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Updated: May 15, 2025
"I am not yet your wife," said the girl. "True," said Abdullah, "and we are making this forced march to learn how I may make you such. Who is your father, beloved?" "Ilderhim," she answered; "but why do you ask? You saw him when we started from El Merb." "Do you love him?" asked Abdullah. "I scarcely know," answered the girl, after a pause. "I have not seen him often. He is constantly from home.
I pay thirty ounces to Ilderhim for two years' hire of a girl. The girl turns Christian and I lose the thirty ounces." "Not so," said Abdullah; "they are here," and he placed a bag upon the commandant's table. "Take it," said Mirza; and she tossed it to the oukil.
"Her father, Ilderhim," said the oukil, "signs the invoice which you have read. He does not consent." "He is nobody," said the lawyer. "He was banished from Algeria years ago. It is as though he had never existed." "I had overlooked that," said the oukil; and then he added, "As the mistake this time is mine, perhaps you will again shake hands."
Then Ilderhim beat me and turned me out of his house. You understand, Monsieur le Commandant, that under our blessed religion a man may have as many wives as he chooses and may divorce them when he chooses. Well, there I was, without a husband, without a home, without my child, and I passed the night in the arcades, among the camels.
"I do not know his name," answered Abdullah; "he was a camel-driver of the Sahara." "And your mother?" asked the lawyer. "How can one, born as I, know his mother?" replied Abdullah. "And you," said the lawyer, turning to Nicha, "who is your father?" "Ilderhim of El Merb," she answered. "And your mother?" asked the lawyer. "She died before I can remember."
Such matters are ordered differently here, Monsieur. A girl is a woman before she has had any childhood. I married Ilderhim. Of course, I had never seen him until we stood before the cadi. I had the misfortune to bear him a daughter, and he cursed me. When I was fourteen, a Russian Grand Duke came to Biskra and my husband sold me to him. I refused to submit myself.
"Ali," said Abdullah, "the night before we started I asked you who lived in the house with the green lattices the next house beyond the mosque and you promised to tell me in the morning." "Yes, master," said Ali, "but in the morning you did not ask me." "I ask you now," said Abdullah. Ali bowed. "Master," he answered, "the house is occupied by Ilderhim, chief of the tribe of Ouled Nail.
There is something in your face that reminds me of the face I used to see in my glass, but when one grows old, and I am eight-and-twenty, one is sure to see resemblances that do not exist. How prettily they have dressed you! Did Ilderhim, your father, give you these silks and these emeralds?" "Yes," said Nicha.
"To make his contract good," she continued, "Ilderhim, my former husband, pays sixteen or seventeen ounces' freight on the girl and her maid. The girl turns Christian. Who loses the freight?" "I," said Abdullah, and he placed another bag upon the table. "Take it," said Mirza, and the oukil grasped it. "Let us see this girl who has kept us all up so late," said Mirza, and she strode over to Nicha.
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