The doors were flung wide open, and the mob roared to the prisoners that
all to whom liberty was dear might show a clean pair of heels,
whereupon a mob of women, like a swarm of shrieking ghosts, fluttered
through the doors and made off in every direction. Those women who
stroll about the streets with uncovered faces, who paint their eyebrows
and lips for the diversion of strangers, who are shut out from the world
like mad dogs, that they may not contaminate the people--all these women
were now let loose! Some of them had grown old since the prison-gates
had been closed upon them, but the flame of evil passion still flickered
in their sunken eyes. Alas! what pestilence has been let loose upon the
Mussulman population. And thou, Halil! wilt thou be able to ride the
storm to which thou has given wings?
There he stands in the gateway! He is waiting till, in the wake of these
unspeakably vile women, his pure-souled idol, the beautiful, the
innocent Guel-Bejaze shall appear. How long she delays! All the rest have
come forth; all the rest have scattered to their various haunts, only
one or two belated shapes are now emerging from the dungeon and
hastening, after the others--creatures whom the voice of the tumult had
surprised _en deshabille_, and who now with only half-clothed bodies and
hair streaming down their backs rush screaming away. Only Guel-Bejaze
still delays.
Full of anxiety Halil descends at last into the loathsome hole but
dimly lit by a few round windows in the roof.
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