While living in Stone Town she became acquainted with her neighbour, a German merchant, Rudolph Heinrich Ruete (born 10 March 1839; died 6 August 1870) and became pregnant by him. In August 1866, after her pregnancy had become obvious, she fled on board the British frigate commanded by Captain Malcolm Sabine Pasley R.N. and was given passage on his ship to the British colony of Aden. There she took Christian instruction and was baptised prior to her marriage at Aden on 30 May 1867. Nonetheless, in a later letter to her sister, she avoided eating pork and dreaded attending church, stressing that she remained Muslim in secret. She had given birth to a son, Heinrich, in Aden in December 1866; he died in France en route to Germany in the summer of 1867.