The story-teller goes on to say: ‘In such moments one’s reasoning becomes confused. Allah alone can help one. But why should Allah stretch forth a helping hand to the unbeliever whose audacious conduct well merited punishment?’
A French Jewess, known as Madame Ricochette, resided in Cairo at that time. She used to visit all the principal hareems to trade in Paris jewellery and bonbons. O’Donald went to see her early on the following morning, and with promises and flattery induced her to take a note to the princess and to bring back an answer. He was to meet Zohra in the garden for the last time, his sister was to come away with him in his boat, and they were to leave Cairo at once.
They never saw each other alive again. He was shot on the threshold of the hareem in Zohra’s garden. Abbas had intercepted the letters and had apprised Mohammed Ali of the affair. Six Arnauts—good, dependable shots—were sent and were placed behind some bushes which the ill-fated man would pass on the way to his love. Six bullets ended his earthly career.
Abbas was a clever organiser. A mule was kept in readiness to carry the body away, and two of the Arnauts placed it on the beast while the others remained with the prince. The hareem door was thrown open and, as Zohra approached, Abbas laughingly welcomed her to her lover.
‘Such women,’ goes on the narrator, ‘do not go off in a faint, as do yours in the West. She flew, as one possessed, to the corpse of her beloved, and steeped her hands in his blood. She had to be dragged away and carried back to the hareem. When she had recovered from her stupefaction, she ordered two servants to see Miss O’Donald off to Alexandria, where friends would see her safely on board the first home-going steamer; the princess also provided her handsomely with the means to get back to her country.’
Worse is still to follow. The devil in Abbas had become more potent than ever. He had the body of the Irishman taken to Shubra and buried in an outlying field—upright, with the head below and the feet sticking out of the ground. Then spoke Abbas: ‘Allah, do thou with him as thou wilt; but the dogs shall devour the feet which kicked me.’
The field was guarded during a week; no one dared enter by day, and at night the jackals and dogs did their work. There in that field, to this day, stands with head downwards a footless corpse!
The O’Donalds, we are told, had no influential relations to get this matter investigated, and the English company to which O’Donald belonged knew more than enough to keep them silent. The young Irishman had placed his life in the balance with his love and had lost.
‘Alláhu! Alláhu! Alláh, láh, láh, láh,’ came the ever-increasing cries from the mosque outside the Khan. The dervishes were working themselves up into a state of frenzy; and had my permit to work in the mosques not made an exception of the Hasaneyn, it would have taken a bolder man than myself to have entered then. I bade my kindly host good night and found my way back to the European quarter.