At the very mention of it to the pacha, he regarded her with fierce and flashing eyes, and swore by Mahomet and the four caliphs, it was his dreaded oath, that if any other of his women had made such a proposal to him, her head would have already leaped off at a blow from his yatagan.
Baïla desisted, but the refusal increased the intensity of the desire which she felt. She also swore, not by the four caliphs, but by her woman’s will, to attain her end, whatever road she must travel, or whatever peril she must brave. The mere idea of this new struggle in which she was engaged, cured her of half her languor.
What was this end? She must first examine herself in order to define it.
From the summit of the terraces of the winter palace she had already seen a part of the monuments of the city; she had visited the citadel, the caravansery, the mosque in the train of the pacha. It was not, therefore, for this that she aspired to this phantom of freedom.
The bazaars remained; but had not the pacha caused to be conveyed to the harem whatever they contained precious and rare in brocades, velvets, precious stones, and sculptured gold, that she might see and choose from them? The privation could not then be felt on this account.
Magicians, jugglers, the musicians of Persia and Kurdistan, every pigmy deformity, every curious object which traversed the pachalick, was, at a word from her, admitted into the palace. She arrived at this logical conclusion, that if she desired to visit and traverse Shivas, it was in the hope of finding there again the unknown, of finding the key of the mysteries which surrounded her; and this unknown was certainly the only one of the curiosities of the city, to which Djezzar would refuse permission to enter his harem for the diversion of the favorite.
But could not another make the discovery for Baïla? She thought at once of Mariam.
The latter, who was a partial purchaser of provisions for the harem; freed by her employment, her age, and her color, from the ordinary ceremonial, she traversed the streets and market-places at pleasure. Baïla knew her devotion to her person, and should she refuse to serve her in her researches, she knew that the old negress would not betray her. She spoke to her then about it.
The Abyssinian seized with a sudden trembling, exclaimed,
“By the Holy Christ! do not repeat those words, my dear mistress; resist the temptation, stifle it in your heart; it is an inspiration of the Evil Spirit, or, perhaps, a purpose of Providence, perhaps an inspiration from on high,” she murmured in a low voice, as if apostrophizing herself.