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VEILED WOMEN

by

MARMADUKE PICKTHALL

Author of “Saïd the Fisherman,” etc.






London
Eveleigh Nash
1913




TABLE OF CONTENTS

          CHAPTER I              5
          CHAPTER II            14
          CHAPTER III           20
          CHAPTER IV            24
          CHAPTER V             38
          CHAPTER VI            47
          CHAPTER VII           59
          CHAPTER VIII          64
          CHAPTER IX            71
          CHAPTER X             77
          CHAPTER XI            83
          CHAPTER XII           93
          CHAPTER XIII         100
          CHAPTER XIV          112
          CHAPTER XV           121
          CHAPTER XVI          131
          CHAPTER XVII         143
          CHAPTER XVIII        156
          CHAPTER XIX          166
          CHAPTER XX           174
          CHAPTER XXI          182
          CHAPTER XXII         188
          CHAPTER XXIII        195
          CHAPTER XXIV         203
          CHAPTER XXV          210
          CHAPTER XXVI         218
          CHAPTER XXVII        228
          CHAPTER XXVIII       236
          CHAPTER XXIX         246
          CHAPTER XXX          254
          CHAPTER XXXI         263
          CHAPTER XXXII        271
          CHAPTER XXXIII       277
          CHAPTER XXXIV        283
          CHAPTER XXXV         288
          CHAPTER XXXVI        296
          CHAPTER XXXVII       300
          CHAPTER XXXVIII      305
          CHAPTER XXXIX        310
          CHAPTER XL           314
          MR. EVELEIGH NASH’S LIST OF NEW BOOKS
          TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE




CHAPTER I

    “If good the news, O bird, alight and welcome;
    If bad, draw up thy claws and hie away!”


At the corner of a lofty housetop overlooking a great part of Cairo,
a woman stood with arms uplifted and solemnly addressed a crow which
seemed about to settle. The bird, as if the meaning of the chant had
reached him, turned in the air with clumsy flapping, and withdrew,
rising to join the hundreds of his kind which circled high above the
city bathed in early sunlight. The woman shook her fist at his receding
shape, glass bracelets tinkling on her strong brown arm. She sighed,
“The curse of God on thy religion, O thou faithless messenger!” then,
with a laugh, turned round to join the group of slave-girls, her
companions, sent up to lay out herbs to dry upon the roof. These had
watched her invocation of the crow with knowing grins. But one, a young
Circassian, who sat watching while the others worked, betrayed surprise
and asked the meaning of the little ceremony.

At that there was much giggling.

“Knowest thou not, O flower? It is the woman’s secret!”

“Secret of secrets, all unknown of men!”

“By Allah, men know nothing of it. In sh´Allah, they will be astonished
some day!”

“O Hind, relate the story! Our honey, our gazelle, Gulbeyzah, has not
heard it.”

Thus urged, the one who had adjured the crow, a free servant of the
house, obsequious towards the slaves, its pampered children, explained
as she knelt down again to work:

“In the name of Allah, thus it is related: Know, O my sweet, that, in
the days of our lord Noah (may God bless him), after the flood, the men
and women were in equal numbers and on equal terms. What then? Why,
naturally they began disputing which should have the right to choose
in marriage and, as the race increased, enjoy more mates than one. The
men gave judgment on their own behalf, as usual; and when the women
made polite objection, turned and beat them. What was to be done? The
case was thus: the men were stronger than the women, but there exists
One stronger than the men--Allah Most High. The women sought recourse
to Allah’s judgment; but--O calamity!--by ill advice they made the crow
their messenger. The crow flew off towards Heaven, carrying their dear
petition in his claws, and from that day to this he brings no answer.
But God is everliving and most merciful; a thousand years with Him
seem but an hour. Perhaps He does but hold our favour over, as might a
son of Adam, till the evening for reflection, to grant it at the last.
In sh´Allah!”

“In sh´Allah!” came the chorus of a dozen voices; followed by a general
laugh when Gulbeyzah, the Circassian, yawned and sighed, “Four goodly
husbands all my own! O Lord, give quickly!”

“That is the reason,” Hind concluded, “why good women have a word to
say to crows who seek to settle. Any one of them may be the bearer of
the blessed edict. The reason as related--Allah knows!”

“Good news and hopeful, by my maidenhood!--the best I ever heard!”
chuckled Gulbeyzah, reposing with her back against the parapet. She
then remained a long while silent, lost in day-dreams.

The hour was after sunrise of a spring morning in the twelve hundred
and eightieth year of the Hegirah, the second of the reign of Ismaîl.
The house was that of Muhammad Pasha Sâlih, a Turk by origin but born
and bred in Egypt, who held a high position in the government. The
girls, their task accomplished, sat down on their heels, each with her
tray of basketwork before her, and sniffed the breeze, in no haste to
return indoors.

“Praise to Allah,” one exclaimed with fervour, “we escape for an hour
from that Gehennum there below. Never have I seen the lady Fitnah so
enraged. Her wrath is not so much because her son desires the English
governess, as because the Pasha sees no hindrance to the match. I
tremble every time I have to go to her, lest in her fury she should
damage my desirability.”

“Praise be to Allah, I am not her property,” replied another, “but that
of her durrah, the great lady. Yet I know her for a good and pious
creature, not likely to be so enraged without rare cause. They say
this foreign teacher has bewitched the young man. He is mad. He flung
himself before her in the passage as she came from driving. She spurned
him, and they bore him, senseless, to his chamber, where for two days
he weeps and moans, refusing nourishment. It is enchantment, evidently,
for the girl is ugly.”

“Nay, by Allah, she is white and nicely rounded. But shameless! But an
infidel!”

“She can change her faith.”

“As easily as dung can change its odour!”

“Gulbeyzah here is whiter and more appetizing.”

“Well, God alone knows what she is or is not. This is sure: I have no
itching to go down into the house while Fitnah Khânum rages.”

“Nor I!” “Nor I!” exclaimed the rest with feeling.

The morning clamour of the city came up