Halil the Pedlar Part 5

At the gate of the Seraglio the Chief Mufti said to the Grand Vizier sorrowfully:

"It had been better for us both had we never grown grey!"

But Sultan Achmed, accompanied by the Bostanjik, hastened to the gardens of the grove of puspang-trees to look at his tulips.

CHAPTER IV.

THE SLAVE OF THE SLAVE-GIRL.

Worthy Halil Patrona had become quite a by-word with his fellows. The name he now went by in the bazaars was: The Slave of the Slave-Girl.

This did not hurt him in the least; on the contrary, the result was, that more people came to smoke their chibooks and buy tobacco at his shop than ever. Everybody was desirous of making the acquaintance of the Mussulman who would not so much as lay a hand upon a slave-girl whom he had bought with his own money, nay more, who did all the work of the house instead of her, just as if she had bought him instead of his buying her.

In the neighbourhood of Patrona dwelt Musli, a veteran Janissary, who filled up his spare time by devoting himself to the art of slipper-st.i.tching. This man often beheld Halil prowling about on the house-top in the moonlit nights where Gul-Bejaze was sleeping, and after sitting down within a couple of paces of her, remain there in a brown study for hours at a time, often till midnight, nay, sometimes till daybreak. With his chin resting in the palm of his hand there he would stay, gazing intently at her charming figure and her pale but beautiful face. Frequently he would creep closer to her, creep so near that his lips would almost touch her face; but then he would throw back his head again, and if at such times the slave-girl half awoke from her slumbers, he would beckon to her to go to sleep again--n.o.body should disturb her.

Halil did not trouble his head in the least about all this gossip. It was noticed, indeed, that his face was somewhat paler than it used to be, but if anyone ventured to jest with him on the subject, face to face, he was very speedily convinced that Halil's arms, at any rate, were no weaker than of yore.

One day he was sitting, as usual, at the door of his booth, paying little attention to the people coming and going around him, and staring abstractedly with wide and wandering eyes into s.p.a.ce, as if his gaze was fixed upon something above his head, when somebody who had approached him so softly as to take him quite unawares, very affectionately greeted him with the words:

"Well, my dear Chorbadshi, how are you?"

Patrona looked in the direction of the voice, and saw in front of him his mysterious guest of the other day--the Greek Janaki.

"Ah, 'tis thou, musafir! I searched for you everywhere for two whole days after you left me, for I wanted to give you back the five thousand piastres which you were fool enough to make me a present of. It was just as well, however, that I did not find you, and I have long ceased looking for you, for I have now spent all the money."

"I am glad to hear it, Halil, and I hope the money has done you a good turn. Are you willing to receive me into your house as a guest once more?"

"With pleasure! But you must first of all promise me two things. The first is, that you will not contrive by some crafty device to pay me something for what I give you gratis; and the second is, that you will not expect to stay the night with me, but will wander across the street and pitch your tent at the house of my worthy neighbour Musli, who is also a bachelor, and mends slippers, and is therefore a very worthy and respectable man."

"And why may I not sleep at your house?"

"Because you must know that there are now two of us in the house--I and my slave-girl."

"That will not matter a bit, Halil. I will sleep on the roof, and you take the slave-girl down with you into the house."

"It cannot be so, Janaki! it cannot be."

"Why can it not be?"

"Because I would rather sleep in a pit into which a tiger has fallen, I would rather sleep in the lair of a hippopotamus, I would rather sleep in a canoe guarded by alligators and crocodiles, I would rather spend a night in a cellar full of scorpions and scolopendras, or in the Tower of Surem, which is haunted by the accursed Jinns, than pa.s.s a single night in the same room with this slave-girl."

"Why; what's this, Halil? you fill me with amazement. Surely, it cannot be that you are that Mussulman of whom all Pera is talking?--the man I mean who purchased a slave-girl in order to be her slave?"

"It is as you say. But 'twere better not to talk of that matter at all.

Those five thousand piastres of yours are the cause of it; they have ruined me out and out. My mind is going backwards I think. When people come to my shop to buy wares of me, I give them such answers to their questions that they laugh at me. Let us change the subject, let us rather talk of your affairs. Have you found your daughter yet?"

It was now Janaki's turn to sigh.

"I have sought her everywhere, and nowhere can I find her."

"How did you lose her?"

"One Sat.u.r.day she went with some companions on a pleasure excursion in the Sea of Marmora in a sailing-boat. Their music and dancing attracted a Turkish pirate to the spot, and in the midst of a peaceful empire he stole all the girls, and contrived to dispose of them so secretly that I have never been able to find any trace of them. I am now disposed to believe that she was taken to the Sultan's Seraglio."

"You will never get her out of there then."

Janaki sighed deeply.

"You think, then, that I shall never get at her if she is there?" and he shook his head sadly.

"Not unless the Janissaries, or the Debejis, or the Bostanjis lay their heads together and agree to depose the Sultan."

"Who would even dare to think of such a thing, Halil?"

"I would if _my_ daughter were detained in the harem against her will and against mine also. But that is not at all in your line, Janaki. You have never shed any blood but the blood of sheep and oxen, but let me tell you this, Janaki: if I were as rich a man as you are, trust me for finding a way of getting my girl out of the very Seraglio itself. Wealth is a mightier force than valour."

"I pray you, speak not so loudly. One of your neighbours might hear you, and would think nothing of felling me to the earth to get my money. For I carry a great deal of money about with me, and am always afraid of being robbed of it. In front of the bazaar a slave is awaiting me with a mule. On the back of that mule are strung two jars seemingly filled with dried dates. Let me tell you that those jars are really half-filled with gold pieces, the dates are only at the top. I should like to deposit them at your house. I suppose your slave-girl will not pry too closely?"

"You can safely leave them with me. If you tell her not to look at them she will close her eyes every time she pa.s.ses the jars."

Meanwhile Patrona had closed his booth and invited his guest to accompany him homewards. On the way thither he looked in at the house of his neighbour, the well-mannered Janissary, who mended slippers. Musli willingly offered Halil's guest a night's lodging. In return Patrona invited him to share with him a small dish of well-seasoned pilaf and a few cups of a certain forbidden fluid, which invitation the worthy Janissary accepted with alacrity.

And now they crossed Halil's threshold.

Gul-Bejaze was standing by the fire-place getting ready Halil's supper when the guests entered, and hearing footsteps turned round to see who it might be.

The same instant the Greek wayfarer uttered a loud cry, and pitching his long hat into the air, rushed towards the slave-girl, and flinging himself down on his knees before her fell a-kissing, again and again, her hands and arms, and at last her pale face also, while the girl flung herself upon his shoulder and embraced the fellow's neck; and then the pair of them began to weep, and the words, "My daughter!" "My father!"

could be heard from time to time amidst their sobs.

Halil could only gaze at them open-mouthed.

But Janaki, still remaining on his knees, raised his hands to Heaven, and gave thanks to G.o.d for guiding his footsteps to this spot.

"Allah Akbar! The Lord be praised!" said Patrona in his turn, and he drew nearer to them. "So her whom you have so long sought after you find in my house, eh? Allah preordained it. And you may thank G.o.d for it, for you receive her back from me unharmed by me. Take her away therefore!"

"You say not well, Halil," cried the father, his face radiant with joy.

"So far from giving her back to me you shall keep her; yes, she shall remain yours for ever. For if I were thrice to traverse the whole earth and go in a different direction each time, I certainly should not come across another man like you. Tell me, therefore, what price you put upon her that I may buy her back, and give her to you to wife as a free woman?"

Halil did not consider very long what price he should ask, so far as he was concerned the business was settled already. He cast but a single look on Gul-Bejaze's smiling lips, and asked for a kiss from them--that was the only price he demanded.

Janaki seized his daughter's hand and placed it in the hand of Halil.

And now Halil held the warm, smooth little hand in his own big paw, he felt its rea.s.suring pressure, he saw the girl smile, he saw her lips open to return his kiss, and still he did not believe his eyes--still he shuddered at the reflection that when his lips should touch hers, the girl would suddenly die away, become pale and cold. Only when his lips at last came into contact with her burning lips and her bosom throbbed against his bosom, and he felt his kiss returned and the warm pulsation of her heart, then only did he really believe in his own happiness, and held her for a long--oh, so long!--time to his own breast, and pressed his lips to her lips over and over again, and was happier--happier by far--than the dwellers in Paradise.

And after that they made the girl sit down between them, with her father on one side and her husband on the other, and they took her hands and caressed and fondled her to her heart's content. The poor maid was quite beside herself with delight. She kept receiving kisses and caresses, first on the right hand and then on the left, and her face was pale no longer, but of a burning red like the transfigured rose whereon a drop of the blood of great Aphrodite fell. And she promised her father and her husband that she would tell them such a lot of things--things wondrous, unheard of, of which they had not and never could have the remotest idea.