Only one man still remained in front of his shop, and that was Halil Patrona. He alone had the courage to scrutinise the slave-girl carefully. Perchance he felt compassion for this slave. He could not but perceive how the poor thing was trembling beneath the veil which covered her to the very heels. Nothing could be seen of her but her eyes, and in those eyes a tear was visible. "Come! bring her into my shop!" said Halil to the public crier; "don't leave her out in the public square there for everybody to stare at her." "Impossible!" replied the public crier. "As I value my head I must obey my orders, and my orders are to take her veil from off her head in the auction-yard, where the ordinary slaves are wont to be offered for sale, and there announce the price set upon her in the sight and hearing of all men." "What crime has this slave-girl committed that she should be treated so scurvily?" "Halil Patrona!" answered the public crier, "it will be all the better for my tongue and your ears if I do not answer that question. I simply do what I have been told to do. I unveil this odalisk, I proclaim what she can do, to what use she can be put. I neither belittle her nor do I exalt her. I advise nobody to buy her and I advise nobody not to buy her. Allah is free to do what He will with us all, and that which has been decreed concerning each of us ages ago must needs befall." And with these words he whisked away the veil from the head of the odalisk. "By the Prophet! a beauteous maid indeed! What eyes! A man might fancy they could speak, and if one gazed at them long enough one could find more to learn there than in all that is written in the Koran! What lips too! I would gladly remain outside Paradise if by so doing I might gaze upon those lips for ever. And what a pale face! Well does she deserve the name of Guel-Bejaze! Her cheeks do indeed resemble white roses! And one can see dewdrops upon them, as is the way with roses!--the dewdrops from her eyes! And what must such eyes be like when they laugh? What must that face be like when it blushes? What must that mouth be like when it speaks, when it sighs, when it trembles with sweet desire?" Halil Patrona was quite carried away by his enthusiasm. "Carry her not any further," he said to the public crier, "and show her to nobody else, for nobody else would dare to buy her. Besides, I'll give you for her a sum which nobody else would think of offering, I will give five thousand piastres." "Be it so!" said the crier, veiling the maid anew; "you have seen her, anyhow, bring your money and take the girl!" Halil went in for his purse, handed it over to the crier (it held the exact amount to a penny), and took the odalisk by the hand--there she stood alone with him. Halil Patrona now lost not a moment in locking up his shop, and taking the odalisk by the hand led her away with him to his poor lonely dwelling-place. All the way thither the girl never uttered a word.