She strove to smile.
Her resolution was to leave her husband and her little daughter, the comfortable house, the easy life, to stray alone and homeless, back to Christian lands. There she would enter some religious order, and spend the residue of life in prayer for Muslims.
Every one was kind. The tender sympathy of Yûsuf, though himself hard stricken, might well have won her heart had she possessed one. Her heart was dead and buried in the grave. The ladies and her servants tried at first to cheer her; but when they found their efforts useless, let her be. Only Umm ed-Dahak remained with her constantly. Discreet as ever, she kept silence for long hours, watching her mistress with a doleful mow. They thought her too depressed to take a step unaided, had not the least suspicion of her wish to flee. It was, besides, a time of national anxiety, when every one who could went out to seek the news, and those imprisoned listened to the noises of the street.
One day, in the full heat of noon, when men are sleepy, she sent out the old woman on an errand; and went and kissed her child, Afîfah, who was fast asleep. Then, having made sure that the slave-girls were not moving, she returned to her own room and donned a common habbarah, which she had sometimes worn when she went out with Umm ed-Dahak. From the store of money Yûsuf had entrusted to her she took sufficient to defray her fare to France, and hung it in a bag around her neck.
Thus furnished, she stole out through the selamlik hall. No eunuch challenged; the doorkeeper was snoring on his couch within the entry. Beside him lay the best part of a water-melon.
CHAPTER XXXIV
Barakah had not made many steps outside the house before she was completely lost. Although for sixteen years her home had been in Cairo, she had never walked in the streets before. Which was the way? She could not tell, but went on bravely, hoping for some guide. At last she met a donkey-driver with a pleasant face. In answer to her timid hail, he smiled delighted and praised his Maker for the honour of her patronage. “To the railway station,” she enjoined at mounting, and he answered “Ready!”
Away they went, arousing echoes in the stony alleys, the driver shouting as he ran beside the ambling beast. Barakah felt exhilarated by the change of motion, the little spice of danger when they dashed round corners, or charged some group of wayfarers with warning cries. The first stage of her flight would soon be over; and once on board the train, she thought, escape was sure.