ifling from many perfumes, and certain smaller chambers. The garden
was inhabited by a gazelle, whose great startled eyes looked out through
the long grass; and the oblong room by a number of women of varying
ages, among whom were a matronly Mooress, called Tarha, in a scarlet
head-dress, and with a string of great keys swung from shoulder to
waist; a Circassian, called Hoolia, in a gorgeous rida of red silk and
gold brocade; a Frenchwoman, called Josephine, with embroidered red
slippers and black stockings; and a Jewess, called Sol, with a band of
silk handkerchiefs tied round her forehead above her coal-black curls,
with her fingers pricked out with henna and her eyes darkened with kohl.

Such were Ben Aboo's wives and concubines and captives, whom he had not
divorced according to his promise; and when Naomi came among them they
did their duty by their master faithfully. Being trapped themselves,
they tried to entrap Naomi also. They overwhelmed her with caresses,
they went into ecstasies over her beauty, and caused the future which
awaited her to shine before her eyes. She would have a noble husband,
magnificent dresses, a brilliant palace, and the world would be at her
feet. "And what's the difference between Moosa and Mohammed?" said Sol;
"look at me!" "Tut!" said Josephine, "there's nothing to choose between
them." "For my part," said Tarha, "I don't see what it matters to us;
they say Paradise is for the men!" "And think of the jewels, and the
earrings as big as a bracelet," said Hoolia, "instead of this," and she
drew away between her thumb and first finger the blanket which Naomi's
neighbour had given her.

It was all to no purpose. "But what of my father?" Naomi asked again and
again.

The women lost patience at her simplicity, gave up their solicitations,
ignored her, and busied themselves with their own affairs. "Tut!" they
said, "why should we want her to be made a wife of the Sultan? She would
only walk over us like dirt whenever she came to Tetuan."

Then, sitting alone in their midst, listening to their talk, their
tales, their jests, and their laughter, the unseen mantle fell upon
Naomi at last, which made her a woman who had hitherto been a child.
In this hothouse of sickly odours these women lived together, having no
occupation but that of eating and drinking and sleeping, no education
but devising new means of pleasing the lust of their husband's eye, no
delight than that of supplanting one anothe