She brought with her a whole basketful of arguments -
jewels and shawls and scarfs and all kinds of persuasive finery.
Poor Mariam! she put on the jewels and took a calm view of the
Mahometan religion in a little hand-mirror; she could not be deaf
to such eloquent earrings, and the great truths of Islam came home
to her young bosom in the delicate folds of the cashmere; she was
ready to abandon her faith.
The Sheik knew very well that his attempt to convert an infidel was
illegal, and that his proceedings would not bear investigation, so
he took care to pay a large sum to the Governor of Nablus in order
to obtain his connivance.
At length Mariam quitted her home and placed herself under the
protection of the Mahometan authorities, who, however, refrained
from delivering her into the arms of her lover, and detained her in
a mosque until the fact of her real conversion (which had been
indignantly denied by her relatives) should be established. For
two or three days the mother of the young convert was prevented
from communicating with her child by various evasive contrivances,
but not, it would seem, by a flat refusal.
