Ghandûr, the simple creature, was in tears.
“By Allah, I will think about it,” murmured Yûsuf.
Five minutes later he repaired to his son’s room, revived the lad, and passing thence to the haremlik, told Barakah that her request was granted. She was half stunned, for she had counted on his obduracy.
Not noticing her dazed condition, for his mind ran still on puzzles of diplomacy, he added:
“Thou, who art English, O my sweet one, inform me of that nation! Are they harsh as conquerors? What is their custom with regard to vengeance? Do they burn and ravish, or merely punish those who have borne arms against them? It is important I should know beforehand if they win the day.”
Barakah stared at him vaguely for a moment; then bursting into tears, exclaimed:
“Cut short thy life! O most unfeeling father! O appalling prospect! I would sooner die a thousand deaths than see them conquer.”
“Merciful Allah, are they so fanatical?” gasped Yûsuf, with a face of great dismay. “I meant not to alarm thee, O beloved. I was thinking only of myself, how to behave in case things happened so, which God forbid!”
But Barakah thought only of their son.
XXXI
“A splendid victory at Kafr ed-Dowâr! A thousand infidels dispatched to Hell, and not a single blessed martyr gone to Paradise!” cried Umm ed-Dahak, entering her lady’s presence on a summer evening. “Ghandûr has got the news-sheet, and craves leave to read it to thee.”
The lady ordered him to be admitted instantly. Muhammad and his servant Ali were at Kafr ed-Dowâr. Drawing her head-veil so as to leave one eye visible, she listened to the short triumphant notice, which began and ended with “the praise to Allah!”
“The praise to Allah truly!” she suspired. “Not one was killed.”
Ghandûr assured her then, as he had done a score of times, that Muhammad, with the blessing of the Highest, ran no danger. By arrangement with the leaders he was kept at work in the trenched camp, away from fighting. But her anxiety was not allayed, her boy was venturesome and, burning as he was to fight, might break through rules.
Every evening in Arâbi’s journal there was news of some fresh triumph, either at Kafr ed-Dowâr, by Alexandria, or on the banks of the Canal, where the main force of the English was now operating. She heard it said on all hands that the war would soon be over. Yet, though everyone abounded in exultant phrases, no single soul appeared exceptionally cheerful; and she herself did not disguise her sorrow. The absence of Muhammad was a constant pain. She gave attention to her little daughter fitfully.
The weather was intensely hot, the town a desert full of dismal noises. So many men had been compelled to join the army, so many beasts of burden had been pressed for transport purposes, that trade was paralysed and traffic almost ceased. When she drove out, the aspect of the streets dismayed her; it was as if the city had been ravaged by a pestilence. The European, Syrian, Armenian quarters were utterly deserted, all the houses closed; and elsewhere there was very little movement. In other summers the harem had gone into the country, and Barakah would gladly have drawn nearer to the seat of war; but her husband vetoed the proposal instantly, the country districts were unsafe and overrun by brigands. Yûsuf was irritable in those days. He had his bed in the selamlik and seldom could spare time to visit Barakah.
“I believe he has another woman somewhere,” she told Umm ed-Dahak in a hopeless tone.
“It is his right, by Allah,” answered the old woman; “and no slight to thee, if thou wouldst view it fairly, and throw aside the silly fiction of the Franks. It is the nature of a man to have more wives than one, and a woman should no more resent his doing so—always provided he does not defraud her—than blame a cat for having several kittens at a birth. Ibrahîm, the father of the faithful, Mûsa—all the prophets till the crown of them (God bless and save him) married more than one. Polygamy was in the customs of the Jews and Christians until they fell away from El Islam. Nay, a remembrance of it still exists among the Franks. For do not their religious women dwell together in one house, obedient to a rule like ours, attired like us, and call themselves—I ask pardon of the Lord—Harem Allah (the wives of God)? Rank blasphemy, by Allah! Yet it shows that the old rule is not entirely lost.”
Barakah was too disconsolate to be contentious. Let Muhammad but return to her in safety and she would not care though Yûsuf took a thousand wives; but in his absence everything seemed grievous.
A real sorrow overhung the house of Yûsuf; for the old Pasha was fast sinking to the grave. Hamdi, the hot disciple of Arâbi, the poet of rebellion, author of the famous calls to patriotism which were printed every week in the official journal, was bowed down by grief. He thought his siding with the malcontents had killed his father.
“But what was I to do?” he asked of Barakah, to whom, as an old friend, he took his troubles. “Their cries had fired my spirit. I could not keep silent. Na’imah tells me not to worry, yet I feel most guilty.”
Yûsuf, too, was downcast and repentant.
“We have been like fools,” he sighed, “wasting in vanity the precious hours we might have spent with him—as if we thought that he would live forever. Now the end draws near, we can but beat our breasts and curse our folly.”
When Barakah went to the old palace to inquire, she was struck by the
