding all authority as ground for sport, banded together suddenly and dragged him on. He shook them off and drew back quickly; the eunuch came and scattered them with swishing cane; and then the children, tumbling over one another, began to fight among themselves with fearful insults.

“By my maidenhood, I swear to kill thee and devour thy liver!” screamed out a girl of eight to a small boy who pushed against her.

“I will ravish thee, abandoned one, and then eject thee on a dunghill!”

The lady Fitnah from behind the screen cried out for order, naming Hamdi, her own son, as probably the cause of tumult. The eunuch fell upon that wayward, dreamy adolescent, whom Ghandûr did his utmost to protect, for he was Yûsuf’s brother; while Fitnah Khânum asked what sin she had committed to be punished with a boy so lazy and so mischievous. She cared for Hamdi, but without indulgence. Her love was made awhip-lash for his good. At last came silence, and Ghandûr poured forth his grief.

“O Lord, have mercy! Woe upon us all! O most gracious lady, rare pearl of beauty and refinement, companion of my dearest lord and brother! Behold the glory of our house is in the dust.”

“By Allah, in the dust! Thou sayest truly!” scoffed the lady Fitnah. “It is of that very business that I wish to speak with thee. What is the truth about her walking in the dust, thou who wast with her? Is it true that she had been alone with Frankish men? Was no man following—didst thou look well?—when she walked off alone, rejecting thee? Was not her chin upon her shoulder, and her gaze behind her, ogling? Did I not well to rail against that marriage? Now it is clearly proven that she has no modesty.”

“O my despair! O evil day! The fault is mine!” cried out Ghandûr, beside himself. “Blame not her Grace; she is the noblest lady—as innocent as is a babe; she thinks no evil. O bitter grief! O Allah! O calamity!”

“Now Allah heal thee! It is plain she has bewitched thee too. She is for all men, like the rest of her foul race—for strangers, servants, donkey-drivers, even scavengers! Pray, pray to God till I bestow on thee a charm of power!”

“Hush! Let him speak! Let Ghandûr tell his story!” cried a second voice. Ghandûr becameaware of other ladies pressing to the screen. He lifted up his voice and wept.

“O lady, speak no bitterness against her. She lies this moment at the point of death. Our house is as a tomb, a haunt of ominous owls. My lord the Pasha frowns and looks distressful; my lord Yûsuf weeps as if his heart would break. I myself have been to call a Frankish doctor, who, on reading my lord’s message, rode off like the wind. Allah knows the dear one may be dead this minute!”

He buried his face in his hands, while a hubbub of concern arose behind the screen.

“O poor darling floweret! O despair!” wailed Yûsuf’s mother, all her feelings turned right round. “What is her illness? Quick, describe! May Allah heal her!”

“Fever—the worst sort!”

“I go at once to her.”

A sick-nurse of experience in charms and nostrums, the lady Fitnah always quickened to the scent of illness and adored the sufferer. From a creature hardly to be named by modest lips, the wife of Yûsuf was become the apple of her eye Having sent an order for the carriage, she went through her store of medicines, discoursing wisely to the other ladies; while Ghandûr, retiring, heard from the attendant eunuch:

“Thou hast done it! We had word of this; Sawwâb was summoned. But the command was, not to tell the ladies.”

He could only shrug.

Illness, like death and birth, was woman’s great occasion, when, guarding the traditions, she stood forth as priestess. The whole harîm was in a flutter of excitement.

“Gulbeyzah must come with us,” pronounced Fitnah Khânum, “because our poor sick darling always loved her.”

The ladies Fitnah and Murjânah, the Pasha’s widowed sister and two nieces, goodly persons, together with the well-grown, plump Gulbeyzah, and a bundle of medicaments, including a whole plant of garlic and a donkey’s thigh-bone, were all packed somehow into one close carriage. The sun was setting when they reached the pleasure-house. The eunuch went to herald their arrival; and all the ladies, nothing doubting of their glad reception, freed themselves from the crushed mass they formed together. They were shaking out and smoothing crumpled raiment when the messenger returned to say they were refused admittance by the doctor’s orders. The ladies stood stone-still and looked at one another. Fitnah Khânum broke the silence.

“This is our son’s house! May Allah slay the doctor! Come, my sisters!”

Just then Sawwâb, chief eunuch of the guard, appeared, and barred the entrance with the word “Forbidden!”

“Whose order, say?”

“The order of our lord.”

“Praise to Allah! That is better than the doctor. To hear is to obey, though Allah knows that the command is wicked and against religion. Tell thy master we shall lay a case before the Câdi.”

With this menace, which afforded her some satisfaction, Fitnah Khânum turned back towards the carriage; and the work of packing those redundant bodies was performed anew.

“Heard one ever the like? To hide our dearest from us at the point of death! To keep a mother from a daughter’s sick-bed—a woman from a woman! O Protector!”

The incident, when known, incensed the harîm world. The sick-room had been woman’s temple from of old. To be forbidden access to the bedside of a near relation appeared an outrage, even to the calm Murjânah. The indignation of the slaves was riotous. The injured ladies received many visits of condolence, when Fitnah Khânum’s lamentations were applauded as the voice of right.

“O cruelty,” she sobbed. “To keep us from our darling, when she has most need of us! The Frankish doctors are all monsters, hearts of stone. It is known that they snatch dying people from their friends, to practise on them, omitting even to return the bodies afterwards. They may have skill, but many things they know not, being infidels. The pain I suffer when I think of that sweetgirl—the very liver of my darling Yûsuf—lying senseless, an empty house for any demon to inhabit, and not a charm put up for her protection, is excruciating!”

It is characteristic of the harîm life that, though the ladies were thus irritated, near rebellion, no clear word of their grievance reached the Pasha’s ear. There is a wall between the women and the man more real than the mabeyn screen which man erected. The women raise it to secure their privileges; the man, if he perceives it, cannot throw it down. His anger meets with a subservience which foils its aim as surely as loose sheets will stop a bullet. Even Murjânah, who adored the Pasha, kept the harîm secret.

Fitnah Khânum had foretold that Barakah would die, thanks to the ministrations of the Frankish doctor. When she heard that she was fast recovering, she gave praise to Allah, who had saved her life in spite of them. From wishing well to the sick woman, she had grown to love her with all the strength of her impulsive, loyal nature.

The love she bore to Yûsuf was eclipsed. His neglect of her for weeks was scarcely noticed. When at last he did appear, haggard but joyful, her “Praise to Allah” was upon his wife’s account. She made him tell her every detail of the doctor’s treatment, and vowed it was a miracle the girl survived it. From him she learnt the reason of the Pasha’s deference to every edict of that ignoramus.The English Consul had his eye upon the house, watching to note that all was done correctly.

“Consume the Consul!” she exclaimed peremptorily.

“Our Lord consume him utterly!” said Yûsuf. “Yet for one boon I have to thank him. My father, to propitiate him, gives command that I shall visit Paris in the summer with my bride.”

“Allah forbid!” his mother screamed in horror. “Our pearl of pearls to be exposed to vulgar handling, to be cast back into the mire from which she was with pains extracted! Thou wilt not suffer her to go unveiled? For shame, O Yûsuf! To let foul infidels survey thy secret joy.”

“Nay, she will veil her face as the Frenchwomen use.”

“Those veils are nothing, for the mouth is visible.”

“Our ladies wear them in that country to avoid publicity. Be reassured, my mother; we shall guard the decencies. My father grumbles greatly at the cost, but vows that he will show the Consul we are not fanatical. We go to see the dog tomorrow, to tell him all that we have done for her.”

But on the morrow Yûsuf and his father met with cruel disconcertion. The Consul welcomed them and listened to their story with politeness, but at its end he murmured blandly:

“I altogether fail to see how this concerns me, though highly honoured by your visit and yourconfidence. The lady is, no doubt, extremely fortunate.”

Muhammad Pasha, flushing hotly, licked his lips as might a panther, and glanced sidelong at his son. He offered a profusion of excuses as he rose to go. The Consul answered, “Always charmed!” and smiled them out.

“May the All-Powerful corrupt his bones and blind him! May the All-Merciful frustrate his heart’s desire!” exclaimed the Pasha as the two regained their carriage. “It seems he has deceived us, has renounced all claim. Here have I spent more than I can afford—coined money, hard to come by—what with her establishment, this doctor and the nursing, and that trip to Paris, which cannot now be dropped, for I have boasted of it; and lo! the dog cares nothing for my trouble. May his limbs rot off!”

“May Allah cut his life!” said Yûsuf savagely.

The women never heard that tale of shame.

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