Yet Isha was not ignorant of the love the Bedouin bore her, as he had a sister named Emineh, who was a kind of companion and attendant of the former, and went between the lovers as carefully and subtly as any old Khatbeh, or betrother in the Abdin quarter in Cairo in the present hour—thus freely bouquets, symbolically arranged—the simple and beautiful love-letters of Oriental life, were exchanged between them through the kind agency of Emineh.
Sheikh Moussa loved his brilliant little daughter, but he loved money more; and when a caravan, under an old business friend of his named Ebn al Ajuz (or 'the son of the old woman,' obtained by his mother's prayers in the mosque of Hassan at Cairo) passed en route from Darfour for the capital and Assiout, laden with ivory, gum, and slaves—chiefly women and girls, the dealer, having heard of the beauty of Isha, applied to the Skeikh, and made him an offer which, as both were in the trade, he found himself—filial regard and affection apart—bound to consider.
Moussa, to do him justice, had no great inclination to sell his daughter, the light of his household, though he had remorselessly sold the daughters of others by the thousand; yet he was curious to know her value, as prices had gone down even before the arrival of Gordon at Khartoum, especially when Ebn al Ajuz spoke of the sum he was prepared to give, and that the purse-holder was no other than that generally supposed misogynist, the Khedive himself.
He introduced the merchant to her apartments in order to show her merits and discover the price, of which he could judge, however, by his own business experience.
Her rooms, covered with soft carpets, having luxurious divans, decorated ceilings, and tiled floors, with beautiful brackets supporting finely wrought vessels, and having large windows of lattice work, others of stained glass, representing floral objects, bouquets, and peacocks, Arabic inscriptions and maxims written in letters of gold and green, received no attention from the turbaned and bearded slave-dealer, whose attention was at once arrested by Isha, who had been clad, she knew not why, in her richest apparel, with her eyebrows needlessly blackened and her nails reddened by henna.
Ebn al Ajuz, whom long custom had rendered a dispassionate judge of beauty in all its stages, from the fairest Circassian with golden hair to the dark and full-lipped woman of Nubia, was struck with astonishment by the many attractions of the half-Greek girl.
'Allah Kerim!' he exclaimed. 'With her face, form, and entire appearance I have not the slightest fault to find,' he frankly acknowledged; 'every motion, every attitude, every feature display the most beautiful grace, symmetry, and proportion. Allah! she should be named Ayesha, after the perfect wife of the prophet!'
On hearing this a blush burned in the face of the girl, and she pulled down her yashmac or veil.
The merchant pressed Moussa to name her price, as they sat over their pipes and coffee; and so greatly did avarice exceed affection, that Moussa, who—said the writer in the Mubashir—it was thought would not have exchanged his daughter for the Emerald Mountain itself, was so dazzled by the offer made that he agreed to sell her, and preparations even were at once made for her departure, despite her tears, her entreaties, and her despair.
Khasim Jelalodeen was filled with grief and consternation. Oh for Jinn or Efrits, the spirits born of fire, to aid him!