“By Allah, wild beasts! Human beings are more sensitive. How can they love Nature who approve her in most horrid mood? It is evident that God Most High designed such scenes for a warning and a menace, to be shunned. Yet these applaud. They are utterly devoid of feeling. May Our Lord destroy them!”
A prey to panic, he no longer heard her arguments. His one desire was to rejoin his friends as soon as might be, to see once more the visage of a true believer; and two days later they were back in Paris.
Barakah’s return was hailed with rapture by the hapless girls, who had not ventured out of doors during her absence. Things, they declared, were even worse than ere she left, their men more shameless. Yûsuf had sworn beforehand to discountenance nocturnal outings, and for the first two days he kept his word; though Hâfiz and the others begged her to release him from it, protesting that their occupations were most innocent. Indeed, their childlike zest in evil-doing so resembled innocence that she felt cruel when refusing, as if denying babies some small pleasure. But on the third day Yûsuf came to her, with worried frown, and said:
“Hâfiz and the rest, I fear, are going much too far. I feel responsible for them, since we are all one party. They do not tell me all their pranks. I have been thinking. It is my duty to be with them and restrain their conduct.”
“Do what thou judgest right and God preserve thee!” answered Barakah, with a point of irony which he did not perceive.
“My conscience is relieved,” he cried. “I thank thee. God knows how it has troubled me since our return.”
That evening he departed with his friends, leaving Barakah to hear the lamentations of the girls.
“They are all bewitched,” cried Bedr. “Hâfiz is by nature pious. Even now he names the Name of Allah when he opens any door and curses the religion of the infidels when passing by their idols in the streets and squares. Our Lord preserve his life! Each night I see him dead in some disgraceful haunt, his house dishonoured. Oh that I knew a good magician, a true believer, in this land of mangy dogs!”
Their fears, against her will, infected Barakah; during the long night-watches they became a sickness, and when day broke again they seemed confirmed. Yûsuf had not returned. She went to Bedr-ul-Budûr and found her in the same anxiety. They sat together, wondering what to do. Grey light at the window, raindrops coursing down the panes, made anguish visible.
At length, when eight o’clock had struck, there came a note for Barakah. It was in French, and from the exiled Prince, the revolutionary. It bade her have no fear; her husband would be with her in an hour, when the writer hoped, with her permission, to present his compliments in person and explain the case. The other girls had come by that time from their lodgings to get strength from Barakah. Conjecture ravened round the simple statement in the letter. At ten o’clock the Prince sent up his card; the three girls fled across the passage just in time to avoid encountering the visitor, who led into the room the errant youths. The Prince, a lean, ascetic-looking man, with boyish eyes, bowed low to Barakah.