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:

“It is finished. No word more. I go straight to the Consul. Appeal to the Qadi, I beseech thee; of thy kindness, do so! He will tell thee, just as I do, that thou art demented.”

Another minute and he crossed the court, wearing his best tarbush and his official garb of black frock-coat and narrow trousers⁠—a thing unheard of at that early hour.