Arousiag was secretly Christian still. But she did not hope ever to escape from the harem. She told me Hadji Ghafour kept Armenian girls only until he had tired of them or until prettier ones were available. Then he sent them to his friends, or to be sold to Turkish farmers. She had tried to please him, so she would not be sold into an even worse state, for sometimes a girl who falls into the slave market will be sold into a public house for soldiers and zaptiehs.
On the evening of the fifth day my heart sank and my knees grew weak when a little negro slave girl came to tell me Hadji Ghafour had sent for me.
The servant women gathered around me, each professing not to understand why I was not elated. Only when my tears fell did they cease their jesting at the arrival—“at last,” they said, of the hour of my supreme torture—my “good fortune” they called it.
While I was being dressed I closed my eyes and prayed—not to be saved, for that was too late, but for strength and for the joy of knowing that God would be watching over me. One of the harem women walked with me down the narrow corridor and through the door I had not passed since I left Hadji Ghafour’s presence five days before.
The lights of many lamps glowed in the room. Just inside the door the big negro was waiting. Across, on his cushions, with his nargilleh on the floor beside him, sat Hadji Ghafour. His eyes were full upon me when I stopped at the sound of the door closing behind me.
He motioned for me to approach and sit upon a cushion at his feet. Involuntarily I shrank back and threw my hands before my eyes. An instant later I felt the negro’s hand gripping my arm. I tried to hold back and I tried to gather courage to go forward—I knew my hopes of a happier future depended upon my submission.
The negro tightened his grip. Under his breath he murmured, “Be a good little one. You will be the better for it.” I could not look up, but I went and sat upon the cushion at Hadji Ghafour’s feet!
It is needless to say more of that terrible night!
To Arousiag I confided the next day that I must, somehow, escape from Hadji Ghafour’s house. To remain meant more tortures and lessened such chance as there might be that I would find my mother at Diyarbekir, where refugees with money were allowed by the Vali to remain just outside the city—provided they paid liberally for the privilege. When their money was gone they were sent away with other exiles into the Syrian desert.
I had tried to coax Hadji Ghafour to send messengers to Diyarbekir to rescue my family if they could be found there, or to learn what had become of them. He would not grant me this favor. “You are a Turkish girl now,” he said, “and you must forget all past associations with unbelievers.”