“And then the eunuchs! They will surely beat thee.”
“By Allah, they must catch me first. Sawwâb adores me, and the others are too slow.”
“Good. Run, ere curiosity consume me!”
The little negress shot off like an arrow. Down dark, malodorous stairs, through empty corridors, she glanced, incarnate mischief. In a pleasure court of the harîm, where orange trees in tubs grew round a pool, she stopped to listen for the voice of Fitnah. It came from an apartment on her right. Straight forward, where she wished to go, the coast seemed clear. Springing on tiptoe, she plucked a spray of blossom from the nearest tree; then ran on down a passage through the ornate screen, the boundary of the women’s quarters, where a eunuch tried in fun to stop her; and in sight of a great hall where men were lounging, knocked at a door.
The word had scarce been given ere she glided in and held out the sprig of orange-blossom to the English governess, with every muscle of her body fawning, smiling. Without a look, she read the stranger’s face, perceived she had been crying lately but now looked exultant, observed the order of the room, the foreign furniture; and then, before the Englishwoman could find words to thank her for the pretty offering, kissed a white hand which proved as hot as fire, and darted out as noiselessly as she had entered.
As she was flitting back across the garden-court, she heard a male voice cry:
“Be silent, woman; or, by the Prophet, I shall have to beat thee!”
Crouching behind a tub, she listened eagerly. But though a wrangle was in progress not far off between the Pasha and his wife, the lady Fitnah, she could glean no more than the main tenor of it from the voices, of which the man’s was irritated and the woman’s mad.
At last the Pasha shouted: