He retired; when Yûsuf and the others pressed round Barakah, a group of penitent and frightened children. Hâfiz, the fat, knelt down before her, tears coursing down his cheeks; Saïd kissed her raiment; Yûsuf pleaded in her ear. They had done wrong, they owned, though nothing very dreadful. Some elegant ladies had admitted them to their society; they were sitting in a café communing in all refinement, when horrible low men arrived and claimed those ladies. One threw a glass at Saïd and cut his face⁠—the wound was shown⁠—on which there was a scuffle; gendarmes came and, siding with their coreligionists, conveyed the righteous Muslims straight to prison.

“Where we should have stayed forever, had not Hâfiz thought of calling in his uncle,” blubbered Izz-ud-dîn; “simply for being Muslims, they are so fanatical.”

All four were bent upon return to Egypt, since Paris had become a place of terror. The rapture of the girls was indescribable. They danced and clapped their hands, embraced each other, laughed, cried, and gave way to all kinds of folly. Bedr-ul-Budûr made vows to divers saints, and held delighted conversations with her mother long since dead.