And yet he did not even know what to call her! He had never had a slave-girl before, and hardly knew how to address her. His own tongue was not wont to employ tender, caressing words; he knew not what to say to a woman to make her love him. "Guel-Bejaze!" he murmured hoarsely. "I await your commands, my master!" "My name is Halil--call me so!" "Halil, I await your commands!" "Say nothing about commanding. Sit down beside me here! Come, sit closer, I say!" The girl sat down beside him. She was quite close to him now. But the worst of it was that, even now, Halil had not the remotest idea what to say to her. The maid was sad and apathetic, she did not weep as slave-girls are wont to do. Halil would so much have liked the girl to talk and tell him her history, and the cause of her melancholy, then perhaps it would have been easier for him to talk too. He would then have been able to have consoled her, and after consolation would have come love. "Tell me, Guel-Bejaze!" said he, "how was it that the Sultan had you offered for sale in the bazaar." The girl looked at Halil with those large black eyes of hers. When she raised her long black lashes it was as though he gazed into a night lit up by two black suns, and thus she continued gazing at him for a long time fixedly and sadly. "That also you will learn to know, Halil," she murmured. And Halil felt his heart grow hotter and hotter the nearer he drew to this burning, kindling flame; his eyes flashed sparks at the sight of so much beauty, he seized the girl's hand and pressed it to his lips. How cold that hand was! All the more reason for warming it on his lips and on his bosom; but, for all his caressing, the little hand remained cold, as cold as the hand of a corpse. Surely that throbbing breast, those provocative lips, are not as cold? Halil, intoxicated with passion, embraced the girl, and as he drew her to his breast, as he pressed her to him, the girl murmured to herself--it sounded like a gentle long-drawn-out sigh: "Blessed Mary!" And then the girl's long black hair streamed over her face, and when Halil smoothed it aside from the fair countenance to see if it had not grown redder beneath his embrace--behold! it was whiter than ever. All trace of life had fled from it, the eyes were cast down, the lips closed and bluish. Dead, dead--a corpse lay before him! But Halil would not believe it. He fancied that the girl was only pretending. He put his hand on her fair bosom--but he could not hear the beating of the heart. The girl had lost all sense of feeling. He could have done with her what he would. A dead body lay in his bosom. An ice-cold feeling of horror penetrated Halil's heart, altogether extinguishing the burning flame of passion. All tremulously he released the girl and laid her down. Then he whispered full of fear: "Awake! I will not hurt you, I will not hurt you."