Barakah clapped her hands and, when a slave appeared, gave order for Muhammad to be brought. He came in presently, escorted by his foster-mother, who stood and watched his progress to the dais with loving smiles. He was in docile mood, and Barakah detained him, giving the wife of Ghandûr leave to go.
“What fault is there to find in his behaviour?” she inquired in French, with arch defiance of the Pasha.
“None in the world,” he made reply, with vast politeness, “except that he has not kissed hands, nor waited your permission to sit down with us.”
“Absurd!” laughed Barakah.
“Absurd, in verity, like many of our customs. Only, my cherished daughter, he is one of us and must observe them. If you refuse to teach him the behaviour which we consider fitting for young children, I announce with deep regret that we must take him from you.”
Barakah gasped. She looked for signs of jesting; but the Pasha’s visage, though urbane, was serious.
“It has been told me,” he continued very gravely, “that this boy, when angry, kicks and curses his own mother. That is, for us others, a most dreadful crime, apart from the regard in which I hold you personally. My grandson must not be brought up to shame our house; the authority of the family must be exerted to avert dishonour. In fact, dear madame, if you will not punish him, he must be given for a while to someone who will do so.”
“But it is unheard of!” cried the mother wildly. “How can you think of such abominable cruelty? He is my child. My right to him exists in nature.”
“And is inalienable,” said the Pasha, with a splendid bow. “No one else can ever bear him, but someone else will have to educate him, since madame refuses.”
“I am an Englishwoman. I shall complain to my Consul.”
“Believe me, dear madame, he will not listen. Your son is a Turkish subject; we inhabit Egypt; and in a case of this sort we allow no interference. The English are a race distinguished for intelligence and force of character; I beg you to display those qualities on this occasion.”
He left her in hysterics, clinging fiercely to her boy.
XXVII
No sooner was the Pasha gone than Umm ed-Dahak crept back softly to her mistress and cooed of consolation in her ear. Muhammad, who had started howling out of sympathy, she told to go and play with Ghandûr’s son.
“By Allah, it is all my fault, not thine,” she whispered. “I ought to have foreseen this grief and warned thee. Vex not thy soul at all! It is no matter! Praise be to Allah, we can change our policy. Tomorrow thou wilt beat thy son a little, and all the world will praise thy management.”
But the mother’s tears were flowing less from sense of guilt than for the helplessness, the lack of energy, which she discovered in herself at such a crisis. The call to make an effort paralysed her; she hung on Umm ed-Dahak like a frightened child, agreeing with loud sobs to the old woman’s statement that on the morrow they would make a new beginning.
That afternoon the little boy had been invited to Gulbeyzah’s house. His mother being too unwell to bear him company, he started off on foot in the custody of Ghandûr. Barakah adjured him to be very good and mind his manners, on which he kissed her with a most angelic smile.
“See how obedient and how good he is!” she wailed, her anguish breaking out afresh when he was gone. “How can they say he is not well brought up?”
“Without a doubt they have been misinformed,” cooed Umm ed-Dahak. “They have mistaken some exceptional disorder for his general conduct Mashallah! With but a touch of discipline, a very little teaching of good manners, thou wilt make him glorious, a pattern to all other children of this age.”
But Muhammad, who had set forth as an angel, returned a little devil, in a sullen rage. He would not speak a word, refused all nourishment, and sat aloof with frowning brows and gnashing teeth. Ghandûr, who brought him home, had sent in word that he had been a naughty boy and needed punishment. So Ghandûr also was his mother’s enemy.
Muhammad struck at all the women who came near him. He swore by the Most High to ravish every one of them, to tear their eyes out and cut off their hands and feet. The servants laughed at his ferocious impotence, which made things worse. When his mother came and knelt beside him, he at first repelled her; but after half an hour’s incessant coaxing she elicited his cause of grief.
He had been pretending in his play
