When Barakah came to herself, she was lying in her bedroom, which was dim and seemed unusually lofty, for her bed was on the floor, and a feeble lamp confined in perforated brass, which gave what light there was, stood down beside it. The pattern of the brass-work, much enlarged, was faintly reproduced on wall and ceiling. She was alone, but from a distance sounds of wailing reached her, and she heard her husband cursing the old woman for neglect of duty.
When she recalled her glee at setting forth that afternoon, the course of subsequent events seemed very cruel. After such misfortunes, consolation was her due; instead of which the house was in commotion, Yûsuf mad. Self-pity overwhelmed her. She was all alone among strange savage beings without sympathy; while those who might have understood and shared her feelings were her enemies. She lay with face down on her pillow, weeping silently.
By and by Yûsuf came into the room. She could tell by his hard breathing he was still enraged. Afraid that he was going to beat her, she lay quiet, as though still unconscious; but in a little while a sob betrayed her. Then his wrath descended. French deserting him, he raved at her in Arabic and Turkish; and her inability to catch his meaning made him angrier. She lay in terror, crying bitterly, replying to such questions as she understood, until his fury sank to lamentation and his French returned.
“My honour!” was his cry. “You have betrayed my honour in thus going forth alone. The servants of the English house who know you will send a whisper and a laugh through all the markets. And those who saw you walking in the dust!... Have you no shame, no delicacy? What will my father say? The news will kill him! You have killed my father!”
“You do not think of me at all,” sobbed Barakah. “Here have I been insulted, scared to death by your vile people, and you scold me! I wish that I had never seen you. I am so unhappy! In England people would be punished for the things you do. Those horrible men and women who attacked me——”
“May Allah burn them, every one!” cried Yûsuf in fierce Arabic. “Gladly would I pluck out all their tongues! They witnessed the dishonour of my name, and will relate it.”
The wrangle lasted far into the night. At last, however, Yûsuf’s tone relented; they embraced, and he demanded the whole history of her ill-starred visit. But when he heard that men had been in the same room with her, his wrath redoubled. He beat his breast, he gnashed his teeth, he slapped her face, he paced the room denouncing her depravity.
“You are a brute!” she cried hysterically. “What harm if men were present? They did not come near me. I am not like your women—bred up to think of one thing only. Nor are Englishmen like you; they have respect for women. You are mad.”
Yûsuf was really mad, or seemed so, at that moment. He called her evil names in every tongue of which he had a smattering; and then in French, made childish by his rage, accused all Europeans of disgusting conduct.
“You deny it—hein? You are a liar, for the fact is known. We are not ignorant; we travel, and we have their books. What say you of their balls, their public dances, where women—nay, young virgins—choose what man they please, deserting husband or fiancé—empty names!—and dance and afterwards retire with him? The fact is known! The race is shameless—may God punish them! It is forbidden for us to cast up former things in marriage; but for the future I command you to forsake their filthiness. Go once again, and we shall know you worthless! Swear to renounce their company, or I will kill you!”