Zara was already a widow with two beautiful children! Her first husband, to whom she had been married without her inclination being consulted, had been strangled.
It was afterwards proved that he was innocent of the crime for which he had suffered, but that gave very little pain to the consciences of those who had strangled him, partly because their consciences were callous, and partly because they regarded the event as one of the decrees of “Fate.”
After his death it became necessary that another husband should be found for Zara. She, poor creature, would have been thankful to have remained in a state of widowed felicity; but this was not deemed proper by her wealthy relatives. Of course it was not difficult to find a suitor where a pretty girl was the hook, and a large dower the bait. Sidi Omar came forward, and all the relatives said that it was an excellent match—all save one, Zara’s eldest sister, Hanyfa.
Hanyfa was—to speak plainly—a bad girl. She was one of the wives of a great officer of state—in other words, a particularly noted pirate—named Sidi Hamet. Now, Hamet was the Aga or commander-in-chief of the cavalry. He was an ambitious man, and a rival of Sidi Omar in this respect. Of course he hated Omar, and so did his wife Hanyfa, hence her objection to him as her sister’s husband. But neither she nor Hamet could stay the marriage; they therefore made up their minds to endure it.
One thing that struck and surprised Mrs Langley was the extreme fairness of many of the Moorish ladies; some of whom were quite as fair as Europeans, and very beautiful, with much finer eyes than those of the more northern belles.
Having laid aside the shroud-like veils which Moorish ladies wear when exposed to the slightest chance of meeting the gaze of man, they now stood confessed in all the magnificence of Oriental taste. It is impossible to describe the dazzling splendour of the jewels with which their costumes absolutely blazed; especially those in the little golden caps, or salmas, which some of them wore. There were bouquets of roses, jessamine, peacock’s-feathers, and butterflies, formed of diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and other precious gems. We do not draw on our imagination here, good reader. It is probable that if a comparison had been instituted, these pirates could have far outshone any court of Europe in the matter of jewellery.
Of course no gentlemen were present. It is one of the drawbacks of Mohammedan female life that the ladies can never enjoy the satisfaction of displaying themselves to male admirers, with the exception of husbands, fathers, and brothers. How far the display of themselves to each other is attended with pleasure remains a doubtful point—especially when we consider that jealousy has not yet been quite eradicated from the female human breast.
However, on the occasion of which we write, most of the assembled ladies appeared to be highly delighted with each other. They were all very merry too, and, being little better than children as regards intellectual training, they were particularly childlike in their merriment.
As the wife of the British consul was a lady of some importance just then, (the consul being high in favour with the Dey), she was received with becoming ceremony, and conducted to a seat next the bride. This seat, like the seats of Orientals in general, was simply a cushion laid on the marble floor. Seating herself with some difficulty in the Moorish fashion, she proceeded to pay some compliments to the bride in English and French, but as Zara knew neither of these languages, she shook her head, smiled, and returned some compliments in Turkish; whereupon Mrs Langley shook her head and smiled. The rest of the company, from infection probably, nodded to each other also, and smiled. Two or three pretty young and rather stout girls turned aside, and went the length of giggling.
Fortunately at this point an interpreter was brought forward in the person of an Italian slave, a good-looking middle-aged lady, who understood French, and who, during a servitude of ten years, had also acquired Turkish.