Their haunting fear was lest male unbelievers should abduct them; still more, perhaps, lest they should come to wish for such a fate⁠—the most appalling that could be imagined for a Muslim woman. Bedr-ul-Budûr declared she knew a girl who, married to an infidel, brought forth black beetles⁠—“not one, but thousands! millions!”⁠—she related graphically⁠—which at length devoured her. Such stories were received with acclamation, as justifying the extreme abhorrence which they felt for Frenchmen. And Barakah, though she tried to reason with them, shared their feelings in some measure, dismayed by the vulgarity of Western life. When, added to all this, it rained for five days in succession, her friends resigned their cause to God and ceased to worry, while she herself grew thoroughly despondent.

The girls shrugged shoulders at the sinful folly of their owners, now too far gone in dissipation to endure reproaches.