It was broad daylight, though still early, when she awoke. Outside,
the garden behind the house was now a rippling sea of rose and scarlet
poppies, above which the orange hawks swooped or dived like copper
anchors, in the crisp morning air. Within doors, a slave girl stood
beside the divan in the guest chamber, clapping her hands gently
together to cause the white stranger to awake. But the chamber seemed
full of moonlight, although it was broad day. Had the waning crescent
retraced her footsteps, or left behind some of her chill beams? Mary
Fisher rubbed her eyes. She must surely be dreaming still! Then,
waking fully, she saw that the moon-like radiance came from a heap of
silvery gauze draperies, reflected in the emerald green tiles of the
floor and in the tall narrow mirrors that separated the lattice-work
shutters.
A flowing robe of silver tissue was spread out over an ottoman in the
centre of the floor. The slave girl at her side was holding up a long
veil of shimmering silver, drawing it through her henna-stained
finger-tips, with low, gurgling cries of delight; then, stretching out
her arms wide, she spread the veil easily to their fullest extent. A
moment later, drawing a tiny ring from her finger, she had pressed the
veil as easily through the small golden circlet, so fine were the
silken folds. Then with significant gestures she explained that all
these treasures were for the stranger to wear instead of her own
apparel. With scornful glances from her dark almond-shaped eyes she
pointed disdainfully to Mary Fisher's own simple garments, which, at
her entrance, she had tossed contemptuously into a heap on the floor.
The plain, grey, Quakeress's dress did indeed look simpler than ever
amid all the shining Oriental splendour. Worn too it was, and
travel-stained in places, though newly washed, carefully mended and
all ready for use.
Mary Fisher had been a woman for many years before she became a
Quakeress. Nay more, she was a woman still. It is possible that, for
about the space of half a minute, she may have looked almost
regretfully at the silver tissue draperies and the gauze veil.
Half a minute. Not longer! For her, a Messenger of the Great King, to
clothe herself in garments worn by Turkish women, unbelievers,
followers of the False Prophet, was impossible, not to be contemplated
for an instant. With the gentleness of complete decision she dismissed
the slave girl, who departed reluctantly towards the women's
apartments. In spite of the froth of shining, billowy folds with which
her arms were full, she turned round as she parted the striped, silken
hangings of the doorway and drew her dusky orange finger-tips in a
significant gesture across her slender brown throat. It was obvious
that the slave girl considered this refusal a very serious breach of
etiquette indeed!
Left alone, Mary Fisher clothed herself, proudly and yet humbly, in
her own simple garments. Her body bore even yet the marks where cruel
scourgings in her youth had furrowed deep scars from head to waist.
Years ago thus had English Christians received her, when she and her
companion had been whipped until the blood ran down their backs
beneath the market cross at Cambridge. The two young girls were the
first of any of the Friends to be thus publicly scourged. 'This is but
the beginning of the sufferings of the people of God,' Mary had
exclaimed prophetically, as the first stroke of the lash fell on her
shoulders, while the assembled multitudes listened in amazement as the
two suffering women went on to pray for mercy on their persecutors.
While here, in Adrianople, under the Crescent, the Infidel Turk, to
whom she had come in the power of the very same Message for which she
had suffered in Christian countries, was receiving her with kindness
and respect, offering to clothe her body in sumptuous apparel, instead
of with bloody scars....
Mary Fisher sighed with irrepressible pain at the thought. Looking
down, the marks left by the stocks were also plainly visible under the
sunburn round her ankles, as she stood, bare-footed, on the crimson
rug. She gladly covered up those tell-tale tokens under her white
stockings. But where were her shoes? They seemed to have disappeared.
Although the few strips of worn leather that she had put off the night
before had been scarcely worthy of the name of shoes, their
disappearance might be a grave difficulty. Had they been taken away in
order to force her to appear bare-footed before the Sultan?
Ah!--here the slave girl was reappearing. Kneeling down, with a
triumphant smile she forced the Englishwoman's small, delicate
feet--hardened, it is true, by many hundreds of miles of rough
travelling, but shapely still--into a little pair of embroidered
silver slippers. Turkish slippers! glistening with silver thread and
crystal beads, turned up at the pointed toes, and finished by two
silver tufted tassels, that peeped out incongruously from under the
straight folds of the simple grey frock.
This time Mary Fisher yielded submissively and made not the slightest
resistance. It did not matter to her in the least how her feet were
shod, so long as they were shod in some way, and she was saved from
having to pay a mark of homage to the Infidel. As she sat with folded
hands on the divan, awaiting the summons of the Grand Vizier, her deep
eyes showed that her thoughts were far, far away from any Silver
Slippers.