It seems that a native physician in Tripoli, named Sheikh Aiub el
Hashim, was an old friend of the father and had known the family and all
the circumstances of the little girl's disappearance, and for years he
had been looking for her. At length he was called one day to attend a
sick servant girl in the family of a Moslem named Syed Abdullah. The
poor girl was ill from having been beaten in a cruel manner by the
Moslem. Her face and arms were tattooed in the Bedawin style, and she
told him that she was a Bedawin girl, and had been living here for some
years, and her name was Khodra. While examining the bruises on her body,
he observed a peculiar scar on her breast. He was startled. He looked
again. It was precisely the scar that his friend had so often described
to him. From her age, her features, her complexion and all, he felt sure
that she was the lost child. He said nothing, but went home and wrote
all about it to the father in Beirut. He hastened to Tripoli bringing
his sister, as he being a man, could not be admitted to a Moslem hareem.
Then the question arose, how should the sister see the girl! They came
and talked with your uncle, and went to Yanni and the other Vice
Consuls, and at length they found out that the women of that Moslem
family were skillful in making silk and gold embroidery which they sold.
So his sister determined to go and order some embroidered work, and see
the girl. She talked with the Moslem women, and with their Bedawy
servant girl, and made errands for the women to bring her specimens of
their work, improving the opportunity to talk with the servant. She saw
the scar, and satisfied herself from the striking resemblance of the
girl to her mother, that she was the long-lost Zahidy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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