In the neighbourhood of Patrona dwelt Musli, a veteran Janissary, who
filled up his spare time by devoting himself to the art of
slipper-stitching. This man often beheld Halil prowling about on the
house-top in the moonlit nights where Guel-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--nobody 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 space, 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.
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