“Chapman!” cried the Beg, scarce able to contain himself for astonishment, “would you deceive me by hiding away from me a houri stolen from heaven?”
“I assure you, sir,” said the chapman, with a look of terror, “that it were better for you if you turned away and thought of her no more.”
“Haji Baba, beware! if perchance you would sell her to another, or even keep her for yourself, you run the risk of losing more than you will ever make up again.”
“I tell you, sir, by the beard of my father, look not upon that woman.”
“Hum! Some defect perhaps!” thought Yffim to himself, and he beckoned to the girl to let down her garment. She immediately complied, and, standing up, stripped her light mantle from her limbs.
Ah! how the Beg’s eyes sparkled. He half believed that what he saw was not human, but a vision from fairyland. The damsel’s shape was as perfect as a marble statue carved expressly for the altar of the Goddess of Love, and the silver hoop encircling her body only seemed to be there as a girdle in order to show how much whiter than silver was her body.
“Curses on your tongue, vile chatterer!” said Yffim Beg, turning upon the chapman. “Here have you been wasting an hour of my time with your empty twaddle, and hiding the beauties of Paradise from my gaze. What’s the price of this damsel?”
“Believe me, sir, she won’t do for you.”
“What! thou man-headed dog! Dost fancy thou hast to do with beggars who cannot give thee what thou askest? I come hither to buy for Hassan Pasha, the Governor of Buda, who is wont to give two thousand ducats to him who asks him for one thousand.”
At these words the damsel’s face was illuminated by an unwonted smile, and at that moment her large, fiery eyes flashed so at Yffim Beg that his eyes could not have been more blinded if he had been walking on the seashore and two suns had flashed simultaneously in his face, one from the sky and the other from the watery mirror.
“It is not that,” said the slave merchant, bowing himself to the ground; “on the contrary, I’ll let you have the damsel so cheaply that you will see from the very price that I had reserved her for one of the lowest mushirs, in case he should take a fancy to her—you shall have her for a hundred dinars.”
“Thou blasphemer, thou! Dost thou cheapen in this fashion the masterpieces of Nature. Thou shouldst ask ten thousand dinars for her, or have a stroke on the soles of thy feet with a bamboo for every dinar thou askest below that price.”
The merchant’s face grew dark.
“Take her not, sir,” said he; “you will be no friend to yourself or to your master if you would bring her into his harem.”
“I suppose,” said the Beg, “that the damsel has a rough voice, and that is why she is going so cheaply?” and he ordered her to sing a song to him if she knew one.
“Ask her not to do that, sir!” implored the chapman. But, already, he was too late. At the very first word the girl had laid hold of a mandolin, and striking the chords till they sounded like the breeze on an aeolian harp, she began to sing in the softest, sweetest, most ardent voice an Arab love-song:
“In the rose-groves of Shiraz,
In the pale beams of moonlight,
In the burning heart’s slumber,
Love ever is born.“ ’Midst the icebergs of Altai,
On the steps of the scaffold,
In the fierce flames of hatred,
Love never can die.”
The Beg felt absolutely obliged to rush forthwith upon Haji Baba and pummel him right and left for daring to utter a word to put him off buying the damsel.
The slave-dealer patiently endured his kicks and cuffs, and when the jest was over, he said once more:
“And again I have to counsel you not to take the damsel for your master.”
“What’s amiss with her, then, thou big owl? Speak sense, or I’ll hang thee up at thine own masthead.”
“I’ll tell you, sir, if only you will listen. That damsel has not belonged to one master only, for I know for certain that five have had her. All five, sir, have perished miserably by poison, the headman’s sword, or the silken cord. She has brought misfortune to every house she has visited, and she has dwelt with Tartars, Turks, and Magyars. Against the Iblis that dwells within her, prophets, messiahs, and idols have alike been powerless; ruin and destruction breathe from her lips; he who embraces her has his grave already dug for him, and he who looks at her had best have been born without the light of his eyes. Therefore I once more implore you, sir, to let this damsel go to some poor mushir, whose head may roll off without anybody much caring, and do not convey danger to so high a house as the palace of Hassan Pasha.”
The Beg shook his head.
“I thought thee a sharper, and I have found thee a blockhead,” said he, and he signified to the damsel to wrap herself in her mantle and follow him.
“Allah is my witness that I warned you; I wash my hands of it,” stammered Haji Baba.
“The girl will follow me; send thou for the money to my house.”
“The Prophet seeth my soul, sir. If you are determined to take the damsel, I will not give her to you for money, lest so great a man may one day say that he bought ruin from me. Take her then
