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VEILED WOMEN

VEILED WOMEN

BY
MARMADUKE PICKTHALL
AUTHOR OF “SAÏD THE FISHERMAN,” ETC.

LONDON
EVELEIGH NASH
1913

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

“If good the news, O bird, alight and welcome;

If bad, draw up thy claws and hie away!”

At the corner of a lofty housetop overlooking a great part of Cairo, a woman stood with arms uplifted and solemnly addressed a crow which seemed about to settle. The bird, as if the meaning of the chant had reached him, turned in the air with clumsy flapping, and withdrew, rising to join the hundreds of his kind which circled high above the city bathed in early sunlight. The woman shook her fist at his receding shape, glass bracelets tinkling on her strong brown arm. She sighed, “The curse of God on thy religion, O thou faithless messenger!” then, with a laugh, turned round to join the group of slave-girls, her companions, sent up to lay out herbs to dry upon the roof. These had watched her invocation of the crow with knowing grins. But one, a young Circassian, who sat watching while the others worked, betrayed surprise and asked the meaning of the little ceremony.

At that there was much giggling.

“Knowest thou not, O flower? It is the woman’s secret!”

“Secret of secrets, all unknown of men!”

“By Allah, men know nothing of it. In sh´Allah, they will be astonished some day!”

“O Hind, relate the story! Our honey, our gazelle, Gulbeyzah, has not heard it.”

Thus urged, the one who had adjured the crow, a free servant of the house, obsequious towards the slaves, its pampered children, explained as she knelt down again to work:

“In the name of Allah, thus it is related: Know, O my sweet, that, in the days of our lord Noah (may God bless him), after the flood, the men and women were in equal numbers and on equal terms. What then? Why, naturally they began disputing which should have the right to choose in marriage and, as the race increased, enjoy more mates than one. The men gave judgment on their own behalf, as usual; and when the women made polite objection, turned and beat them. What was to be done? The case was thus: the men were stronger than the women, but there exists One stronger than the men—Allah Most High. The women sought recourse to Allah’s judgment; but—O calamity!—by ill advice they made the crow their messenger. The crow flew off towards Heaven, carrying their dear petition in his claws, and from that day to this he brings no answer. But God is everliving and most merciful; a thousand years with Him seem but an hour. Perhaps He does but hold our favour over, as might a son of Adam, till the evening for reflection, to grant it at the last. In sh´Allah!”

“In sh´Allah!” came the chorus of a dozen voices; followed by a general laugh when Gulbeyzah, the Circassian, yawned and sighed, “Four goodly husbands all my own! O Lord, give quickly!”

“That is the reason,” Hind concluded, “why good women have a word to say to crows who seek to settle. Any one of them may be the bearer of the blessed edict. The reason as related—Allah knows!”

“Good news and hopeful, by my maidenhood!—the best I ever heard!” chuckled Gulbeyzah, reposing with her back against the parapet. She then remained a long while silent, lost in day-dreams.

The hour was after sunrise of a spring morning in the twelve hundred and eightieth year of the Hegirah, the second of the reign of Ismaîl. The house was that of Muhammad Pasha Sâlih, a Turk by origin but born and bred in Egypt, who held a high position in the government. The girls, their task accomplished, sat down on their heels, each with her tray of basketwork before her, and sniffed the breeze, in no haste to return indoors.

“Praise to Allah,” one exclaimed with fervour, “we escape for an hour from that Gehennum there below. Never have I seen the lady Fitnah so enraged. Her wrath is not so much because her son desires the English governess, as because the Pasha sees no hindrance to the match. I tremble every time I have to go to her, lest in her fury she should damage my desirability.”

“Praise be to Allah, I am not her property,” replied another, “but that of her durrah, the great lady. Yet I know her for a good and pious creature, not likely to be so enraged without rare cause. They say this foreign teacher has bewitched the young man. He is mad. He flung himself before her in the passage as she came from driving. She spurned him, and they bore him, senseless, to his chamber, where for two days he weeps and moans, refusing nourishment. It is enchantment, evidently, for the girl is ugly.”

“Nay, by Allah, she is white and nicely rounded. But shameless! But an infidel!”

“She can change her faith.”

“As easily as dung can change its odour!”

“Gulbeyzah here is whiter and more appetizing.”

“Well, God alone knows what she is or is not. This is sure: I have no itching to go down into the house while Fitnah Khânum rages.”

“Nor I!” “Nor I!” exclaimed the rest with feeling.

The morning clamour of the city came up to them as a soothing murmur. Minarets dreamed round them in the sun-haze which was rosy at its heart but in the distance pearly with a tinge of brown. On one hand open country might be seen, green fields and palm trees crowding to the desert wave on which three pyramids stood out, minute as ciphers; on the other, ending the long ridge of the Mucattam Hill, arose the Citadel in smoky shadow, its Turkish dome and minarets, its towers and ramparts, appearing like a city of the sky. Here and there among the housetops a small cloud of doves went up, fluttered a moment and subsided peacefully. Kites hovered, crows were circling, in the upper air. Gulbeyzah watched their evolutions dreamily.

“Allah defend us from the liberty of Frankish women!” she remarked at length. “I could not bear it. To meet the stare of all men were too dreadful. My maidenhood would flush my brain and kill me. O pure shame! And yet they choose what men they like, the fact is known. In sh´Allah, the great favour, when the crow does bring it, will not destroy our blessed privacy.”

“In sh´Allah, truly!” answered Hind, with vehemence. “Fear nothing, O beloved; God is greatest! Their freedom is from Satan, their liege lord—the curse of Allah on him! It is a travesty of God’s work, like all he does. Is it not known when Allah made the cow, he tried his best to do the same, but got no farther than the water-buffalo? All Heaven mocked him. Our charter, when it comes, will be perfection.”

“Talking of foreign women makes me curious to know how things are going, down below. Has the governess consented to give life to Yûsuf? Has the Pasha quieted the lady Fitnah?”

“Nothing could quiet her, unless it were the quick expulsion of the Englishwoman. Why did she ever have her children taught the lore of infidels? The fault is hers! She hoped to keep the Bey from honourable marriage, chaining his fancy with some slave-girl, her own creature.”

“With me, say plainly!” laughed Gulbeyzah, with a yawn. “I was brought into the house with that intention. Yet not her creature, for Murjânah Khânum is my mistress, and she would have seen to it that I was well respected. If the governess has pity on him—which I think not likely—as soon would the wild serpent wed the dove—my lady must provide me with a proper husband. I have no mind to wither as a fruit untasted.” She yawned again. “Will no one go into the house and bring me news?”

Up leapt a little Galla girl, a child as yet unveiled, all eyes and teeth with glee in the adventure.

“I go, O lady! I am not afraid. I will even enter the selamlik. I will find out everything.”

“Be very careful, O Fatûmah, lest old Fitnah seize thee. She would rip up thy belly and pluck out thy entrails did she catch thee spying!”

The little black girl laughed and made an impudent grimace.

“And then the eunuchs! They will surely beat thee.”

“By Allah, they must catch me first. Sawwâb adores me, and the others are too slow.”

“Good. Run, ere curiosity consume me!”

The little negress shot off like an arrow. Down dark, malodorous stairs, through empty corridors, she glanced, incarnate mischief. In a pleasure court of the harîm, where orange trees in tubs grew round a pool, she stopped to listen for the voice of Fitnah. It came from an apartment on her right. Straight forward, where she wished to go, the coast seemed clear. Springing on tiptoe, she plucked a spray of blossom from the nearest tree; then ran on down a passage through the ornate screen, the boundary of the women’s quarters, where a eunuch tried in fun to stop her; and in sight of a great hall where men were lounging, knocked at a door.

The word had scarce been given ere she glided in and held out the sprig of orange-blossom to the English governess, with every muscle of her body fawning, smiling. Without a look, she read the stranger’s face, perceived she had been crying lately but now looked exultant, observed the order of the room, the foreign furniture; and then, before the Englishwoman could find words to thank her for the pretty offering, kissed a white hand which proved as hot as fire, and darted out as noiselessly as she had entered.

As she was flitting back across the garden-court, she heard a male voice cry:

“Be silent, woman; or, by the Prophet, I shall have to beat thee!”

Crouching behind a tub, she listened eagerly. But though a wrangle was in progress not far off between the Pasha and his wife, the lady Fitnah, she could glean no more than the main tenor of it from the voices, of which the man’s was irritated and the woman’s mad.

At last the Pasha shouted:

“It is finished. No word more. I go straight to the Consul. Appeal to the Câdi, I beseech thee; of thy kindness, do so! He will tell thee, just as I do, that thou art demented.”

Another minute and he crossed the court, wearing his best tarbûsh and his official garb of black frock-coat and narrow trousers—a thing unheard of at that early hour.

Having seen him pass to the selamlik, Fatûmah ran like lightning through the dim old house, till, breathless, she emerged in dazzling sunlight and flopped down on the roof again beside the others.

“Well, what news?” they clamoured.

“Great news!” Fatûmah panted. “Only listen! The English governess is going to marry Yûsuf Bey, and she has islamed!”

“Praise to Allah!” cried the others in amazement. “A Frankish woman convert! A great miracle!”

“The Pasha goes this minute to the English Consul, to confer with him and make arrangements for the ceremony.”

“Allahu akbar! Is it possible? But what says Fitnah?”

“What can she say, the poor one? The command is on her.”

“But, for the love of Allah, say, how didst thou learn all this?”

Fatûmah shut her lips tight, looking preternaturally cunning.

“Ha, ha!” was all she answered.

“Her tale is nonsense! She is making game of us,” exclaimed Gulbeyzah, breaking out in laughter. “She was not gone five minutes, that is known. Thou shalt be paid full measure, little poison-flower! Confess now that thy story is all lies!”

The marvel was that every word proved true.

CHAPTER II

Muhammad Pasha Sâlih was intensely worried. As he drove toward the English Consul’s office, he let deep furrows ravage his benignant brow, and combed his long grey beard with nervous fingers. The ever-shifting crowds, the eager faces, the laden camels rolling on like ships upon the sea of heads; the water-sellers clinking their brass cups, the cries of salesmen and the floating odours—all the pageant of the streets and all their rumour, which filled the sunlight and seemed one with it, went by unnoticed.

In youth he had been wedded to a noble Turkish lady, the sweetest and most gentle of companions. Never an angry word had passed between them. But, alas! when all her children died soon after birth, Murjânah Khânum had grown melancholy and retired from life. She still dwelt in his house, was still the nominal head of his harîm; but for more than twenty years she had been dead to pleasure. At first he had amused himself with pretty slaves, being reluctant to infringe her dignity of only wife. Then, at her instance, for she feared debauch for him, he had espoused the daughter of a wealthy native, whom the caprice of a former ruler had exalted. The marriage, besides raising his importance, had brought him four male children. Yet at this moment, with the curses of the termagant still ringing in his ears, he almost wished he had let well alone and kept to concubines.

Allah knew that Yûsuf’s malady was not uncommon at his age; the cure self-evident. The governess was not a heathen. She was of those who have received the Scriptures, therefore marriageable. Moreover, being, as he shrewdly guessed, of no consideration in her native land, she might be tempted by a life of wealth and ease. To save his son from death, he had besought the Englishwoman, imagining that her consent would fill the house with joy-cries. Yet when the cause was won, the only possible objection cancelled by the girl’s unlooked-for turn to El Islâm, behold! the lady Fitnah’s grief was changed to fury. The wrangle with her had perturbed him at a moment when he stood in need of all his wits to brave the Consul. Well, Allah saw what trials he endured!

The carriage drew up in a quiet alley, before a gateway ornamented with a coloured picture of lions great and small in funny attitudes. Two Cawasses in silver-braided jackets with long dangling sleeves rose from stools beside the threshold and saluted. Muhammad Pasha passed between them, crossing a courtyard to a second door, wide open like the first. There, in a whitewashed room, two Copts sat at a table, cutting pens. They both sprang up at recognition of the visitor and strove to kiss his hands, which he prevented by patting each upon the shoulder kindly.

“Is the Consul busy, O my children?” he inquired. “I have an errand of importance. Please inform him.”

“Upon my head. I go at once, by Allah!”

One of the Copts leapt to an inner door and knocked thereon. Enjoined to enter, he opened it just far enough for the introduction of his body, and slipped in. Anon returning in the same respectful manner, he beckoned to the Pasha. Then he flung the door wide open, and stood aside, with eyes downcast and hands demurely folded.

Muhammad Pasha entered with a beating heart. His mission was of essence delicate, and he was anxious to avoid all odour of offence towards a foreign representative possessing influence. Having touched hands with the Consul and exchanged greetings, he sat down on the extreme edge of a chair, and toying with his amber rosary, thus broached his business:—

“Monsieur le Consul,”—the conversation was in French of the Byzantine school,—“you remember the young lady whom you were good enough to recommend as an instructress for my children. Can you inform me of her origin, her previous history?”

“Excellency, I only know what she herself confided: that she was educated at a religious institution for poor children of good family. She has no relatives. She came here to be governess in an English house which, by the father’s sudden death, was brought to poverty two weeks before she came. She found herself here without a situation and with little money; and as she was well recommended and impressed me as respectable, I thought of you, remembering that you desired an English governess. I trust that you are satisfied of her efficiency?”

“Altogether. She has been a month now in our house, and almost is become like one of us. She is so charming. It is there, the trouble. She is ravishing. Monsieur le Consul,”—here the Pasha changed his tone for that of one who bares his heart, discarding courtesies,—“I am very gravely troubled. The anxiety I suffer cuts digestion and gives me frightful belly-pains. My son adores this demoiselle, and she adores him. The affair deprives me of all taste for food. You see my sufferings!”

“Continue, Excellency!” said the Consul grimly. He got up from his chair and paced the room. The Pasha kept the corner of an eye upon him, as he proceeded:

“What can I do? The demoiselle has been secluded from my household, as I promised you. But youth leaps boundaries; love can speak through walls. My son has seen her in the passages—their eyes have met—What know I? Youth is fatal.”

Here the Pasha wiped his eyes.

“Monsieur le Consul, when I heard of this two days ago, I put my son in prison; I went myself and reasoned with the demoiselle. I have reasoned with them both, entreated, threatened; but without result. I fear my son will die if he may not espouse her. The demoiselle implores me not to cast her forth. She says—it is so touching!—that we are her only friends, that she never met with kindness till she came to us.”

“Beg her to come this afternoon and see me,” pronounced the Englishman, whose face had darkened by perceptible gradations as he listened.

“That is precisely what I come to ask: that you will scold her. God knows how the responsibility has weighed upon me. She is not the match I should myself have chosen for my son; but still I should be glad of the alliance, because of the esteem I have for all the English. I stand impartial in the case and greatly worried.”

“Thank you, Excellency. Send her to me this afternoon. Is there anything else?”

The Pasha had already risen to depart.

“One thing.” He dropped his voice to a stage whisper. “In the frenzy of her love she asks to be of our religion. She has made an oath of her conversion before witnesses. (The Consul swore.) But have no care. We will forget it, if”—the Pasha laid great stress on the condition, and for once looked boldly in the other’s eyes—“if, after consultation with you, she should wish to recant.”

“But you say that there are witnesses to her conversion,” cried the Frank, with bitterness. “I fail to see how it can be forgotten. There would be a riot.”

“The witnesses are of my house,” rejoined the Pasha suavely. “My command is guarantee of their discretion.”

“Send her to me!” The final words were uttered from tight lips beneath a formidable frown, as the Consul flung the door wide open for the Turk’s departure.

“Sont-ils fanatiques, ces brutes-là? Peuh!” respired the Pasha, shaking the dust from off his boots as he regained his carriage. “The girl will have a cruel hour, poor floweret! That dog would like to kill her. But, God be praised, the law of El Islâm is still sufficient to protect a convert in a Muslim land!”

His thoughts of the lone foreign girl were full of kindness. She was his daughter. He would care for her true happiness. And then the thought of Fitnah’s rage, recurring, caused him to frown, and swear, and gnaw his underlip.

CHAPTER III

Immediately on his return to his own house, Muhammad Pasha sent a eunuch to announce his coming to the lady Fitnah. He found her lying on a couch in her state-room. Two slaves, who had been busy fanning her, retired before him. Seeing she lay still with eyes closed as if quite exhausted, he drew near and whispered:

“Now, in sh´Allah, O beloved, thou wilt hear my reasons.”

She opened great brown eyes, bloodshot with wrath, and glared at him a moment.

“Well, what news?” she asked, with studied coldness.

The Pasha then embarked upon his story; but, at mention of the Consul, she sprang up with rage renewed, expectorating:

“Curse thy father! ‘She will see the Consul,’ sayest thou? The Consul! May the Consul and his whole race rot with agony! It is simply to evade a duty which is thine and thine alone. Eject her from the house at once, thou paltry coward! She will kill our son. I know thy guile, by Allah! Thou wilt say, ‘The Consul orders her to marry Yûsuf. We must obey the Consul,’—O salvation!—when all the while thyself art father of the mischief. Oh, let her not come here, or, by my fruitfulness! these hands shall cling to her and not leave hold till they have made her so that no man could desire her.”

Expostulation proving vain, her lord retired in great annoyance. He had to fear a scandal in his house, an inquisition by the Consul, ignominy, if Yûsuf’s mother came in contact with the English lady.

In this dilemma, as in every other which concerned the household, he went for counsel to his only love and first of wives. He sent a herald of his coming to Murjânah Khânum, and after a decent interval repaired to her apartments. She received him in a large room, with no other solid furniture than a low desk on which a manuscript of the Corân lay open; but exquisitely clean and sweet, a contrast to those quarters of the house where Fitnah reigned. The windows were constructed of the finest lattice-work, which made the light within seem rare and delicate. Murjânah, old but stately, fondled her lord’s hand.

“Thy face is careworn,” she exclaimed, perusing it. “In sh´Allah, all the news is good.”

“In sh´Allah,” he replied mechanically. “But Allah knows that I am greatly troubled. I know not what to do.” And he proceeded to describe the madness of the lady Fitnah. At the tale’s conclusion, a light laugh surprised him.

“Thou askest what to do,” exclaimed Murjânah, “when there is danger that a foolish woman, mad with jealousy, may harm a guest of ours! Hear the word of Allah: ‘When ye have cause to fear their disobedience, ye shall reprimand them, ye shall banish them to beds apart, and ye shall beat them.’ Is not that plain? Beat her! It is thy sacred duty. No, no, she will not cry against thee to the Câdi. She will hide her fault. All women look to men for government, and if it is withheld, have cause of grief. Trust me, beloved, there is no good woman who would not rather suffer stripes occasionally than grow for lack of them into a shrieking harridan. Fitnah Khânum is my durrah, and I love her truly, as the mother of our darling children, and for many virtues. Still I say to thee on this occasion: beat her soundly. Bestow on her a perfect beating, O my soul!”

The Pasha kissed his old wife’s hand submissively, and went forth from her presence with a face of awe. The high proceeding needed courage, for a man so kindly. He went to the small chamber where the eunuchs sat when not on duty, and called, “Sawwâb! Meymûn! Bring me a big kurbâj. Attend me, both of you!”

The silent, swift obedience of those servants showed the impression made by his unusual sternness. Their help was necessary that the scene to come might wear the aspect of an execution, not a struggle.

Whip in hand, Muhammad Pasha crossed a courtyard and entered a small room remote from others.

“Bring Fitnah Khânum hither secretly!” he told the eunuchs.

Sawwâb, the fat, was seized with trembling; while Meymûn, a tall, gaunt creature, gave a deathlike grin. They sped, however. Three minutes had not passed before the lady Fitnah, deftly bound and gagged, was borne into the lonely chamber and the door was shut.

Half an hour later, Muhammad Pasha Sâlih sat conversing with the English lady, preparing her intelligence to meet the Consul’s arguments, which he forewarned her would be all misstatements born of blind fanaticism. When married to Yûsuf, he assured her, and himself believed it, she would hardly know the difference from an English home.

CHAPTER IV

The English girl, meanwhile, experienced a passionate elation, like new life. The Pasha’s exhortations were not needed. Rebellion, which had always lurked beneath her trained subservience, now clothed her in its flames and made her terrible for any one who dared assail her new-found pride.

What had she to regret? From childhood she had been repressed, humiliated, and ordered to be thankful for bare daily bread. In Christian families her lot had been unenviable. Here, in this Muslim household, she was somebody. The month spent here had been the happiest in her life. But, bred up to regard employers as a race apart,—impressed, moreover, by the grandeur of the house and by the rank of Pasha,—she had never dreamt of being thought an equal by her entertainers. When Yûsuf Bey, whom she had noticed for his beauty, assailed her in the hall, she had imagined his intentions far from honourable, judging from past experience in English houses. She had fled to her own rooms, ashamed and angry, while the image of his face alight with passion remained to trouble her against her will. When the Pasha came and begged her in most flattering terms to condescend to marry his unworthy son, she nearly swooned. All her resistance sprang from incredulity. When once convinced that the demand was earnest, she gave way with grateful tears. Then her resolve became a living faith. It was to break the bondage of the past completely, to cast in her lot for ever with these friends who wanted her.

They were wealthy, of exalted rank, and yet they wanted her. They thought her lovely, who had always been esteemed entirely plain, with her squat figure, apple cheeks, and sandy hair. The sleekest youth in all the world desired her. It was so marvellous that she was forced to rub her eyes and fix their gaze on homely objects to dispel the sense of some enchantment. The difference of religion gave her no concern; indeed, the change was welcome, she had been so cramped by English pietism. In this mood, she was fire against the Consul. A world of happiness was opened suddenly, and there were those who would debar her from it Woe betide them!

The Pasha himself escorted her to where a harîm carriage waited. Sawwâb the eunuch held the door for her.

“The carriage will be there to bring you back,” the Pasha told her. “I have ordered the servants by no means to return without you, upon pain of death.”

The implied suspicion that she might be kidnapped made her laugh.

“Remember, my son’s life is in your hands—such pretty hands! His earthly happiness is trusted to this carriage, all too vile to hold so sweet a burden. Day and night he dreams of nothing but your charms. If your mind changes he will surely die.”

She laughed and kissed her fingers to the dear old man, as she stepped up into the carriage. The eunuch slammed the door, which was close-shuttered, leaving her in perfumed shade. A burning blush suffused her as she thought of Yûsuf—his strained, eager face, his yearning lips, beheld that once to haunt her consciousness, a naked shape of love. But pride was uppermost in all her thoughts just then—pride in the comfortable carriage, the attentive servants—pride in her new-found value, in her new-found relatives, and in the daring resolution she had made to break with England. The foreign clamour of the streets, the curious, heady odours, flattered her with a sense of strange adventure.

Radiant, she alighted at the gate which bore the royal arms of England, near which an open carriage also waited, and passed into the Consul’s office. She expected sternness, but the Consul smiled agreeably, and after shaking hands with her, took up his hat.

“I have been thinking,” he observed, “that all I have to say could be much better said by some one else—a woman. I should be hampered by embarrassment.” He smiled. “So, if you don’t mind, I have sent a note to Mrs. Cameron, asking leave to bring you out to tea with her this afternoon. I have a carriage at the door.”

“I also have a carriage,” she replied, with a light laugh, as they went out together. She could not but admire his strategy, for Mrs. Cameron, the leader of the English colony, was a gentlewoman of the straightest Christian outlook, the last person whom a renegade would care to face. She had, moreover, been all kindness to the stranded girl, hospitably entertaining her until she found a situation. Since going to Muhammad Pasha’s house the governess had spent a Sunday with her, and heard warnings. To brave her now would be an ordeal, but no matter. The destined bride of Yûsuf scorned all fear.

Out at the gate the Consul eyed her carriage with intense disfavour, especially Sawwâb the eunuch, who stood ready at the door.

“You will kindly come in mine,” he said peremptorily.

“Then you will kindly tell the Pasha’s man to follow,” she replied, with eyes that twinkled laughter at his show of temper.

He shouted to the Pasha’s coachman, and got in beside her. For a while they drove in silence, the Consul stealing glances at her face from time to time. She knew that he was struck by the new charm of her. His manner had a dash of gallantry which was amusing.

“I hate to see you in that carriage, with those servants,” he exclaimed at length impulsively. “You must forgive me. I have lived here years, and know the country.”

Again she laughed and her eyes quizzed him. The thought that she knew more than he did, possibly, was made conviction by his next remark:

“Please realize that you are absolutely free. Whatever may have happened—I mean whatever influences have been brought to bear—those people cannot hurt you now, or even reach you.” This man who knew the country suspected the good Pasha of iniquity, and looked upon his palace as a den of vice. She said:

“There has been nothing of the kind. I have never been so kindly treated or so happy.”

He hemmed and hawed, remarking:

“Well, remember what I say. And don’t forget that, as a British subject here, you have great privileges which, whatever happens, you will be unwise to forfeit. I hope you will confide in Mrs. Cameron. There is no one in this world more kind and trustworthy.”

She answered, “Thanks!” and turned from him to contemplate the passing scene. Their carriage flew along a sandy lane between walled gardens of the suburbs, with here and there a mansion closely shuttered towards the street. The road was covered with the long procession of the fellâhîn returning outward to their villages—men straddled over donkeys between empty paniers; women stalked erect and queen-like in their graceful drapery; here and there a camel sauntered, led by some bare-legged boy—the whole, obscured by clouds of dust, illumined warmly by the rays of the declining sun, or steeped in the deep shadow of mud walls. Foot-farers, forced aside to let the carriage pass, stared at its inmates with contemptuous eyes. The garb of Europe was a blot upon the peaceful scene. Her heart went out to all those people, plodding, contented, in the sunlit dust. Henceforth she would be nothing strange to them, she swore it.

“Here we are!” The Consul’s voice disturbed her reverie. He shouted to the driver and the carriage stopped. The harîm carriage drew up close behind it. A door in a high wall was opened by a smiling negro. A minute later she was in a cool verandah, looking on a well-kept garden, outside a very English drawing-room.

It was a house where all was tidy and precise, a hostile element to one in love with the untrimmed profusion of the Pasha’s palace. She hated it as servants hate a nagging mistress.

“Now, having brought you two together, I shall leave you,” said the Consul pleasantly. “This young lady, Mrs. Cameron, has gone and got herself into a precious fix. Confess her thoroughly, and then we’ll find some way to get her out of it.”

“But I have no desire to get out of it,” cried the girl, exasperated. “The fix, as you are pleased to call it, is my greatest happiness.”

But the Consul was already gone, delighted as it seemed to wash his hands of her. She found herself alone with Mrs. Cameron.

“We’ll have some tea at once, and you must see the children,” was that lady’s first remark, so different from the attack anticipated that the guest, all nerved for battle, felt defrauded. Though ready to resist with fury, she lacked the energy required to open fight. Tea came, and with it the three tow-haired children, whose presence made all talk impossible. The girl sat moody, in abeyance, replying briefly to remarks addressed to her. The garden perfumes became stronger as the sun sank. They, or some kindred but more subtle influence, obscured her brain with fumes in which her purpose loomed unreal and enormous. The homely scene appealed to her against her will. Almost she had the sense of hands held out to her, while Mrs. Cameron was talking nonsense with the children. This playing on her nerves seemed a mean stratagem. Hot anger grew beneath her careless shell.

At length the youngsters were dismissed. The girl then braced herself to meet the blow. Again she felt a keen pang of deception when her hostess said:

“I am going to ask you a great favour. Stay the night with me! My husband is away at Alexandria. I am really lonely.”

“Thank you very much, but it is really quite impossible,”—there was poison in the honey of this sweet reply,—“I have a carriage waiting.”

“We can send it with a message.”

“No, really, thank you! I have stayed too long already.” She suddenly bethought her of the master move, and rose determined.

“No, sit down, my dear!” cried Mrs. Cameron. “I have to talk to you. And though I would rather have had the night in which to think things over, I must, since you force me to it, speak quite simply now. I say: Don’t do it, child! Don’t take the step the Consul tells me that you contemplate! He thought that you had been seduced by unfair practices; but that, I see from your behaviour, is not so. It is just the charm of novelty, the spirit of adventure—is it not?—with just, perhaps, a little mischief prompting, a little grudge against the dull life you have led. My love, you must not be allowed to do it—you, an Englishwoman! It degrades us all. I have lived out here for years, and I assure you that, if a daughter of mine declared her will to marry one of them, sooner than it should happen I would kill her with my own hands. A girl!—It is unheard of! With their view of women!”

“It is plain you know nothing about them,” sneered the other; “at any rate, about the class of people I have mixed with. They have the greatest reverence for women. You suppose, because we veil—”

“We!” interjected Mrs. Cameron.

“Yes, we; for I am one of those whom you so grossly slander.” A drum of battle beat at either temple of the girl thus brought to bay. Her brain reeled with indignation, and her voice grew husky. “I say, you think because we veil that we are quite degraded, the same as we do when we see your faces bare. The difference is one of custom only. Underneath our veils, in our own houses, we are just as happy and as free as you are.... It is too droll! You fancy that Mahometan women have their lives made miserable? Why, I have never known such happy women. From my rooms, I hear them laughing, playing, singing all day long.”

“Poor things! They know no other life. You do, and would be miserable in the same conditions. Have you ever thought of what polygamy involves—for women, anyhow?”

“It seems to me extremely sensible and kind to women. It takes into consideration facts which we slur over, cruelly. It gives to every girl a chance of motherhood.”

“My dear!” exclaimed the mentor, greatly shocked.

“I don’t care what you think. It is quite true.”

“You are young and inexperienced. We who live in the country hear of things of which you cannot possibly know anything—things that I wish most heartily that you may never know. That is why I beg of you earnestly to change your mind.”

“Nothing will make me do that.”

“Then you are honestly in love, and we will say no more on that point.” The forbearance was so unexpected that the governess was startled and stared at Mrs. Cameron with unbelieving eyes. The elder lady showed such trembling earnestness that she grieved for the necessity to shock and wound her. “There remains another question, on an altogether higher plane—I mean the question of religion.” Mrs. Cameron’s voice turned awestruck. “The Consul tells me—but oh, no! It is too fearful!”

“I don’t see why!” returned the other doggedly. “They worship God as we do, and they count Christ as a prophet. They are no more fearful than the Unitarians in England. And I am sure they think much more about religion in their daily lives than people do at home.”

“They deny the essence of Christianity—the Redemption. How can you turn your back upon that marvel of Divine Love? Their ideals are all much lower, more material.... My dear, I see that you have come here primed with specious arguments, and I regret that I am not clever enough to make you see their falseness. I wish I had the tongues of all the angels at this moment grieving over you, to show you how terrific is the gulf you view so lightly.”

The girl laughed nervously. “I don’t suppose the angels bother much. You talk as if God only cared for Christians. I’m sure He thinks the Moslems just as valuable. If you are so much better, why don’t you mix with them and try to do them good?”

“Some of us are doing so.”

“In such a way!...”

“We are not discussing missionary methods, dear. Your case is the only one before us.”

“Well, you say that missionaries mean to do good in their way; but it never seems to strike you that I may hope to do a little good in mine!”

Her tone grew plaintive; the long contest wearied her. The bloom of shadow on the garden, underneath the rose of sunset, the voices of the evening made her wistful; while the sadness which attends all partings clutched her heart. The whine of doing good had slipped from her at unawares—an echo from her former life of hired hypocrisy. It had been the natural tone of conversation with a lady of the class “employer.”

“That rings untrue. You’re simply talking for effect!” cried Mrs. Cameron, indignant. “It is unkind when I am speaking from my heart of hearts.... Now, only one word more. If you ever loved any one—father, or mother, or friend—at home in England, think of that person and just ask yourself what he or she would think of your denying Christ. The act is so uncalled-for that it seems like wanton wickedness. You can marry your Mahometan without renouncing Christianity, and by so doing you would have more honour in your husband’s eyes. You could retain your status as a British subject, which means something here; and if you really have a purpose to do good among those people, you would be in a better position to do so than by sinking to their level.”

“I won’t hear a word more! Oh, you are brutal!” The girl started up with hands and teeth clenched, past endurance. “Oh, you are brutal to bully me like this! I tell you once for all, I love those people, whom you and all your kind hate and tell lies about. No one was ever really nice to me before. They are a million times better than any Christians I have ever known. I tell you I belong to them, and not to you! I mean to have the same religion as my husband, and if he goes to Hell, well, I’ll go too! Do you understand?” Her words now came in gusts, for she was sobbing heavily. “You’ll never see me any more, of course, for I’m a wicked Moslem and you’re so fanatical! I don’t care; I can do without you. I have truer friends, who really like me and don’t only patronize. Oh, how can you make me cry like this, when I was so—so happy!”

To her surprise, she found herself in her tormentor’s arms.

“You wrong me, dear. I’m not fanatical, nor yet so narrow-minded as you think. Now, will you promise that, whatever happens, you will look upon me as a friend and come to see me sometimes? I have said all I can to dissuade you, because I fear you may repent of your decision when too late. My hope is, now and always, that you may be happy. You’ll promise, won’t you, still to make a friend of me?”

The girl nodded, sobbing, speechless with emotion.

“Well, then, God bless you, dear, among the Moslems, and may you always bear the standard of true Christian womanhood!”

With that two-edged blessing in her ears, the renegade, a bowed and shrinking figure, traversed the garden in the blue of twilight. She felt guilty and unnerved, irresolute, until she saw the Pasha’s carriage waiting in the lane, when pride returned. The tears yet wet upon her cheeks, she stood erect and sniffed the evening air. There was still much traffic on the sandy road, running between dark garden-walls to where, beside a little dome, a single palm-plume stood up black against the sky. The dust kicked up by donkeys’ hoofs, by people’s footsteps, rose greenish like wood-smoke. Some wayfarers already carried lighted lanterns which made coloured circles in the gloaming like the peacock’s eyes. A life of passionate adventure lay before her, most curious and rich and warm with human failings, much better worth than that which she had left behind.

Sawwâb the eunuch held the carriage door for her, and murmured “Praise to Allah!” as he shut her in. She saw him merely as a well-trained servant, having as yet no inkling of his grim significance.

CHAPTER V

Muhammad Pasha Sâlih went again to see the Consul, this time upon receiving a peremptory summons. He came away with smart sensations of indignity, the unbeliever having warned him to take care of his behaviour to the English governess. The marriage contract, he was told, must be in order, and every detail of her treatment strictly honourable. These admonitions thrown as to a dog, to him, the known embodiment of goodness, made him cry. When he got home it was to find a note from the Grand Câdi, requesting him to call at once upon that dignitary, who besought him, for the honour of the Faith, to be precise in all his dealings with the English convert. And when, that afternoon, he waited in his duty on the lord of Egypt, that prince demanded tidings of the Englishwoman and, jesting, told him to be sure and use her kindly.

“She must be a rare pearl,” the sovereign chuckled. “The English Representative is maddened by her loss. By God and His Apostle, I have half a mind to snatch her from thee.”

For one whose house had always been a guarded sanctuary, who never made nor brooked the least allusion to his women, such language from licentious lips, in hearing of the throng of courtiers, was sheer ignominy. He cursed the parents and religion of the English Consul, the cause of this indecent noising of a private matter. The dog appeared to fancy that he had to do with fellâhîn or small officials; for he had spoken of the facility of divorce and the danger of the Englishwoman being cast adrift. Among the vulgar there were men who changed wives constantly, even persecuting her they had till she herself besought the Câdi for release, thus forfeiting the dowry which was justly hers. Such men might be, who thought it clever to defraud poor maidens. But that any one could think that he, Muhammad Pasha, or a child of his, could harbour such iniquity seemed barely credible. The hot tears stung his eyeballs at the thought of it.

“Just Allah!” he exclaimed within himself. “Does he suppose that we have no morality? Would he, whose native customs are as shameless as the ways of beasts, leaving females unprotected and at large, instruct us how to cherish and to guard a woman? He talks as if I were some pimp or ruffian, when I am dealing with the maid as faithfully as if she were my only child!”

In truth, before this trouble with the Consul, at the ceremony of betrothal, when he himself had prompted the bride’s proxy, he had assigned to her a dowry of three thousand pounds—a sum sufficient to make Yûsuf hesitate, however angry, before he gave the order for divorce. He had, moreover, spoken to his son most gravely, pointing out the friendless state of the young woman, and informing him that if he took her it must be for life. Yûsuf had made frantic answer in the way of lovers, comparing his fidelity to stars and blossoms. The Pasha bound him by a solemn oath always to show forbearance to his foreign wife. He then drove him forth to spend the time until the wedding in a cousin’s house; where, as he had heard this afternoon from the said cousin, Yûsuf kept raving of his love—in abstract terms, for decency—till the whole selamlik was infected with the trick of sighing. Nothing could have been more honourable than his conduct. The girl was better off than ever in her life before, and knew it. He swore an oath to let the Consul know it too.

Accordingly, returning to his house that evening, he craved immediate audience of the sometime governess; and shortly entered her apartments, which, providing simply for an upper servant of his house, he had furnished in the Frankish manner to seem homelike. If he had gone to so much trouble for a stranger’s comfort, was it likely he would prove a niggard towards his dear son’s bride? The pig who thus traduced him must be taught.

The girl was sitting in a chair beside the window, reading an English book. It pleased him to reflect that she was highly educated. In these bad times, when Frankish lore was in demand, her instructions might secure advancement to a man like Yûsuf, who knew French already.

She laid aside her book and rose to meet him with a charming blush. He took her hand and raised it to his lips; then sank down on a chair and clasped his brow.

“Ah, mademoiselle!” he moaned, “I am so troubled. God knows my heart is sad, profoundly wounded. You are kind and generous, and you know our hearts. But those others of your nation.... Pouf! How bitter! How fanatical! They treat me and my house as dirt. Here is the case: You honour my poor house; you are alone; you have no parents. I say to myself, ‘She is an orphan; I will be her father.’ I therefore do what parents do according to our customs. I provide the trousseau; I also bargain with the bridegroom’s people to endow you richly.

“Let me explain what that means, since it must be quite unknown to you. With us, divorce is easy; it suffices for the man to say a little formula; but the husband must support the wife for three months afterwards, and he must pay the balance of the dowry stated in the marriage-contract, or, if no portion has been paid beforehand, then the whole of it. That makes him think. And the greater the dowry, the longer will he meditate before divorcing her. Now I, your father, have talked the matter over with myself, the bridegroom’s father, and have obtained for you a dowry of three thousand pounds Egyptian. This sum will be stated in the contract, signed and sealed before the judge, and my son will have to pay it if ever he desires divorce, which God forbid! Your trousseau, with the jewels and the slaves that I am going to give you, the furniture of these rooms and more which I shall buy to supplement it—I wish your house to be the kind you are accustomed to—all this, I say, will be your absolute property, and so stipulated in the contract.”

The girl had seized his hand. She pressed it to her lips and sighed:

“How good you are!”

His own emotion was no less than hers. The humiliations of that day had taxed his fortitude, and the sense of his integrity beneath aspersion was like a bubbling fount of tears in outer darkness. The warm touch of her gratitude unmanned him quite. He sobbed aloud:

“Ah, mademoiselle! God knows that I have done my best! Yet here is the Consul threatening me, and moving all the Government to watch me closely; as if I had entrapped you for some evil purpose!—as if I were the worst of criminals, intent to harm you!... I cannot vindicate myself. It would be too degrading. And if he thinks me such a first-class canaille he would not believe me. Therefore I come to beg you, mademoiselle, yourself to deign to write a little word to this good monsieur, assuring him that we are not the monsters he supposes.”

The girl’s face flamed. “I write at once!” she said, and rose to do so.

But the Pasha cried: “One moment, mademoiselle!” He wiped his eyes and struggled to recover firmness. “Do not suppose that I complain! Even if the happiness of my dear son were not concerned, I would suffer more than this—much more—abominations!—to serve so beautiful and good a lady. I fear my words have saddened you. Oh, God forbid! Never, I pray you, think of it again, your letter written. You must be all happy. To-morrow you must go among our ladies. You will find there mothers, sisters, longing to embrace you. They will help you choose the stuffs for your trousseau. They speak Arabic, of which you know few words as yet, or Turkish, which is quite unknown to you. But my widowed sister speaks a little French, and Murjânah Khânum owns a young Circassian who can talk it fluently. She is a present from relations in Constantinople who have bred her from a child in every elegance. At the time of the great war with Russia, French was much the mode; even girls learnt it, and this maid of whom I speak, Gulbeyzah, talks it well. She shall be attached to you as interpreter. The wedding, if it please you, can take place next week. We will have it in the mode of Europe—nothing barbarous!”

“I love your customs!” she replied. “Let it be just as if I were a native bride.”

“No, no,” remarked the Pasha, with a chuckle. “There are many usual ceremonies here in Egypt which are condemned by our religion, strictly speaking. These we shall exclude, preserving only one or two which may amuse you. My son also will modify his life to suit your foreign standards; it is only just; although the life of our own ladies is by no means terrible, as you will find. Tomorrow you shall spend in the haramlik. You will find there many friends. All, all will love you and make glad your heart. And now, with your permission, mademoiselle, I shall retire. Forget not that small letter to the Consul.”

Muhammad Pasha, coming from that interview, was traversing the hall of the selamlik towards his study, when a sudden clamour at the house-door startled him.

“Curse thy father! Wait, I say! Be still a minute!” cried the doorkeeper; while another voice yelled madly, “I must see the Pasha. Where is he? Let me pass, I say! The need is urgent!”

“Cut short thy life! Wait only! Are these manners? He has entered the harîm, I tell thee!”

There followed sounds as of a struggle, and before the Pasha could divine the meaning of the uproar, a youth in poor attire rushed in and fell before him, panting:

“He told me to win to thee, O my lord—to fight my way through armed hosts if necessary, to seek thee even in the secrecy of the harîm, saying that the letter which I bear would be my full excuse.”

It was a poor familiar of the palace, named Ghandûr, one who from early childhood had been Yûsuf’s humble shadow, a youth so simply honest in his judgments that to subtler wits they wore the look of imbecility. But yesterday he had been here as usual, sitting in the entrance on the watch for Yûsuf. To-day he had been absent, but without disloyalty: he had been sitting in the entrance of the house where Yûsuf sojourned temporarily.

“He bade me run, and Allah witness I have done his bidding. I am thy slave, give pardon, O my lord the Pasha!”

“Salvation be upon thee, O Ghandûr. What letter, now, is this of which thou speakest? Give!”

Reassured by the kind tone, Ghandûr arose, and smiling with a flash of perfect teeth, produced a letter from his bosom, touched his forehead with it, then reverently laid it in the Pasha’s outstretched hand. It ran:

“My garden of delight is in thy custody. The palpitations of my heart inform me danger shadows it. Alas! the grievous power of jealousy, which can make of a gazelle a tigress, and turn a mother’s love into a sword. This is the third time I have written to thee, yet no answer. Say that thou hast taken measures to preserve my lovely blossom from envious trampling and from poisoned water....”

The Pasha crumpled up the letter and stood wrapped in thought. Coming so close upon his promise to the English girl that all the women in the house would love and cherish her, the warning had a flavour of fatality. He recalled the lady Fitnah’s frowardness. She had been punished. Who could say that she had changed her mind? And, with the Consul’s evil eye upon the house, the shame of any outbreak would be doubled.

“Run to my son!” he told Ghandûr. “Assure him that a guard is kept, none safer, under Allah. Bid his soul have rest.”

Having watched the youth depart, he called the eunuchs and ordered them to guard the English lady as their life. Then he proceeded to the kitchens and there gave command that every dish and drink prepared for the table of the governess should come first to him that he might taste and judge its quality. And he took good care to let the women know of this precaution.

CHAPTER VI

The women’s quarters were a rambling place, with three small courtyards all on different levels, tunnels, staircases inside and out, and passages which ran in all directions. Besides the ladies Fitnah and Murjânah and their households, a widowed sister of the Pasha, and a former slave who had enjoyed his favour, kept separate state, with children and attendants. Freed slaves and poor relations, recognized go-betweens and sycophants came in and out, and slept there when they chose—a privilege extending to their offspring. Old women with a secret, knowing look edged through the corridors; untidy children sprawled upon the stairs; outside the door of each of the great ladies stood rows of coloured slippers, signifying humble callers. The place seemed always populous and full of noise. In a sense, good order reigned there; but it was the order of a township rather than a private residence, including all degrees of cleanliness, of wealth and squalor. The corps of eunuchs, ten in all, were the police.

This little world of women had its liberties. From the third hour of the day until the sunset call to prayer, the lord of the harîm was absent. If he happened to return, it was his duty to announce the fact beforehand, allowing time for visitors to veil and slip away. The inmates had their private interests, their games and jokes. The clash of tambourines, the quick soft beat of darabukkahs made a pulse of glee. They all seemed happy and in love with life, although they hardly ever saw the sun or breathed free air; for when they drove abroad it was in shuttered carriages; and the family mausoleum, where they went for picnics, was a second palace with its own haramlik.

But what surprised the Englishwoman more than anything was the charm of majesty—the exquisite prestige—which certain of these Eastern women radiated; making her feel small. They called her “Barakah”; it was her name thenceforward, and meant a Godsend, so the courtly Pasha told her. That name increased her awkwardness at first, sounding sarcastic from the lips of queenly women.

On the morning after she had written her indignant letter to the Consul, she was awakened by soft singing. A beautiful and stately girl sat by her bed, who, seeing her at last awake, sprang up and kissed her. Murjânah Khânum, claiming Yûsuf’s bride as her own guest until the wedding, had sent her slave Gulbeyzah to attend her to the bath, attire her in a robe of honour (which was shown), and then escort her to Murjânah Khânum’s rooms, where Barakah was asked to breakfast and to spend the day. It was useless to resist. Gulbeyzah knew her duties, and performed them scrupulously. By the time they left the bathhouse, Barakah arrayed in gorgeous silk, her fingers hennaed and her eyes enlarged with kohl, they were laughing friends.

Murjânah Khânum took the Englishwoman in her arms and kissed her; then sitting down beside her, subjected her to a prolonged inspection, none the less embarrassing for being tender.

“Ma sh´Allah!” she exclaimed, and added some soft words in Turkish, looking to Gulbeyzah, who translated:

“Madame says you are more beautiful than she was told. Your beauty is more excellent than the rose. Your eyes remind her of the Bosphorus. You make her think of her own country. The desire which you inspire is like home-sickness.”

Barakah could only blush and hang her head—a posture which drew down fresh compliments upon her modesty.

Slaves brought in trays of fruit and set them down, retiring silently. Then an old negress came in with a brazier and made coffee, with which was served a kind of fritter smeared with honey. Then a young girl appeared with ewer and basin and fine towels, going first to Barakah, who rinsed her hands. Murjânah and Gulbeyzah, she saw afterwards, used soap and washed their teeth as well—a cause of spluttering.

Murjânah Khânum rolled a cigarette. She lounged at ease with eyes intent on Barakah, and while she smoked, gave vent to her reflections, which Gulbeyzah rendered into French as best she could.

“It is a great distress to me not to be able to convey my loving thoughts directly to the mind of one so near. Ask the dear one if she speaks Romaic, or a little Persian. No? A pity! She is learning Arabic? In sh´Allah, she will soon acquire that tongue and Turkish too....

“I fear she must feel strange and lonely in a life so different: I wish I could expound its beauty to her. Ask her whether she has read the tragedies of Sophocles, an ancient Greek. No? That surprises. I had thought them known among the Franks. Say, I have read them in the Turkish version and admired them greatly.... At least, she knows that, in old times, before the prophets, there were priestesses who guarded mysteries of the false gods?... Well, we secluded women of the East are the guardians of the mysteries of God Most High—the verities of life and death, of birth and growth and of decay—of all those things which come directly from the hand of God. These are the sense of life; though much obscured by all the surface agitation which disturbs the life of men. We, in our calm retirement, always view them ...

“And then, when one regards the strife of tribes, the tumults and rebellion in this world, is it not well that womanhood should be kept sacred and aloof, respected in the strife of Muslims—the ark which bears the future of the Faith?... Then, even as it is, much crime is caused by love and jealousy. What would it be if women went unveiled? I say not, in her land where men’s blood may be more equable; but here.... Just Allah! Youth would be a curse. If marriageable girls were barefaced, what could preserve them from atrocious accidents? We guard their youth and train them to be lovers, child-bearers; we send forth healthy boys to serve the Faith....

“Tell her that I myself, by Allah’s visitation, have lost all my children; yet, thanks to El Islâm, I am not desolate. I have her Yûsuf and a score of others for delight.”

Hearing these words translated by Gulbeyzah, Barakah felt abashed to insignificance. The habit of confronting the brute facts of life, which Europeans cover over, clothed this old woman in a tragic grandeur which was almost terrifying. She was relieved when other ladies came and talk grew shallow. Silks and fine linen fabrics were spread out before her. Hearing that she was required to choose among them for her trousseau, she implored Gulbeyzah with despairing gestures to say that she resigned selection to the ladies. The answer caused relief. The ladies set to work methodically, feeling, stroking, comparing the materials in the best light, discoursing all the while like happy birds. Fitnah Khânum was less forward than the others in politeness, and kept her face averted from the gaze of Barakah. She took her leave before the service of the midday meal.

The Pasha’s widowed sister begged of Barakah to spend the following day with her in her apartments. Murjânah was approached and gave consent.

“I can give you dinner on a proper table with chairs and knives and forks,” the widow said in broken French.

Murjânah Khânum’s tables were brass trays on little stands, and everybody ate with fingers from the dish.

The day with Leylah Khânum was less serious. The widow’s talk was all of love and lovers. A perfect host of go-betweens was kept employed to find her a fresh husband; but, though ageing fast, she was fastidious and asked perfection.

“God grant she may not die a widow,” sighed Gulbeyzah, who explained the case to Barakah.

Leylah Khânum was much exercised to know whether Barakah had had much love-experience in England. Hearing “No,” she raised her hands in marvel. One so beautiful! The mistress of so much charm! And unveiled among men! She asked the reason.

“I was poor,” said Barakah.

At that there was loud outcry; Leylah Khânum and Gulbeyzah called on God for pity.

“But you are beautiful! Men pay for beauty, need no bribe with it. And you mean to say they would have let you die a virgin—with that loveliness? O Lord of Heaven! What a wicked waste!”

Their dread of dying in virginity appealed to Barakah as something comical when she remembered the ideals preached in Christendom.

Leylah Khânum told her stories of true love, all far from proper judged by English taste; and shocked her by the cool assertion that poison was a woman’s natural weapon. In the afternoon they were invited to Murjânah Khânum’s rooms, where the business of the trousseau still proceeded. It went on for days. Each morning when she woke, the bride-elect found some fresh present from the Pasha in her room, which Gulbeyzah made her carry forth and show to every one. The whole haramlik frolicked round her in excitement.

Gulbeyzah’s status in the household puzzled her. The Circassian seemed the equal of the ladies, yet was called a slave.

She said to her one day:

“You are as white as I am. How can you bear to be a slave like Wardah or Fatûmah?”

“Not like Wardah or Fatûmah, if you please!” was the superb rejoinder. “They or their fathers were captured in a warlike raid and made to islam, I, God be praised, was born in the Faith. Look!” she cried, and with a splendid gesture bared her bosom. “This is the paste of which they make sultanas. My parents sold me—they were poor—that I might come to honour, as others of the family have done before me.”

“But what chance have you here? Do you expect to captivate the Pasha?”

“God forbid! I never even see him. Here I serve the sweetest of all ladies, who will one day find me a rich husband. It is a famed harîm, and my lady is renowned for goodness and refinement. The greatest in the land would not disdain a fair Circassian girl of her instructing.”

“But do you never miss your freedom? You can form no projects, being, it seems, entirely in the hands of others. Surely your thoughts are not so ruly? You must sometimes dream?”

Gulbeyzah fixed her great eyes on the questioner as though debating whether she were to be trusted. Then, with a smile, she grasped her hand and whispered, “Come!”

She led the English girl across the court where grew the orange trees, down a foul-smelling passage towards the kitchens, and up a flight of stairs into a corridor which served the chambers of the humblest servants. In its wall was a recess with a small window neither barred nor latticed. Here Gulbeyzah stopped.

The reason why that window had been left uncaged was plain, since it looked out upon blind walls and distant housetops. But one small angle of a terraced roof appeared within clear seeing range, and on that angle sat a man. When Gulbeyzah leaned her elbows on the window-sill, he sprang to his feet and made despairing gestures. She watched his antics for a moment, then drew in her head.

“It is a secret, mind!” she cautioned Barakah. “I spent an afternoon here once, when I was sulky, and he was walking on that roof by chance. Ever since then I see him every day. He always sits there. I sign to him to climb up, but I know he cannot.” She laughed scornfully. “I make romances in my mind about him. It is evident he dies of love. He has grown thinner.”

“How cruel! How can you torment him so?”

“He is a man, you understand. One does not feel compassion as one would for girls. Perhaps if he could climb up here I should reward him, but, thanks to God, he cannot, poor young man!”

“But are you not ashamed to think such thoughts—you, the pupil of Murjânah Khânum? So immoral!”

“It is my fancy, there! Morality is not our business. We are strictly guarded. One gets a conscience—what you call a soul—when one has children. How droll you are! You talk just like a man. God knows I love you, and should like to be your durrah.” (The word means colleague in the married state.)

Gulbeyzah flung her arms round Barakah. A sound of footsteps in the passage made them turn and peep.

“It is a eunuch!” the Circassian whispered. “He has been there all the time. He attends you like your shadow, have you noticed? How sweet to be so precious; and so respected, for he keeps his distance!”

Barakah preferred these confidences with Gulbeyzah to the endless fuss and noise about the trousseau. The hive was in commotion over the approaching marriage; angry, Gulbeyzah told her, with the Pasha for his wish to shear the festival of ancient ceremonies regarded as the woman’s right. When approached upon this subject in a crowded conclave, she said that she was anxious to conform to all their customs—an answer which was hailed with cries of triumph.

Mrs. Cameron appeared one afternoon, the Consul’s envoy, to ascertain that all was well with the perverted girl. She was shown to the state-room, and there regaled with tea in glasses and sweet biscuits, in what was thought to be the English manner. The ladies pestered her with eager questions, persisting, despite frank denials, in regarding her as a near and dear relation of the bride. She glanced reproachfully at Barakah from time to time. “You’re quite at home with them, I see,” she said at parting. “It sounds unkind, but I must say I wish you weren’t. It is a fall for any woman bred as you were. How can you put that kohl round your eyes?... Good-bye, my dear, and don’t forget our compact.”

The visit leaving an unpleasant, sad impression, Barakah withdrew to her own room, alleging headache. She was lying on her bed with eyes half closed, endeavouring to lay the ghost of former days, when some one entered without knocking, shut the door with care, and crept towards her. It was a strange old woman. She sidled up with much grimacing; whispered “Yûsuf,” laid her shrivelled cheek upon her hand; “Yûsuf,” again, and smacked her lips delectably; “Yûsuf Bey, thy bridegroom,” and made the motion of embracing with ecstatic grins.

Barakah grew interested. She longed to see the man she was to marry and, fresh from Mrs. Cameron’s reproach, was feeling reckless. She tried to question the old woman, but without result. The crone kept nodding, “Yûsuf Bey” and “Come.” She had brought with her a habbarah and mouth-veil, which Barakah put on by her direction. Then they stole forth, the temptress in high glee.

But they had not made ten steps in the hall before two eunuchs pounced on them and stared into their eyes. One beat the hag, whose screams were frightful. The other, smiling, dragged back Barakah, pushed her inside her room and locked the door.

The meaning of the whole adventure remained dark to her. Gulbeyzah, when informed of it, declared that the old woman could not have been employed by Yûsuf, who was much too honourable and obedient to his father to indulge in such low games. She ascribed the incident to machinations of the lady Fitnah, beheld a plot to lure the English girl to some lone place, there to be ravished if not slain. Barakah laughed at such wild fancies. That Yûsuf’s mother did not like her much was plain to see; she had doubtless cherished other projects for her first-born; but to impute the thought of crime to her was too absurd.

“I bring good news,” Gulbeyzah said to change the subject. “The Pasha has granted us the visit to the bath with you. He has engaged the best musicians and some famous dancers, and all the maidens of good houses are to be invited Oh, what joy!”

CHAPTER VII

The party at the bath with all its ritual was one of the ordeals which Muhammad Pasha had wished to spare the English girl. As a man he hated all the pranks that women play alone, and deemed them of necessity immodest. But the feeling roused in the harîm was too intense for him; and as Barakah, he was told, herself desired the entertainment, he could adduce no cogent reason for refusal. The place in the haramlik being ill adapted to a large assembly, he hired the finest of the public baths for the occasion. The dependants of the household clamouring for a procession through the streets, he gave them one, putting in place of Barakah a humbler bride whose nuptials would be celebrated at his cost.

About the first hour after noon, the bride of Yûsuf left the house, sped by the ululations of the whole harîm. In a carriage with the Pasha’s nieces and Gulbeyzah, she was driven through the streets to the Hammam. There, at the entrance, stood two eunuchs, and in the antechamber many women-servants of the Pasha’s house. The ladies on arrival were conducted to a second ante-room and there divested of all clothing. Each put on a pair of clogs and had her hair tied up in an embroidered kerchief. While they were disrobing, other veiled ones entered who laughed heartily at Barakah’s confusion. The procession of the humbler bride had arrived some minutes since, they were informed.

The elder of the Pasha’s nieces and Gulbeyzah took each a hand of Barakah and led her on from room to room, pausing in each to get accustomed to the growing warmth. Suddenly they came upon a noisy crowd. Two shiny negresses sprang forth, and, singling out the bride, lifted her up and bore her to a corner of the hall, beneath a tap. They flung her on her back. Seeing a razor flash, she uttered shriek on shriek the while they fell to rubbing, making her joints crack, kneading her very bones with their hard fingers. With eyes half blind with soapsuds, she beheld a wreath of naked figures moving round her in a kind of dance. The wall and vaulted ceiling of the building sweated. The windows were high up and gave no light; there entered not a whiff of outer air. A pulse beat at her temples. She felt suffocated.

At last the women stopped their rubbing, and by playful slaps informed her that her turn was ended. Like a sheep from the shearing she rose up, staggering, intent to flee. But she was caught again and made to sit down while her hair was plaited. Then some one—it was Gulbeyzah—grasped her hand and led her to the other end of the great hall, where were two tanks of water gently steaming. The hall presented a strange spectacle, for it was full of naked figures, ebon and mouse-brown, amber and snow-white. Singers, all naked, sat beside one wall, and hummed and droned and shrilled distractingly.

At a call, “The bride!” the whole crowd rushed on Barakah with ululations. Her shame became acute, an agony. Gulbeyzah led her up to one of the tanks. Some one behind administered a push, and she fell in; when some one else sprawled in upon the top of her. Her head was under water for some seconds. Spluttering, indignant, her throat choked with sobs, she found herself among a group of laughing girls, all colours, who were ducking one another as they splashed about. Gulbeyzah cried, “The butterflies! Look! Look!” and pointed to the smooth stone marge, where all the ripples in the light of smoky cressets were reflected like a thousand fluttering moths. The stir subsiding when all stopped to look, the moths united into one great butterfly, dimly perceived, whose wings beat faint and fainter as the water stilled.

“She has eaten them all! Behold, how fat she is!” cried out Gulbeyzah. “I believe she is just going to have some others. Look!” She plunged, and made fresh ripples. Laughter hailed this sally. A brown girl, lissom as a snake, sprang hard on the facetious one and promptly ducked her.

Angry, humiliated, feeling lost eternally, Barakah scrambled out to face a row of grinning, dancing hags. They and the shameless girls, the fiendish music, the sweating walls, the fumes of incense hiding the high roof, combined to make her fancy she was underneath the earth assisting at an orgy of malignant jinn.

Some one smote her from behind. She turned round angrily. A fair-haired girl was running. She ran after her. Another struck her lightly as she ran. She turned again. A third sprang on her, pinioned both her arms and kissed her on the mouth, amid applause. Then first she realized that it was all a game; the girls were friendly. In the magnitude of her relief, her shyness vanished. She soon led the romp. It was one long dancing game of follow-my-leader, varied with moods of hide-and-seek and leapfrog. All the while the singers kept up their wild din, the hired dancers never ceased their weird contortions.

Afterwards, when they were all rubbed down and clothed again, there was a feast of most delicious dainties in the ante-rooms, and Barakah was introduced to her late playfellows, transformed as if by magic to polite young ladies. Every one of them, she found, had brought a present for her. She chattered merrily in French, and ate and drank with appetite unknown before. Driving home in the carriage with three delicately perfumed maidens, whose soft hands caressed her, she experienced a blissful languor, like thanksgiving.

CHAPTER VIII

Meanwhile the anguish of the lady Fitnah had become unbearable. The beating she had received, which kept her silent, was only part of the injustice which prevailed against her. She alone, she had assurance, was vouchsafed clear vision of the horror of this marriage; all the rest were drugged and blinded by the creature’s spells. She had heard of Frankish women, who were barren, holding men entranced for life, thus ending families; and had no doubt at all but this was one of them. A woman of volcanic passions, always righteous, for her to look on evil was to seek to slay it.

She said, “The fiend will suck my Yûsuf’s life out and then vanish.”