“May Allah strengthen thee and drive out fear!”

Barakah had lost the vision which had come from Tâhir’s singing⁠—a vision which ignored divergences of race and custom. Without her son the harem life was senseless; she held the Muslim faith in secret dread; and longed for sentimental Christian people. Yûsuf, her husband, proved the soul of kindness, yet she had almost hated him in her revolt from all his race.

One day he told the ladies in her presence:

“The English are not bad. They take wise measures for the land’s redemption. They have asked me to take office, and I have a mind to do so.”

It was the first time she had heard the English mentioned since her reimprisonment. In fact, the Turkish pride had suffered cruelly from this intrusion of a European power, the more so that the natives of the land acclaimed it. Though the English arms restored their party in the State, the Turks in Egypt gnawed their lips and could not speak of them.