Page:A Prisoner of the Khaleefa.djvu/179

Rh practice attained a certain standard of inventive faculty and plausibility, to prove to the world that the race of Haroun-el-Rashid's story-tellers is not yet extinct. There can be little doubt that the guide and Wakih Idris, and maybe others, would be much entertained, if not a little surprised, if told that the whole of their tales had apparently been believed in.

On my servant Hasseena being sent into the Khaleefa's hareem in May, 1887, she obtained her release, or dismissal, by declaring that she was with child; she was not. In November, 1888, she certainly was, and the fact could not be concealed. Hasseena, having been a slave, could not well be legally married, so that when dismissed from the Khaleefa's hareem, she was sent as my property to the hareem of Idris es Saier, where she had, in addition to buying and preparing my food, to perform the housework and run messages for the women of Idris's household.

Idris I knew had long coveted Hasseena, and her being with child appeared to him a favourable opportunity of securing her for himself, for under ordinary circumstances, the woman being a slave and the child being born in his hareem, he could lay claim to the paternity, when mother and child would become free, the mother ranking now as a wife. He talked the matter over with Hasseena, and then sent her to interview me. I submitted the case to my friends in prison, and they showed that Idris had misread, or misunderstood, Surah IV. of the Quoran, which only justified his position towards Hasseena in the event