“Take heart, O moon of moons,” the servants told her. “Inshallah thou shalt bring forth sons instead of him.”

She strove to smile.

Her resolution was to leave her husband and her little daughter, the comfortable house, the easy life, to stray alone and homeless, back to Christian lands. There she would enter some religious order, and spend the residue of life in prayer for Muslims.

Everyone was kind. The tender sympathy of Yûsuf, though himself hard stricken, might well have won her heart had she possessed one. Her heart was dead and buried in the grave. The ladies and her servants tried at first to cheer her; but when they found their efforts useless, let her be. Only Umm ed-Dahak remained with her constantly. Discreet as ever, she kept silence for long hours, watching her mistress with a doleful mow. They thought her too depressed to take a step unaided, had not the least suspicion of her wish to flee. It was, besides, a time of national anxiety, when everyone who could went out to seek the news, and those imprisoned listened to the noises of the street.