"Hahmed!" she had exclaimed when Jill had told her of her marriage; and
be it confessed that Jill had tautened to meet the coming attack, and
relaxed when Mary, clasping her capable hands, had suddenly and
whole-heartedly beamed upon her. "Why, I've heard the most wonderful
things about him since I have been out here, in fact I've been almost
wearied to death listening to the accounts of his Haroun al Raschid
methods and qualities. His wedding put Cairo in an uproar--I saw the
pro------ But _Jill_, darling, is it possible it was you inside the
palanquin on the wonderful camel?"

Jill nodded as she busied herself in plaiting her hair into great ropes.

"And you've run away--escaped, you say?"

Jill nodded again.

"Yes!" she said, with three big tortoiseshell combs between her teeth.
"We had a _frightful_ flare-up--all the fault of my tearing temper.
You see I've been absolutely spoilt these last months, and I simply
behaved anyhow the first time I got scolded. But I didn't deserve it
all the same!" she added as an afterthought, as she wound the plaits
round her head. "And," she went on, "I should never have got away if
Mustapha had been with us."

"Who's Mustapha?"

"My own special bodyguard! But as he _wasn't_ there I managed to
thoroughly examine the high wall round the grounds, and found just one
spot to give me a foothold. I scrambled up in the heat of the day when
everyone was asleep, and had a terrible time with my garments."

She pointed as she spoke to a scented heap of silk and satin thrown on
a chair.

"I had to partly disrobe whilst sitting on the top of the wall, and was
terrified in case some pedlar might chance along. I tied my face and
head veil round my waist, but the _habarah_, that big black cloak--by
the way it belongs to one of my women, and I borrowed it with the
excuse that I wanted it copied, mine you see are rather ornamental, as,
of course, I never walk in the streets--well, I threw that on to the
ground, tucked up my _sebleh_, that dressing-gown sort of thing, and
scrambled down the other side, as I did not want to jump, ripping the
knees of my _shintiyan_--the wide trouser kind of things we wear------"

Mary's face was a study.

"Thanks to my borrowed cloak I was able to walk through the streets in
comfort--drawing my _burko_, face veil, dear, across my face so that
only one eye should be seen,[1] and a blue one at that. When I got to
Cairo I hired a car--speaking in Ara