“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 Ma sh´Allah! 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 to kill Gulbeyzah’s little girl—“not really hurting her,” he blubbered, “though she shrieked like a dying fowl”—when all at once, without the slightest provocation, a big boy assailed him, flung him down and knelt upon him, pinning his two hands. While he was in that position the ladies of the harîm had come in and reviled him, praising his cruel persecutor as a hero. They had then conveyed him, kicking, to Ghandûr, who, like the beast he was, believed their lies.
“It is no matter, O beloved! Dry thy tears! Never—never shalt thou visit that unfriendly house again,” his mother whispered.
Muhammad hiccuped on a sob, “Wallahi!” and fell again to gnashing of his teeth and moaning.
“See!” murmured Umm ed-Dahak. “See his dauntless spirit! By Allah, it is true, he must be tamed a little.”
That night he cried himself to sleep, and in the morning was snappish and morose, with furtive eyes. About the fourth hour of the day his mother missed him, and having sought through all the house in vain, conceived grave fears. She sent a eunuch to the Pasha’s palace, while Ghandûr cried the tidings through the quarter. Distraught with grief, she ran from room to room in the hottest hours of the day, always expecting to find Muhammad hiding somewhere. At last she sank down on a couch, exhausted.
The third hour after noon, as she was lying thus, Gulbeyzah and her durrahs were announced. They entered with much tragic exclamation. Then the truth was known. Muhammad had repaired that morning to their house and joined the children’s games, appearing friendly. But he was only waiting for his chance of vengeance; for, luring Gulbeyzah’s little girl apart, he stabbed her with a dagger he had got—the Lord knew how!—and cried to her big brother, “Thy account, O tyrant!”