or commandment of the Mahdi, but almost all the charges were made by other women — and this, too, out of sheer jealousy, not from any feeling of outraged morality.
I may now proceed with the narration of the quandary Hasseena had placed us in, herself included. I had been kept chained and closely confined for nineteen months, and was under Idris es Saier's particular supervision; Hasseena, during the same period, had been a servant in his hareem, and also in his entire charge. If I claimed the paternity of the child, the probabilities were that Idris would get into trouble with the Khaleefa; if Idris claimed it, his head might be in danger, for decapitation or hanging was the punishment ordered for the male offender, and in all cases Hasseena was liable to flogging or stoning to death. Again, if I claimed the paternity of the child, and there were reasonable grounds after its birth to believe that the paternity should be looked for in some other direction, and I knew that it should be; then, while Idris would clear himself to the Khaleefa, I should have been punished for lying to him, and Hasseena would be in the same predicament as before.
I had inquiries made outside as to Hasseena's movements when marketing, and as to those whom she associated with, or went to see; being satisfied, as a result of the inquiries, that the expected arrival would be a shade lighter in colour than its mother, I, acting on the advice of my prison friends, claimed the child as mine, thus leaving Idris to get out of the thing as best he could. There was, as above indicated,
