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.
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 harem; 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 Islam, 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
