“A rare place, by Allah!—full to the brim of education and refinement. It is there that one acquires the latest mode and learns to view all creatures with fastidious eyes. In Paris people would be angered at the ignorance which prevails even among our greatest learned men. Thou too shouldst go to Paris, O my dear!”

Thus HÂfiz Bey at Alexandria, to a relative who came on board to welcome him. Barakah was much amused to overhear him, as also YÛsuf vaunting Paris to GhandÛr; who, weeping all the time and sighing “Praise to Allah!” heard not a word of what his lord was pleased to say. Great was the joy of seeing Egypt once again. Even for the girls, it wiped out all unpleasantness, making a plaintive tone impossible.

Shrouded once more in habbarah and face-veil, they stood and watched the crowd of buildings faint with sunshine, seeming diaphanous between the sapphire sky and a blue sea that looked opaque as lapis lazuli. A gaily coloured people thronged the quays and crossed the harbour in innumerable little boats. A din as rousing as a clarion call, composed of many simple noises, filled the sunlight. The girls, exhilarated, danced on tiptoe as they waited for the word to go ashore. They chattered like small birds, inconsequently, and every minute interjected “Praise to Allah!” Barakah inclined to silence, though she shared their rapture.

The face-veil, which she had not worn for many weeks, seemed strange at first. It gave the sense of prying and slight mischief one has in peeping over a forbidden wall. Her eyes above it seemed more penetrating. She turned them from the crowd on shore to follow YÛsuf’s movements. He was now himself again, correct and dignified, commanding as of right, entirely rehabilitated in her good opinion. It seemed to her that the contempt she had so lately felt for him was undeserved. Sinking in a strange element, he had lost his head and for a moment clung to her. The case had been her own at first in Egypt. A minute previous she had said good-bye to HÂfiz, Izz-ud-dÎn, and SaÏd. It was curious to know that though they would be dwelling near her in the city, meeting YÛsuf daily, she would very likely never see them in this world again. But the prospect did not sadden her at all. Shade and seclusion seemed just then the highest good.

Having spoken their polite farewells, YÛsuf and his companions took no further notice of the group of veiled ones. GhandÛr had been deputed to look after them. He ushered them on shore, and sat beside the driver of the carriage which conveyed them to the railway station, praising Allah all the while and weeping tears of joy. In Barakah’s absence, he declared repeatedly, there had been no breeze in Egypt nor any spot of shade for man’s repose. He found them their reserved compartment in the train, and supplied their many needs, procuring sweets, chickpease, pistachio nuts, and hard-boiled eggs from venders on the platform, as well as two large porous jars of drinking-water. The girls asked Allah to take note how good he was, and called him brother.

The dazzle and intoxication of great light remained with them even when the door was shut and they were in warm shade. The sunlight here was not like that of Paris, a thing to stare at, but a blinding glory. It danced in flakes of all the colours of the rainbow, making the buildings and the people pale and ghostlike. The very heat which soon reigned in their moving box, the very dust which drifted through its shutters, were welcome, being heat and dust of Egypt; and at the stations, when familiar cries were heard, the speech of true believers built upon the name of Allah, the girls could not contain their sentiments, but bounced upon the seats and shrieked for joy.

“Hear what I am going to do, by Allah’s leave,” cried Bedr. “Immediately on my arrival at the palace, before seeing any one, I shall go to the hammÂm and make our old bellÂnah scrub and knead me till every vestige of the dust of Paris is abolished. Then she shall dye my hands and feet with henna and shall kohl my eyes and eyebrows,—if we had not been forbidden to take kohl to Paris, our men would not have left us as they did,—and then I shall stretch myself like a sleek cat and looking at my pretty hennaed toes, shall say, ‘I seek refuge in Allah from the abomination of the infidels.’ That done, and being dressed in my most splendid robes, I shall present myself before my ladies, and shall lie to them; declaring that I was most happy there in Paris, that HÂfiz Bey refused to leave me for a single instant. The ladies will not doubt me, seeing my great beauty, and HÂfiz Bey, you may be sure, will not deny my story. Thus shall I gain more favour in his eyes, and make his wife—the proud one!—wish that she had gone instead of me. What say you?”

“By Allah, we will do the same in all respects!” her companions cried delightedly. “But what of Barakah? Promise, O Barakah, to hide the truth from the harÎm!”

Barakah promised; when they made her swear to love them always, though they were but slave-girls and she a dignified and noble lady, for the sake of the misfortunes they had borne together. They all clung round her when the train reached Cairo. The door of their compartment was flung open by SawwÂb in person, grinning welcome, with other eunuchs close behind him on the platform.

SawwÂb conducted Barakah with honour to the harÎm carriage, entering which she was hugged breathless by the lady Fitnah, while Leylah KhÂnum and her daughters started chattering, telling her all the news at once and in a single breath.

Gulbeyzah had been married a whole month. She was absent in the country with her lord’s whole house, but would return, it was expected, in a week or two. Had Barakah heard in Europe—no doubt she had—that the Sea Canal was to be opened in the coming year, with great festivities?—the King and Queen of France were coming, it was rumoured. MurjÂnah KhÂnum had been far from well. That was why she had not come to welcome Barakah, to whom she sent her warmest salutations. Barakah was not going to the garden-house this time, but to the Pasha’s palace, to remain with them, the praise to Allah! Fitnah herself had seen the rooms cleaned out and perfumed. One of the blacks, Zamurrudah, was dead, the Lord have mercy on her! The old striped cat had kittens, lucky one! The Pasha’s nieces were quite positive about the fact, though no one had been able to find out their hiding-place.

As Barakah, caressed by all of them, received this outpour, her feeling of home-coming was complete. And when she came to her own gilded salon—the same where she had sipped the poison which seemed now a dream—there was a slave-girl of MurjÂnah KhÂnum’s waiting to conduct her to the bath, with a present of rare flowers and fruit, and a robe of honour which she was to don, when she had rested, for supper in MurjÂnah KhÂnum’s rooms, where all the ladies were invited to meet her.

The ladies, having voided their own news, desired a full account of Paris and her doings. “In sh´Allah, thou wast happy there!” they all exclaimed. When she replied, “My happiness is here with you,” the answer gave unbounded satisfaction. From their remarks she learnt, to her no small amazement, that HÂfiz Bey was the son of her old friend AminÂh KhÂnum.

“Thou didst not know?” they cried. “How can that be? And Bedr-ul-BudÛr—surely thou hast heard of her—the slave whose beauty the Princess was always vaunting? It is very strange!”

The placid gossip and the shaded calm existence were delightful after months of agitation. Barakah fell into the harÎm habits with enthusiasm, devouring sweetstuff at all hours, enjoying cigarettes and the narghileh. The best part of her morning was spent at the bath, where the ladies met for gossip and for healthful exercise; her afternoon in seeing visitors or paying visits. Gulbeyzah came to see her, radiating gladness, extolling not her husband but her fellow-wives.

“We spend such merry days together,” she informed her friend. “Oh, how much better than to be an only wife!”

When Barakah returned the visit, she was received by the four durrahs with one voice of welcome. The four together formed a charming small society, quite independent of the husband’s humours and the outside world. All their possessions they enjoyed in common, even children. Barakah was begged to come and see them often, and to love them all.

She would have been completely happy in those days but for embarrassment arising from a secret which she longed yet feared to tell. She was with child. Suspicion grew to certainty and still she put off the announcement, dreading the outcry of these candid women and the harÎm ceremonies. It slipped from her by accident, one afternoon, and the fuss they made proved even worse than expectation.

AmÎnah KhÂnum brought Bedr-ul-BudÛr to see her, saying:

“This girl of mine has news to tell you.”

The old Princess herself proclaimed the news with praise to Allah. A flush suffused the listener from head to foot.

“I too——” she murmured, and then stopped in great confusion. AmÎnah KhÂnum pounced on her with eager questions. Bedr-ul-BudÛr knelt down before her in an ecstasy.

“Thou, too, art blest? And thou hast kept it secret all this while?” the Princess cried. “O Bedr, go and beg the lady Fitnah to come hither instantly!”

“No, no!” entreated Barakah, distraught with shame.

“Yes, yes!” replied the other, scoffing at her. “Is this the famed false modesty of England? Praise God Most High that thou art fruitful, praise Him loudly!”

The joy of Fitnah KhÂnum passed all bounds. She sent a messenger at once to YÛsuf, another to the Pasha, with the tidings. The Pasha came at once to pay his compliments to Barakah. YÛsuf came later, having thought it necessary to circulate the happy news among his friends. GhandÛr, who, as the water-carrier of the apartment, sat always in the alley, underneath the lady’s lattice, was heard intoning a loud song of triumph, three parts prayer, of which each verse concluded with: “Twin boys, in sh´Allah!”

Joy-shrieks resounded; the whole household smiled; her friends thronged round her, informed of her good luck as if by miracle, for black-shrouded newsbearers were ever flitting by shadowed walls, along the edge of crowded markets, linking the great harÎms in one society, and what was done in one was known in all. And Barakah alone saw any call for shame or reticence.

From that day forth she was the idol of her little world, her every want forestalled by warm solicitude. MurjÂnah KhÂnum talked to her in a religious strain; Fitnah, more homely, prepared dainties for her; the Pasha’s sister came and told her stories. The very children talked aloud of her condition, and hailed it as a blessing to the house.

She had a good excuse for shunning the festivities which took place on the arrival of the Emperor of the French in Cairo; though her husband was employed in the reception, and all the ladies were agog to see the Empress. She wished to be entirely Oriental. Frankish talk disgusted her. Any reminder that the Europeans still existed was annoying; how much more to hear them vaunted by her Eastern friends. YÛsuf himself made fun of her fanaticism. The women humoured her conceit with knowing smiles.

Gulbeyzah and Bedr-ul-BudÛr, both in the same condition, were her constant visitors. AmÎnah KhÂnum gave advice in her brusque way, and as the Englishwoman’s time drew near, did more for her protection than she knew of in her illness; impressing on Muhammad Pasha through MurjÂnah the necessity of calling in a Frankish doctor, and herself procuring from the Mufti the religious judgment which stilled the angry outcry of the harÎm midwives.

The hour of trial came at length—an anguish worse than death, succeeded by a happiness as calm as heaven. From the cries of jubilation filling all the house, from the blessings showered on her within the chamber, she knew that she had borne a son. She saw the blue of evening at the lattice, heard the murmur of the tired city like a voice of waters, and, lulled by vast contentment, fell asleep.