The only person whom she feared was Yûsuf Bey, though she had known him from a child. At the first hint of his approach she fled the house. In vain did Barakah assure her he had no objection to her presence⁠—nay, had said more than once that he would like to see her. The old creature smiled and wriggled, “May our Lord preserve him!” but fled no less. It all came of her desire for surreptitiousness. She would not have felt well in a harem of which the lord approved of her.

Contentment grew in Barakah from day to day, and as the months wore on she lost the wish to go abroad. The young Muhammad could now run about, although he sometimes tumbled and set up a howl. He had been taught to testify to his religion in a piping voice and screamed at visitors, “There is no God but God. Muhammad is the apostle of God”; for which they blessed him. He had also learned to curse the infidels ferociously. A turbulent and wilful child, his mother and old Umm ed-Dahak thought him perfect. They never tired of watching him torment the slave-girls. “Mashallah!” the Mother of Laughter would croak rapturously. “A blusterer, by the Most High! A boy with all the signs of manhood on him! Inshallah, he will live to bully grownup men!”