These five thousand piastres were all the money he had, and he
got them, in most wondrous wise, from a foreign butcher whom he had
welcomed to his house as a guest."
"What is the name of this man?"?
"Halil Patrona."
"And what happened after that?"
"The man took the girl home, whose beauty, of a truth, was likely to
turn the head of anybody. He knew not what had happened to her at the
Seraglio, in the kiosks of the Kiaja Beg and the Grand Vizier, Ibrahim
Damad and in the harem of the White Prince. For, verily, it is a joy to
even behold the maiden, and it would be an easy matter to lose one's
wits because of her, especially if one did not know that this fair
blossom may be gazed at but not plucked, that this beautiful form which
puts even the houris of Paradise to shame, suddenly becomes stiff and
dead at the contact of a man's hand, and that neither the warmth of the
sun-like face of the Padishah, nor the fury of the Grand Vizier, nor the
thongs of the scourge of the Sultana Asseki, nor the supplications of
the White Prince, can awaken her from her death-like swoon."
"And didst thou discover what happened to the girl after that?"
"Blessed be every word concerning me which issues from thy lips oh,
mighty Padishah! Yes, I went after the girl. The worthy shopkeeper took
the maiden home with him. It rejoiced him that he could give to her
everything that was there. He made her sit down beside him. He supped in
her company. Then he would have embraced her.
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