The idea of seeing Mrs. Cameron again was quite intolerable. She therefore wrote that lady a brief note, an asp for venom, designed to terminate acquaintance and to rankle, and plunged into the harÎm pleasures with sensations of defiance.

One morning, as she lounged upon her cushioned window-seat, smoking her narghileh and listening to the voices wafted with the sunlight through her lattice, FatÛmah came and with a grin announced that Hamdi Bey desired an audience of her Honour. She gave the word, and in came Hamdi, knuckling his two eyes.

“O day of pitch!” he cried. “O vile nefarious day! O my beloved sister, hide me, save me! My father has enforced my mother’s harsh command. I am to be married to-day to that unholy child of dogs—against my will. I wished to wait a thousand years. GhandÛr is waiting at this minute to conduct me to the bath.”

As if in confirmation of his words, the voice of GhandÛr shouted in the street without: “Make haste, O Hamdi! Lo, the sun is high! The shadow is already on the stone thou fixedst for a limit when I let thee enter.”

“Thou hearest,” snuffled Hamdi, “how they hound me? He has my wedding garments in a bundle—O my hatred! Guests have been bidden—may their fathers perish! Go to my mother (she will hear thee); plead that I may be allowed a few months’ respite. It is Na’imah who, through her mother, hastens on the match. She would destroy my new-found freedom and torment me.”

Barakah could not help laughing, though she uttered words of comfort. Na’imah was a very pretty girl, she pointed out, and not ill-natured, though a great coquette. He would have none of it, but shook his head with ominous frowns.

“I hate her!” he declared. “And knowest thou? I have a mind to drown myself this morning at the bath.”

Then, as GhandÛr’s calls became insistent, he left the room with slow, reluctant steps.

The wedding was a small affair, the parties being children of one house, and their betrothal (which is legal marriage) having taken place in infancy. The bride, enthroned, showed none of the reluctance felt by Hamdi. A bright-eyed and determined little maiden, she was wreathed in smiles; and when Barakah inquired if she were truly happy, replied, “The praise to Allah!” with decision.

Next day the house was full of smothered laughter. Hamdi was completely changed. He and his bride were now the fondest pair. The lady Fitnah, who had always held that matrimony was a panacea for the crotchets of young people, male and female, rendered praise where praise was due. For many days, through shame, the bridegroom hid from Barakah, and from every one else to whom he had proclaimed his dread of marriage.

When she told Gulbeyzah of the case as of a kind of miracle, the Circassian answered:

“I perceive no cause for wonder. The bridegroom had not thought of her before in that relation, had not truly known her—that is all. Love is a blessing that brings gratitude as surely as the Nile makes plants to grow.”

Gulbeyzah and Bedr-ul-BudÛr—nay, all her friends—viewed love, apart from any individual man, as a material boon. Bred up to it and ripened for it cunningly, they were ready to adore the man who gave it, however unattractive from a European standpoint. This view of love, when realized, explained to Barakah the happiness which every girl of her acquaintance seemed to find in marriage, even where, as in Gulbeyzah’s case, the husband was a greybeard thrice her age. Those who possessed it were content and virtuous. In those who had it not, or were deprived of it, all amorous crime was reckoned pardonable.

Gulbeyzah and Bedr-ul-BudÛr explained all this to Barakah in thrilling tones, as if they uttered truths divine.

“Behold the wisdom of our Faith,” they said, “which grants to every woman this delight in secret. Women can never truly be the friends of men; their soul is different. If thrown with men for long, they feel fatigue. They ask of men one thing—the gift of love. Here we consort with women, true companions, all day long; and in the night the bridegroom comes, and we are blest. Is not this better than the way of Europe, which sets at nought apparent truths—as that most men love more than one of us, whereas most women need but love itself, the hope of children?”

That was one of the occasions when Barakah would have given anything to have an Englishwoman present, and to watch her face. Another came a few days later when she called upon Gulbeyzah. Alighting from her carriage at the palace door, she saw a baby’s coffin being carried out, and thought at once of turning home again. But already smiling eunuchs stood before her bidding welcome, beseeching her to deign to follow them to the haramlik. Gulbeyzah met her with a kiss on either cheek.

“Come, help us to console NasÎbah,” she exclaimed. “Her baby died this night. She is distracted.”

She drew her friend into a chamber where the childless mother lay, face downward, moaning, while the others tried to soothe her.

“It is no matter,” was the burden of their consolations. “It is not as if thou wert left altogether desolate. Are we not one, we four? Thou hast two children left, since ours are thine, and in a day or two Gulbeyzah will present thee with a third, in sh´Allah!”

“In sh´Allah!” cried Gulbeyzah. “And it shall be thine entirely. Directly it is born it shall be sent to thee to nurse. I will forget it. And when it is thy turn again, thou wilt repay me. Is not that a good idea?”

Oh that English people, who regard polygamy as something dreadful, could have witnessed that small scene! The wish, escaping Barakah at unawares, begot a heartache, as she realized that all she saw and heard for their instruction was thwarted of its natural vent for evermore.

She told herself that she was happy in this life; and so she was upon the surface, where she kept her thoughts, not daring to pry down into the depths. In the early days she had desired more knowledge of the Muslim faith, and a woman learned in religion had been hired to teach her. But the fury of that faith, the scathing nature of its truths, appalled her, awaking recollections of a creed more sentimental, with distressing doubts. She very soon gave up her lessons, closed the eyes of her intelligence, and resolutely sought her pleasure in the passing hour.

Still there were moments when vague fears oppressed her. When, in the third year of her marriage, she brought forth a still-born child, frightful abysses seemed to yawn around her, and for days she was afflicted with a kind of nightmare of misgiving, derived from recollection of the “zÂr” and other horrors.

The Eastern ladies were so calm and strong compared with her; they flinched at nothing except impropriety. The slaughter of a thousand sheep at Curban Bairam, turning the kitchen court into a shambles, caused them no disgust. It was ordained of God, they told her, and it fed the poor. They had no horror of disease or death or filthy persons, and, though most cleanly, looked on vermin philosophically. The Turks and the Circassians, with their grand ideals, appeared more dreadful than the Africans, whose faith was childlike. Barakah preferred the latter. Her pleasure was in feasts and little outings, in story-tellers, dancers, and musicians who beguile the time; her only rapture was in adoration of her small Muhammad.

Her hidden yearnings and beliefs clung round the boy. She dwelt in longing for the days when he should be her friend. He was her hope, the product of both parts of her divided life; giving it sense and sequence, and, in the end perhaps, if Allah willed, consistency. She dreamt of a great future for him, to astonish Europe. But in the meanwhile, being sometimes dull, she felt the need of an intelligent, discreet companion.