Page:A Prisoner of the Khaleefa.djvu/242

190 to Khartoum — a married woman, and introduced for the first time to her husband. She set to at once with her household duties and attendance upon me, and during a long and weary five months nursed me back to life.

As can well be believed, Hasseena resented no less bitterly my projected marriage with Umm es Shole, or any one else, than she resented her divorce, and this she resented very bitterly indeed, for passing as the wife of a European and a presumed "General" to boot, gave her a certain social status in Omdurman, which she took advantage of when visiting in the various ways pointed out. On my saying to her, "You are divorced," which is the only formula necessary in Mohammedan countries in such a momentous domestic affair, she promptly replied that she was again pregnant. A few words on the subject of divorce in the Soudan — and the rules are practically identical with those laid down in the Quoranic law — will assist towards an appreciation of the fix this declaration of Hasseena placed me in.

If a woman, on being told "you are divorced," declared herself with child, the husband was compelled to keep her until its birth; if it was a son, the divorce was null and void; if a daughter, the husband had to support the wife during two years of nursing, and provide for the child until her seventh year, when he might, if he chose to do so, claim her as his daughter.

When a woman was divorced for the first time, she was not allowed to marry again without the consent of the husband; this was giving him a "first call" if he wanted her back, for divorce might be declared for