Finally, ere saying farewell, the old man with extended hands presented the apple to the boy, who gladly accepted it, and proposed eating it at once. The mullah, taking a penknife from his inner pocket, peeled the apple, and returned it on the point of the knife to the young prince, who, boylike, grasped it eagerly. In taking the apple the point of the knife pricked the finger of the lad, with the result that blood poisoning set in, and in a short time the beautiful boy lay dead. The mullah in his sorrow wept aloud, and as he wept he awoke. With humble heart and head bowed in submission, he gave glory to Allah.
On the day appointed the two men returned to hear the verdict of the wise mullah. He received them kindly, but sorrowfully, assuring them that it made not the slightest difference whether they walked under the ladder or not.
“For,” said the old man, “if it is written that you are to be killed by a ladder falling upon you, it must be so, you cannot escape. What Allah has written must be fulfilled. His designs cannot be frustrated.”
This doctrine, taught to the old mullah by means of his dream, is very prominent in the minds of all Moslems to-day.
When in Persia we had an Indian servant who was a Mohammedan. He told us that three times on successive nights our Lord had appeared to him in a dream, in the form of an old man with a long white beard. So struck was he with the persistency of the dream, that he went to an English clergyman, asking to be taught the Christian religion.
The women in Mosul have often told me of wonderful things which they declared were going to happen to me, as had been revealed to them in dreams. Even now I receive letters from some of these women in which they say, “We see you every night in our dreams.”
The first women in-patients in our so-called hospital in Mosul had to be content with a kind of outhouse for their ward. The only place we could find for them which would be hareem was a large room which we used as a wood-house. This my husband had whitewashed and thoroughly cleansed and disinfected. The first unfortunate woman to be put in this ward (?) was a very quiet, gentle Moslem woman, who came for an operation. Her mother came with her to look after her, and these two were alone in their none too comfortable quarters.
Two or three days after the operation, these women declared that in the night a huge form of dragon-like appearance rose from the ground at their side!
Some weeks later this ward was occupied by a little Jewish girl who had been terribly burnt, her mother and grandmother looking after her. There were also two or three other women in the ward. One morning very early, word was brought to us that all the inmates of that room had been terribly frightened in the night. On going out to see what had happened, we found them all lying in the passage, having carried their bedding out of the room. They were looking very unhappy and frightened, and requested to be allowed to leave the hospital at once, saying they would not pass another night in that awful place. Then they all began to recount their experiences of the night at the same time, so it was with great difficulty we could find out what really had happened. It seems that soon after midnight they were talking to one another, when suddenly they saw two soldiers sitting on the edge of their bedsteads. Terribly alarmed, they asked the men however they came to be there—did they not know it was “hareem”? At first the soldiers remained silent, but afterwards told the women that they had come from a village about twelve miles off. That they had been told in a dream to come to the beit hakeem Engelisi (house of the English doctor). In obedience to this command they had come. Then, as suddenly as they had arrived, they disappeared. The women, of course, were all fearfully alarmed, some believing that they were real soldiers, others that they were genii in the form of soldiers. They immediately left the room, carrying their bedding with them, and spent the rest of the night in fear and trembling. The next morning we made a very careful examination of the roof, to see if by any possible means soldiers could have entered our compound. We found that next door was the house of the head of the soldiers, and it was possible that some of his guard might have found their way over the walls and down to our house.
Nothing, however, was ever proved; but no one could ever be induced to use that room again, the women declaring that it was haunted by evil spirits. Finally, we made it into a hen-house; but the fowls and turkeys all sickened and died, so there evidently was something very wrong with the atmosphere of that room! Our first attempt at a women’s ward was certainly a failure, but “it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good,” and so good came out of this evil. As the women would not use the haunted (?) room, other accommodation had to be found, so we gave up our house for them, while we moved into the one next door—the room which was neither good for human beings nor for feathered fowls being now used as a wood-house.